eMoov takes down claims about sellers being 34% more likely to sell through it

Online agent eMoov has been the subject of a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority after it claimed that vendors were 34% more likely to sell with it.

eMoov also claimed on its website that it was “the leading digital estate agent”, and this too was part of the complaint.

The complaint has, however, been informally resolved. As such, there will be no investigation and the matter will go no further.

A spokesperson for the ASA said: “We received a complaint about claims made on the eMoov website which the complainant believed to be misleading and challenged whether they could be substantiated.

The claims were “34% more likely to sell with eMoov” and “the leading digital estate agent”.

“We contacted the advertiser who agreed to remove the first claim and amend the second to read “Best rated estate agent”, which was qualified by an award that eMoov received from allAgents.

“Based on this agreement, we closed the case informally.”

Yesterday, the eMoov website described eMoov as “Trusted as the UK’s No 1 for customer service”.

It says that eMoov was the the best of all 26,000 UK estate agency branches (allAgents.co.uk) and 9.6 out of ten by “hundreds” of TrustPilot reviews.

In a separate case, a complaint against Scargill Mann & Co has also been informally resolved.

The ASA received a complaint about a property listing on the advertiser’s own website which referred to the property as having five bedrooms.

The complainant understood that the property did not have building regulations approval for two of the bedrooms and challenged whether the description of the property as having five bedrooms was misleading.

The agent agreed to amend the listing to state “three bedrooms and two attic rooms”.

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29 Comments

  1. 123430

    Quirky, emoov is a disgrace, stop making up BS numbers and ridiculous statements. I have shares in your ‘disruptor’ but you are a disgrace to the ‘property’ industry. I have a feeling ‘we’ will go under and no one will ever take you seriously when your cash flow starts drying up.

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    1. Trevor Mealham

      @123430 and with feelings like that, WHY did you buy shares in emoov to support something you dont like?

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      1. Bless You

        Can everybody who reads this make a complaint to ASA to stop brushing everything under the carpet.

        They are costing genuine businesses £1000’s every year with their lies.

        Should be getting crippling fines to level up the playing field.

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  2. AgencyInsider

    Coming from the Donald Trump of the estate agency world I presume these are examples of #alternativefacts?

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    1. Bless You

      At least when trump says he’s built a hotel there is actually a hotel you can stay in. Bloke is a saint compared to online industry.

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  3. MarkRowe

    How many complaints has Donald Quirk had now?

    Every single one of them he just gets a tap on the wrist…. what if he’s gained business through this deceptive advertising and marketing he’s used….?

     

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    1. AgentV

      I kinda suspect that’s the plan isn’t it?…..bad publicity is still better than no publicity.

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      1. MarkRowe

        Fair point… what a shame though.

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  4. Malcolm Barnard

    In answer to MarkRowe, a quick search of the ASA database shows that since June 2015 eMoov have had 2 rulings from the ASA plus 6 ‘informal resolutions’.

    Rulings are where advertisers dispute the complaints made against them but were forced to change their advertising claims. Informal resolutions are where the advertiser agrees to amend their claims voluntarily once a complaint has been brought to their attention.

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    1. LondonR90

      Wow! That’s a significant number.

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  5. Robert May

    I have say I am looking forward to September when  I guess we’ll  finally get  see the latest accounts for Emoov listed at companies house.

    The accounts published in September for the previous  part year were quite difficult to follow but they gave an indication that Emoov isn’t charging enough and isn’t winning enough instructions. With a  significant  hibernation in the  market for at least 3 months now volumes of listings are down and that has to hurt any volume driven business model.

    It is my opinion (note to all, I am allowed to have one) that pay to list businesses where listing rep are unfamiliar with localised markets are really going to be challenged by the first real dip in the market since  agency disruption was begun.

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  6. Trevor Mealham

    OTHER SIDE TO BUDGET AGENTS

    Iam currently overseeing a MLS main/sub agency trial. The traditional agent on RM and Z achieved an offer of £200k. But via 6 sub agents £225k was agreed for just 0.5% more.

    However, all are ready to exchange, apart from the bottom BUDGET agency’s clients where the certain Purple agents chain progression skills are as much use as a chocolate teapot.

    For any vendors selling. Check all the things your agent does. Theres more to good agency than taking funds up front and sticking a property on portals.

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  7. AndrewOverman

    And once again RQ has been allowed to run an advert which over exaggerates his true dismal performance and gets away with it. The REAL question here is has he obtained business / sold services based on deception? Is that not illegal? Where are the CPR enforcers? The law enforcers? Rolling over and having their bellies tickled once more. It’s an outrage.

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  8. FromTheHip64

    As soon as I saw the article heading I could almost predict the usual deluge of negative, competition knocking plop to follow. No morning meetings guys?

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    1. wardy

      You really need to look up the word ”irony”

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      1. PeeBee

        …or learn to tell the time.

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        1. AgencyInsider

          Given their tetchy comment on the lead story I think Mr Grumpy got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.

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  9. MattBesier41

    This is disappointing to hear. Hopefully, they recover and are able to post some positive findings soon.

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  10. LondonR90

    I doubt Emoov are benefiting from the constant slating on here so that can’t be considered good publicity.

     

    But that’s not all Emoov get up to when we are all asleep late at night.

     

    A few years ago Interflora were given a ‘Google slap’ for building unnatural links on other peoples website linking back to their own site. A Google slap is where Google deindexes completely from search. So Interflora were invisible online for someone searching ‘Interflora’. They punished Interflora for deliberately building free and paid links that were not gained naturally. It took Interflora months and months to clear their backlink profile up and get back close to where they were previously.

     

    I don’t know who handles Emoov’s online marketing but if Russell Quirk should get rid of them because they are taking you for a ride. A manual review from a Google employee is just around the corner and your rankings will drop at a much faster rate than they have recently risen – and it’s likely you won’t get them back again. Let’s face it, you aren’t Interflora 🙂

     

    Emoov’s recent ranking improvement:

     

    i.imgsafe.org/85a785dee1.png

     

    Emoov’s recent backlinking improvement:

     

    i.imgsafe.org/85ab2a08c0.png

     

    In more detail:

     

    Go to kezzabeth.co.uk/2016/09/roofwindowinstallation.html and scroll down to the comment section

     

    Go to iansmuswellbrookmerriwa.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/moving-house.html and scroll down to Steve Taylors comment

     

    Go to myscandinavianhome.com/2016/10/the-creative-home-of-swedish-artist.html and scroll down to the comments section

     

    There’s a lot more. This work has been outsourced to some who owns a little piece of software and took all of 2 minutes building hundreds of these backlinks for you. You could have got all this for a fiverr.com 🙂

     

    If someone does report you – someone like Tepilo for example – once you replace them for the search term ‘online estate agents’ – then do not be surprised.

     

    Spam is dirty.

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    1. PeeBee

      They had a good guy doing – I hate to admit it – a great job for them.

      I think he has a proper job now.

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      1. PeeBee

        I doubt he would have ever suggested resorting to paying some Abrudabian spammer to post pigeon English comments on this, that and the other website in the name of the company he was desperately trying to win some credibility for.

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        1. AgentV

          Is it possible to say who the good guy was PeeBee?

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          1. PeeBee

            A certain chap by the name of Stephen Jury.  Took on arguably the worst job on the planet and grabbed it by the ‘nads.

            From utter contempt of his position grew a genuine respect for the man.

            Not one of The Quirkster’s better decisions that he departed… and when you look at what – if anything – could be classed as the better ones, it kinda shows you just how much of a monumental schoolboy error changing this particular broom must have been!

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            1. PeeBee

              Disagree?

              Please – tell the audience why…

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          2. LondonR90

            https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stephenjury

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            1. LondonR90

              You beat me to it PeeBee.

              I think there was some kind of disagreement over money? I seem to remember reading something of the sort here on PIE way back…

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              1. PeeBee

                That would be for Mr Jury to comment upon.

                IF, that is, he wasn’t subject to a NDA – as seems the current norm…

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                1. AgentV

                  So ….a good guy to have on board for a major project then?

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  11. LondonR90

    🙂

    I would be worried, seriously worried, if that was my website. A Google deindex would be catastrophic in terms of traffic numbers.

    https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93713?hl=en

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