Claims made in a Sunday newspaper yesterday about online reviews for a new business said they had been taken down because of concerns that they had been ‘fabricated’.
But Russell Quirk, a director of Conveyancer Comparison and founder of Emoov, said that the new business is not yet operational, and that the reviews on Trustpilot were simply part of pre-launch testing.
Quirk and a former Emoov director Graham MacKim incorporated Conveyancer Comparison last month.
The business will offer a comparison service for people looking for conveyancers, and will pay introducers such as estate agents. The launch comes as agents are under pressure to disclose their referral fees, while the Government has said that it supports comparison websites to help achieve transparency.
Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday alleged that a series of five-star testimonials had been posted both on the Conveyancer Comparison website and on Trustpilot.
However, claimed the story, “all seven reviews appear to carry the names of family or friends, including Quirk’s wife Karolina”.
The story said that the posts have since been removed by Trustpilot, which said it had issued a ‘cease and desist’ legal letter to the company, warning it not to post any more ‘fabricated reviews’ and to remove any links to Trustpilot on its site.
Trustpilot told the Mail that only operating businesses are allowed to host reviews on its site.
Yesterday, Quirk told EYE: “ConveyancerComparison.co.uk is a new website that launches soon.
“I am one of the co-directors and a shareholder, part of a team of several people associated with the business.
“Importantly, ConveyancerComparison.co.uk has not yet launched and as such its web developers are still heavily iterating and testing. It is not trading.
“There is a prominent ‘new construction’ banner on the home page.
“This testing includes linking via Trustpilot to ‘pipe’ reviews from their website to ours via an API.
“To do this, there needs to be visible reviews on our dedicated Trustpilot page.
“The developers added just five temporary test reviews to the Trustpilot site last week to facilitate this. Legitimate email addresses were needed to be used as per Trustpilot’s process.”
He said it was made very clear on the ConveyancerComparison site that the reviews page is ‘in test”.
He added: “Moreover, no traffic has yet been directed to either the ConveyancerComparison.co.uk website nor to the Conveyancer Comparison Trustpilot page.
“No marketing has yet taken place, nor any PR nor Adwords spend. It’s not up and running yet and the team continues to prepare the ground for launch.
“Therefore there is no other benefit to the company in having reviews displayed online now – except solely to test and iterate UX before launch.
“To be clear, I have not written or submitted any reviews to Trustpilot relating to ConveyancerComparison.co.uk”
Asked about his new business, Quirk said that it will offer “a true marketplace of the best conveyancers that we’ve hand picked based upon their price being reasonable (but not all of the same); customer rating; location; and their capacity to take a volume of cases”.
The business will launch as both business to consumer, and business to business, and in the latter case will split revenue 50/50 with introducers.
Quirk told EYE: “Our comparison site allows the consumer as a would-be home buyer or seller to make an informed choice of conveyancer without having to shop around themselves throughout the depths of the internet.
“The concept is timed to also provide more choice for the consumer whereby they otherwise may feel that their only option is to agree to use a conveyancer recommended by their estate agent.
“Importantly, the Government has recently stated that there should be more transparency in the conveyancing sector and that the consumer should be better informed in making a choice.
“It has said it supports the concept of comparison sites to achieve this.
“Given this, and the pressure on agents to better declare referral fees, we believe that there is a place for a dedicated comparison site that offers a choice of hand-picked conveyancers across the UK and not just where the choice is either based on cost alone or where the choice is really of one firm given as the ‘recommended lawyer’.”
Below, how the site looked yesterday:
Comments (33)
Why is this idiot being given so much free publicity? Just shows how anyone can become a director.
@Mrtickle
“Alas, this kind of “shoot from the hip and hope” approach to business by “Rustle” Quirk is now common knowledge.”
Don’t you mean Rustle Smirk – he wears a permanent [Sentence removed as it breached posting rules] smirk and comes across quite arrogant on the videos I recently watched, not a single bit of remorse for the people he stepped all over to get here (sorry I mean his former team)
What is this Quirk ?
Dear Russell,
I had a quick glance at your latest Wheez – comparethingimabobbideee
I take it you’ve still to add your “About Us” Section where you can inform/warn visitors to your New Webwhatsit that you are giving away a Free Bag of Salt & Lucky White Heather with the obvious instructions
– Salt/take a pinch of Salt before, during & after reading any advice on CompareaThingy
– Lucky White Heather/hold onto this firmly if taking any advice or intending to use CompareaThingy
And of course you will be entirely open about your prior “business experience/success”.
It’s like asking the bottom listed Surgeon out of the Top 1000 Surgeons – ”So, how good a Surgeon are you then”
”Well, 100% success rate!” – “Oh, that’s great then”
The vital part not added to that original question should have been “and how many of your patients survive”, in which case the full answer may have actually been
– “100% – of them don’t survive”
You get the idea Russell – there is the PR & Spin from your MegaWorld and then there is the real world that the rest of us live in.
I can’t imagine what your former employees will post as “Reviews” for you
It’s nothing personal, I’m just amazed that some people who crash a business losing millions can simply step away from the wreckage with no effects at all
Quirk and the word Fabricated in the same article. In other news the Pope turns out to be catholic and bears do it in the woods.
Leopard, spots!
I’ll always have fond memories of the last review my wife left for me…
Sadly, the car insurers wouldn’t cover the reparations to the paintwork, so I had to spend two weeks telling people my name was ”Richard Head”…
If I were testing these reviews for my non-launched website, this is what I would do:
1 x 1* review with the word “test”
1 x 2* review with the word “test”
1 x 3* review with the word “test”
1 x 4* review with the word “test”
1 x 5* review with the word “test”
Because as someone testing a website, I am not going to waste precious seconds and minutes writing a well-worded review that would never show.
The only reason why anyone would ask family and friends to write a selection of 5* reviews for their test website is in the hope that nobody noticed that they were fake reviews, and that they would therefore pass on the live website after launch.
Alas, this kind of “shoot from the hip and hope” approach to business by “Rustle” Quirk is now common knowledge.
Humility goes a looong way. Let’s all try some, shall we?
Welcome to Trustpilot. That’s as good as it gets.
or in Russell’s case ….Testpilot
While you do not want to deny the chap to provide a living for him and his family, it really does look like he has learnt nothing from his past mistakes.
Still trying to B.S. people.
I think RQ should go back to an employed position and blend into the background. At the very least stop trying to be a figure head in the property industry.
He’s unemployable!
I will take him on as a lister, DM on Twitter Russell 😉
In a video interview he did he mentioned that he spent millions on advertising but then realised a better way to get it for free through PR. Didn’t he set up a PR company too? I was prepared to give him benefit of doubt after what happened to Emoov but not now as all I see is someone who doesn’t care who he steps on to get where he wants.
This new venture seems a desperate last ditch attempt to make a success of something. Only problem is his new idea has been done to death – we are swarming with review sites now.
He will be loving the fact that this stuff gets published as he believes all publicity is good publicity. I am so tired of this type of thing. It reminds me of those people who go on reality tv shows and get a taste of fame, then sell their granny to get air time because they become addicted to their own fake success.
How must all his ex employees and investors feel, he who went bust (ran out of money) and didn’t pay his staff, now he has already set up another business as a co director and owner. That takes money.
Somebody once said, “Stick to what you’re good at, and you’ll be ok!”
Russel Harty here, could learn a thing or two??
I can feel a crowdfund brewing….
Its just PR isnt it?
For a man who was supposedly so devastated and was fighting to save Emoov with its millions of pounds losses and staff not getting paid, it would appear perhaps his eye was off the ball and quickly creating his new quick startup in less than 3 months.
What possible credibility does this man have.
This was somebody who boasted in an interview that he made Emoov appear bigger than what it was .Investors of course need not be reminded of that especially those sucked in on Crowdcube to pay to keep the candles burning for a few months.
The minimum they would have expected of the Captain would be to have focused his energies 100% on trying to save Emoov However this was no Captain prepared to go down with the ship .
He reminds me of that character on theTitanic who jumped into the lifeboat as he was already setting up companies for himself prior to the sinking of the ship whilst blaming the crew for the ship’s misfortune. Still scrabbling to get on radio to promote himself ,
If they really are test reviews, why are they so specific and glowing. Dont they just need to say anything to confirm the links are working.
He has no idea what is going on. He is quoted as stating he has no day to day involvement, but this is key in launching a new business, a concept which he simply doesnt understand.
I look forward to seeing his crowdfunding pitch shortly.
“The developers added just five temporary test reviews to the Trustpilot site last week to facilitate this.”
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That should get comment of the week Ostrich.
Caveat emptor, Caveat emptor, Caveat emptor, Caveat emptor, Caveat emptor, Caveat emptor, Caveat emptor.
I assume all these test reviews said ” test review” and they didn’t come from personal email addresses?
I also assume that they are 5 star ones, if you were not going to use them what does it matter if they were 1 star?
It’s like witnessing a twilight zone version of The Apprentice with Russell Quirk being tasked each week to come up with a New Business ……then we get to Vote
……Russell, to save everyone the inevitable …….”You’re fired!”.
“There should be more transparency in the sector”
– Crowdfunds and has one of the most public fallouts seen, all sorts of claims about withheld information.
– Fake testimonials on website and Trustpilot.
Do we really need another conveyancer comparison site? Same old, if all else fails (or your profits aren’t high enough) take a share of the conveyancers fee.
It is hard to believe anything he says, his past record speaks volumes. A false review is a false review.
If it was for testing, surely you would use the word ‘test’ in the review rather than a well constructed ‘false’ review?
Quirk perhaps need to take responsibility for once.
Just an observation.
He ( RQ ) can’t spell “responsibility”