A pair of home hunters have told of their disappointment at finding their dream property listed on Rightmove yesterday – only to find that it had in fact been sold nearly 18 months ago.
The property, in Ealing, west London, was listed with Rightmove on February 29 by TV presenter Sarah Beeny’s online firm Tepilo, and was still visible yesterday morning.
By the afternoon, it had been removed, but its listing history could still be seen.
Yesterday morning, the couple – who have asked not to be named – found the property on Rightmove.
It was, in the man’s words, their perfect home: it was on the right street, the type of period property they wanted, and at a much lower price than they had expected, at £605,000.
They contacted Tepilo through Rightmove, and were sent an email asking them to book a viewing through Tepilo’s website.
However, on the Tepilo website, there were no properties listed in London.
They called Tepilo and were told that the firm had just changed its systems which was proving very difficult. The woman they spoke to said that she herself could not actually book the viewing because of the change in IT.
The couple say they subsequently received a phone call from Tepilo saying that owing to technical difficulties, there had been some relisting of properties.
They then discovered from the Land Registry that while Tepilo had somehow relisted the property at £630,000, it had in fact been sold for £750,000 in October 2014.
Subsequent investigations by EYE show that the agent which sold the property was not Tepilo, but high street firm Sinton Andrews.
A spokesperson for Tepilo told EYE: “We released a new version of our website yesterday and have encountered some technical difficulties syncing our database with Rightmove.
“These issues are being addressed as a matter of urgency and we are currently re-syncing with Rightmove, so hope to resolve the issues imminently.”
A spokesperson for Rightmove confirmed: “There was a new update on Tepilo’s website which caused technical problems syncing their property feed with Rightmove. Our team have been working with Tepilo to resolve this.”
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58102712.html
Comments (33)
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Had a similar IT blip last year that made for a very busy, if entirely pointless, morning and has frazzled the minds of surveyors seeking comps ever since. Some were very old indeed.
How many ‘benefits of the doubt’ should we give them?
40? For each of the 40 properties re-uploaded? Or just the 1 for the 1 day of #### ups?
Meanwhile, over at Purplebricks, the shares soar and the company’s market capitalisation is now £350m.
The punters are throwing wads of cash at Purplebricks and the bulletin boards have comments about “the next Rightmove”.
And to add to the irony, Rightmove shares are down today.
Wow. Searching Twitter for Tepilo brings up a nightmarish amount of disgruntled users. If we had that much negative feedback we would struggle to be in business.
They are just a bunch of 404’s !
Lights are on but no one’s home……
The HTTP 404 Not Found Error means that the webpage you were trying to reach could not be found on the server. It is a Client-side Error which means that either the page has been removed or moved and the URL was not changed accordingly, or that you typed in the URL incorrectly.
Some people have a way of accessing this stuff… http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dAHM00hj1EQJ:www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58102712.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Vodka’s made from potatoes. That’s a vegetable and right now I’m having a salad. Dude I’m trying to stay in shape. My ideal weight is Sarah Beeny on top of me but wow; you have to figure “syncing our database with Rightmove” completely eliminates “it’s not brain surgery” from the lexicon. It’s the type of goofy excuse you get from the guy who drinks all the milk and then puts the empty carton back in the fridge. Makes about as much sense a Danielle Steel novel. Jeez this type of promotional malfeasance has got the online guys getting their a*s handed to them and anyone betting the farm on them is either 1. insane or 2. in the know.
Has anyone spotted that some of the major call-centre agents instruction numbers miraculously and simultaneously fell off a cliff at midnight on the 29th? #portaljuggling
A quick scan of the ‘Purpose’ section of The Fraud Act 2006 makes interesting reading http://bit.ly/1oOgLP0 for anyone who thinks that a breach of CPR is all that might be involved
In regard to the fraudulent behavior of companies, the existing offence of participating in fraudulent business carried on by a company, provided for by the Companies Act 1985, was amended by Section 10 – bringing the maximum penalty from 7 years imprisonment to 10 years [And/or a fine] – and a new offence of participating in fraudulent business carried on by a sole trader was established by Section 9.
I wonder how many sentences of 10 years have been handed out compared with say, slaps on the wrist?
No wonder it was their dream home. It was listed for around £250K less than it was worth. It would be anyone’s ‘dream home’ at that price. Surely they realised it was a mis price, even if not, they would have been in a bidding war with half of Ealing.
So sold for £750k in Oct 2014.
Say it had increased even 5% to now (ish), £787.5k
. ……and shown (now’ish) by Tepilo at £605k.
Their typical fee shows at: £495 (incl VAT)
EQUALS = a SAVING of (minus) – £182005
Bang on. Who said budget was cheap. After all that Tepilo didn’t even get the sale
Mr Mealham
I take no pleasure in pointing out the fatal flaw in your argument. You apparently have it the wrong way round – on the basis that:
Tepid say that it was some kind of accidental relist caused by a ‘technical’ somethingorother.
Property down that Lahdahn NEVER goes down in price – us ‘oop North know that. You mustn’t read the same papers as we do when eating your fish’n’chips out of them
It must therefore have been on the market prior to the completed sale.
I reckon, then, with a bit of compound interest worked backwards, and a bit of added fairy dust for good measure, that Tepid must have listed the property for sale somewhere between the late ’90s and 2008.
THAT would fit in with a scheduled changeover of hardware – as the Compaq Presario desktop they have been using ever since then with its 3.1Gb hard drive and 64Mb RAM will be screaming like a b!tch now and Windows 3.1 is no longer compatible with… anything, actually.
Oh… hang on… Tepid’s only been going for 6 years. That kinda bu99ers MY argument, then.
Back to the drawing board – we will both need to look for a reasonable, plausible explanation for this occurrence.
I bet we can both come up with one quicker – and better – than the rabbit currently caught in the headlights has so far…
PeeBee – read the article. It says Tepilo listed at £605k (now) yet it sold back in 2014 at £750k
adding 5% for upward pricing of £750k achieved = £787.5k
So showing at £605k. ……………………… never mind. Read and read the article.
Oh, Trevor…
Nowt more to add, really.
Likewise PeeBee. maybe you should go to Spec Savers 🙂
Mr Mealham
I don’t NEED to re-read the article. I almost know it off by heart – and was of some minor assistance in its’ preparation for publication.
Here’s the one sentence you need to concentrate on:
“The couple say they subsequently received a phone call from Tepilo saying that owing to technical difficulties, there had been some relisting of properties.”
Now you need to re-read MY comment – and don’t look at it as being a criticism of you because of the first tongue-firmly-in-cheek sentence – it’s actually far from it.
I WILL call in at Specsavers – just to see if yours are ready for collection yet! ;o)
I’ve digged out “the eye” a few times for regurgitating various OTM non stories & lettings us know about agents who had to cancel a weekend away in Clacton… but truly articles like this is what we signed up for.
Uniting us all with pitchforks at the ready!
Sarah Beeny’s “trusted” online agent
The truth will come out in the end when these desperate duplicitous companies have to file their accounts – it should then be simple to calculate how many unsuspecting members of the public have been duped by them – I suspect that recent examples are the tip of the iceberg and their financials are going to be inconsistent with their historic claims around listing numbers and market share. Be patient, in time there will be some very red faces,explaining to do, sacrificial lambs, profits warnings, re-funding not necessarily in that order.
Right where’s Tilly to defend the indefensible???
I expect Tilly is doing PR for Purplebricks elsewhere today.
Too busy reloading their own properties multiple times.
Maybe it’s sarah beany just doing a repeat like you see her on TV ?
The cries from the stands are….”You don’t know what you’re doing……..”
“owing to technical difficulties, there had been some relisting of properties” Russell and Stephen already bagsied that one Sarah. Surely your scriptwriter chums at Channel Four can come up with something original.
There are script writers at Channel Four? I assumed this comment was just another repeat!
Not quite sure why given the **** above as the use of the term involving a harmless name of a male chicken followed by “up” is used in polite circles in common parlance. I grant you used on its own it can be deemed offensive, more computer irregularities? It goes to show that it doesn’t matter how smart a computer a person does a better job.
Yet another cock up from these inept IT based platforms calling themselves agents. I wouldn’t trust Sarah “smug” Beeny (or any other so called “property expert” such as Phil Spencer, who had his portfolio taken in to admin) to sit the correct way round on a lavatory seat never mind sell my most expensive asset!
How many comments today will we get saying this is not a news story.
Just proves to those yesterday it is ongoing and not just the one agent doing it.
Awww so cute that Pee Bee and Robert are looking to set up home together!
You do know that Peebee and Robert May are the same person?
That explains an awful lot, doesn’t it!
More “technical issues” from the call-centre agents. Amazing how many technical issues these firms suffer from given how much they bang on in the press about their technical superiority in the property-selling process