A complaint about an estate agent’s claim on its website has been resolved informally by the Advertising Standards Authority.
Featherstone Leigh, which has branches in London, claimed that the Featherbed Villas property development was “formerly the residence of the Norton family (of motorcycle fame)”.
However, a complainant said the founder of the Norton Motorcycle company had never lived at the property.
A spokesperson for the ASA said: “We contacted the advertiser about the claim and they agreed to remove it with immediate effect.
“As the problematic claim was no longer appearing, we considered the matter resolved and closed the case informally.”
Advert still appearing at 7:35am this morning.
http://www.featherstoneleigh.co.uk/featherbed-villas-hampton-hill-tw12-flt11-2334825.html
Funny that the ASA didn’t resolve the recent case against PurpleBricks informally, even when the Advert in question had already been removed. 🙂
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Making a single claim and then removing it on request is very different to what PB are up to.
If I were you I’d be putting distance between you and PB not associating and advocating their recurring deceit.
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Well it hasn’t been removed and how do you know it’s not a recurring practice?
The difference from what I can see is that PurpleBricks are more visible and Estate Agent competitors are bringing complaints and encouraging others to bring complaints.
You only have to look at why the Estate Agent Act was brought in by the Government and why Trading Standards have their own department for Estate Agents to see the true picture. Why are Estate Agents one of the most distrusted professions?
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Because people like PB charge up front to “sell” a property when in actual fact they are charging to list it.
They also con people into using one of the worst conveyancing firms in the country (or charge extra) at over inflated prices so they can further feather their nest with kickbacks.
They also systematically remove negative reviews then claim to be the most positively reviewed agent on Trustpiltot.
Should I go on?
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>They also con people into using one of the worst conveyancing firms in the country
I’ve signed up with PurpleBricks and they don’t con anybody into signing up with any conveyancer. Of course there will be some people who don’t read what they are agreeing to but that’s not conning people.
>They also systematically remove negative reviews
So what would you do if somebody who you didn’t recognise as a customer gave you a negative review? Just leave it there, encouraging all your competitors to give negative reviews under false names? I’m pretty sure this is standard practice with TrustPilot reviews and the review can be reinstated if the reviewer demonstrates they are a customer.
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So you think it’s ok for them to say that because you are not going to use the conveyancers who pay us a big kickback we are going to charge you an extra £360 so the £ 895 we initially charged was actually complete BS?
You don’t have to be a customer of PB or any company to leave a review. You have to use part of their service. In this industry that applies to sellers, buyers, viewers, landlords, tenants and prospective tenants.
If a viewer endures a horrible experience when trying to book a viewing why shouldn’t they warn future potential clients that the service is rubbish. Any vendor would want to make sure their potential buyers are being dealt with in a timely and professional manner.
If you’ve signed up with them, maybe you are trying to justify your decision to yourself rather than the rest of us. LOL
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>So you think it’s ok for them to say that because you are not going to use the conveyancers who pay us a big kickback we are going to charge you an extra £360 so the £ 895 we initially charged was actually complete BS?
I think you are missing the point that there is a choice to pay £895 up front and then there are no conditions. As far as I am aware if you agree to use the conveyancer and also agree to pay a fee if you change your mind then yes that’s OK.
Sometimes I think it’s just that Estate Agents are so used to a “no sale, no fee” model that they don’t understand what PB customers are agreeing to.
>You don’t have to be a customer of PB or any company to leave a review.
OK, so in that case you have to document the relationship as stated in their T&C’s “you can otherwise document your use of the Company’s service” which wouldn’t be a problem really would it considering every appointment etc. is confirmed by email.
>If you’ve signed up with them, maybe you are trying to justify your decision to yourself rather than the rest of us.
Just trying to present an informed opinion to the thousands of people who read these threads (both Estate Agents and the public). If I didn’t post all you’d get on here would be comments from PurpleBricks’ competitors who end up believing their fellow Agents’ comments and regurgitate them as though they are fact even though they have no actual experience as a customer.
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cyberduck46
For months now you bang on about ‘misleading information’. About how “disingenuous” certain individuals – myself included – and companies are.
Your stated argument is what will or won’t influence a person’s ‘transactional decision’.
Ask yourself this. How much weight would it carry with a “reasonable person” that a property was owned a hundred or so years ago by a greasemonkey who went on to make a few quid out of two-stroke technology?
Unless that person is a proper petrolhead who gets man-moist (credit: Robert May) at the very thought of such stuff and whose idea of ‘going Commando’ involved having 750ccs throbbing between their kneecaps (which arguably then brings into question the ‘reasonable person’ scenario) – I would say approximately one percent of chuff-all.
This “problematic claim” was small coal in amongst a vast, rich seam of black gold – and one which the ASA will be productively mining for decades.
Try looking up the old adage ‘putting things in perspective’. Or the phrase ‘making a mountain out of a molehill’.
You’d be cr@p on ‘Catchphrase’. Best advice I could give would be don’t apply.
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By the way, cyberduck46 – as promised there’s a post waiting for you on yesterday’s article:
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/purplebricks-in-share-sale-puzzle-says-sunday-times-headline/
Look forward to your response(s)!
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PeeWee, just had a look at Arun Estate Agents’ website. They were the ones who brought the ASA complaint against PurpleBricks.
Looking at their banner Advert and it claims in big bold letters “1 in 6 homes in the South East are SOLD by Arun where we trade”. This advert disappears after 5 seconds and contains in tiny writing that you can hardly see “Land Registry Completions 01/07/2011 to 31/10/2011 for Greater London and South East”
Do you not think that people reading this could think this is a current statistic?
Of course Arun Estates’ every move is not under scrutiny by the Estate Agency Industry so I doubt anybody has even checked whether this can be substantiated.
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One of the issues of national branding is that when there is a problem everyone is forced to comment on the brand not the individual branch. Countrywide, LSL, Connels etc all get tarred in the same way.
Purplebricks claim to be local to all 3500 activity centres in the country with, for the sake of maths, each listing rep having to be local to 7 centres. An activity centre has an average 6 agents each is competing with each other and that acts as micro-management of any issues.
You have found an issue with Arun Estate, a pots and kettles case, now go through all 22,000 branches of traditional agency to see what else you can find. There is no need to each branch has at least 5 competitors looking to take advantage of any slip up.
What you think of as traditional agency being mean to a firm you’ve invested cash into and an awful lot of time defending is nothing more that competition which is naturally focused on an agent claiming to cover each and every agent’s local patch. If you’ve puffer fished your presence don’t be surprised if the resistance you have to cope with is proportional to the presence you portray.
Each of the Purplebrick reps is competing with 42 branches, about 94 staff all of whom have genuine local experience and reputation in a condensed area 1/7th the size a rep is attempting to cover. 94:1 isn’t a fair fight but they picked it!
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Have you got children or grandchildren Cyberduck?
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Cyberduck give it a rest, you are swimming against the tide. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can see the ruse that Purplebricks have had as their marketing modus operandi from the word go, whether a biased competitor or not.
Go back to the financial threads and carry on telling the world what a great share tip you have in Purplebricks, your efforts are wasted on here.
But before you go perhaps you could tell me…. just why are you SO obsessed with all things Purple?
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