Foxtons gaming allagents ratings?

samcrawford

Evening all,

I've recently been on the hunt for a house, and have been using allagents.co.uk to check out estate agents. I noticed some potentially suspicious activity on the Foxtons page recently:

• Between Dec 2010 and October 2011, there were 40 reviews for Foxtons, 3 of which had five stars. i.e. Reviews were generally negative
• In November 2011 there were 13 reviews for Foxtons, 9 of which received 5 stars
• Their recent surge in positive reviews means they're no longer in the Worst Rated Agents on the front page (I think they used to be in the bottom 2 or 3)
• A number of the recent 5 star reviews look like they've been copied/pasted from emails, naming specific staff and sometimes the text wraps like in an email
• One of the reviews even lists the full property address and the name of the seller. If that wasn't posted by the seller, would this present a privacy concern?

Does anyone else think this all looks a little suspect?

I emailed allagents.co.uk just over a week ago about this, didn't get a response, and then sent another one on Wednesday. I received a reply saying 'Thanks'. No change since then. They may still be looking into it, or they may have dismissed my comments - they're completely welcome to of course, it's their website.

Disclosure: I've previously been a tenant of Foxtons and had a bad experience, but I don't have an axe to grind. I'm interested to understand if they're attempting to game the ratings though.

Thanks,

Sam

poppy10_2

Linky

Yep, looks well dodgy. Seems like they have been uploading emails or customer feedback forms to the website as reviews.

Five stars
Good Morning

I'm just sending a short email as a way of a thank you for the swift & professional sale of my property which was handled by your Shoreditch office.
The property in question was 12 Keats House, Roman Road E2 0HT. Matt Johnson, I believe, was the team leader on my case & I would just like to congratulate you, as his employer, on his total professionalism & responsiveness in the sale of my property.
I would also like you to forward my sincere thanks to Neil Khagram who was our point of contact during the sale. Again his professionalism & dedication shone through.
Please congratulate your Shoreditch office on my behalf & I can assure you I will be recommending Foxtons to any friends, family or colleagues who intend to sell property in the near future.

Thank you

Regards
Fred Lambert

samcrawford

Yep, that's the one I was referring to in one of my points. If I was Fred and saw my email posted online then I'd definitely raise an eyebrow or two!

Thanks for posting the link by the way - I thought I read somewhere about not being allowed to post links to other sites, and I didn't want my first post to possibly be deleted!

BitterAndTwisted

I wouldn't be surprised if they're up to no good. With the really appalling reviews and very poor scores they'd have to do something about their woeful customer-service. It's just a pity that management won't address that rather than have their staff wasting other people's time with their antics. Some friends of mine suffered unbelievably badly at the hands of their lettings-drones when they used them to source a tenant. As well as the usual eye-watering tenant-finding fee they charged them a year's worth of commission on the rent IN ADVANCE. Rent which they failed to collect almost from Day One.

dacouch

It's against the law for a business or their employees to pose as a satisfied customer on the internet

googler

dacouch wrote: »

It's against the law for a business or their employees to pose as a satisfied customer on the internet

Which law?

dacouch

18. A wolf in sheep’s clothing
Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the
trader is not acting for purposes relating to his/her trade,
business, craft or profession, or falsely representing
oneself as a consumer

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/cpregs/oft979.pdf

Worth reading the whole link as it's a relatively new set of laws

googler

allagents can have false positives, such as the situation outlined above.

It can also have false negatives - any competitor to Foxtons could go on there and post a bad review

There's no guarantee that the reviews posted are by genuine customers - allagents doesn't check them.

Can it be relied on?

googler

dacouch wrote: »

Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his/her trade,
business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer

Worth reading the whole link as it's a relatively new set of laws

So it's not 'the law' at the moment, then?

The OFT are 'introducing regulations' (i.e. they haven't been introduced yet...?)

dacouch

googler wrote: »

So it's not 'the law' at the moment, then?

The OFT are 'introducing regulations' (i.e. they haven't been introduced yet...?)

It's a current law, I think it was brought in circa 2008
,

pinksleepybear

Looks like they accidentally gave themselves a 1 star review by 'Howard' 8/11/2011.