An estate agent who registered himself as one of his own customers using a fictitious name on Rightmove was astonished when his alter ego received an email from the portal asking about his experiences with the agent.
Trevor Kent used the name J Peasemold Gruntfuttock after the character played by Kenneth Williams and said to be the world’s dirtiest old man (think peeping Tom) in the radio series Round the Horne.
In a curious twist, it has emerged that while Kent was doing due diligence on Rightmove, Rightmove was doing much the same of Kent.
Kent said: “I registered J Peasemold Gruntfuttock as an applicant to make sure Rightmove was working well.
“They now want information from him on what he thought of his treatment by Trevor Kent & Co – nearly two months after Mr Gruntfuttock’s original inquiry.
“For what purpose are they questioning my applicants? Who do they think they are – allAgents? Is this any way to treat their fee-paying customers?
“What are they intending to do with the information and are they really going to give Trevor Kent & Co feedback on what Mr Gruntfuttock thinks of them?”
The email invites the applicant to click to complete a survey, with the chance of winning a £50 voucher.
The email says: “Your feedback will help us to improve our services and offer valuable information to the agent about their inquiry handling and customer service.”
Rightmove then followed up with another email to the fictitious Mr Gruntfuttock advising him about Rightmove’s removals service.
Eye asked Rightmove about their contact with agents’ customers.
A spokesperson said: “This is something we have been running for a number of years.
“Our account managers use it as a feedback tool with their customers if they want to see how consumers have rated them.”
However, Kent said he was unimpressed: “I am not sure that I have seen any feedback about me from applicants via Rightmove.
“I would like to know if other agents know their applicants are being deeply questioned without their permission, because I certainly didn’t.”
When I was running an online agency a few years ago I got kicked off Rightmove for forwarding a telephone number without the persons permission (So RM said), then they doubled my fees after kicking me off for 1 month, £3.5k to £7k, they are horrible. Now they are doing the same! They did it purely to get me off of my payment plan so they could double my fee. If I had the money I would take them to court and the plum who made the decision, small time rep/manager, I won't mention his name, plum suits perfectly.
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Absolute non story… Every large online business looks for feedback ,I'm suprised your suprised .cue next story "Rightmove sends me fake leads"- agents fury after mailing under fake profile that he is recieving leads from a fake profile," how dare they let me send myself fake mail , I want all my my money back chunter chunter … Grow up
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"Astonished "?! Rightmove give us the feedback from these surveys so how could he not know about it?
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Interesting paragraph in the story "Rightmove then followed up with another email to the fictitious Mr Gruntfuttock advising him about Rightmove’s removals service." Any agents earn commission from removals, mortgages, conveyancing etc?
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Again Rightmove treating its paying customers like dirt!
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Not too sure anything wrong with the survey bit BUT as Wilson says……..contacting them re "other services" not great!
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Agree. Its a slippery slope when the firm we pay to advertise our properties is selling directly to our customers. In regards to feedback, a non issue. Can't imagine any decent business, of any size, not seeking customer feedback.
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Its purely a ploy to cross sell RM services.
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Would I be right in thinking that as an applicant registers with Rm directly they are (initially) their client, who they refer to the agency with the property that they have enquired about. Also if you pay for valuation alerts RM market you as "their choice" for agents in that area. They would be crazy not to ask the public what experiences they had of their advertisers as it's their name at the top of the homepage. I do think they should do the research in 48 hrs max as 2 months later it is difficult to remember the consumer experience accurately. I wonder what the response would be if it was a Rightmove press release that said.."Rightmove cease their quality assurance programme in order to increase profits"
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Well, when the applicant registers interest I a property they are not invited to receive contact direct from RM for feedback, although there is a cheekily ticked-by-default box that says: "Rightmove can contact me with relevant properties, offers and news".
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