A former Yopa agent has claimed on social media that she was not paid her final invoice.
Lauren Power, a self-employed territory owner for Yopa in Leeds, said on LinkedIn: “Having been at Yopa for the last two and a half years, probably one of their longest serving agents, they decided that in their words, they did not want to pay my final invoice since me leaving.
“It’s such a shame, I had a fantastic time at Yopa, but [after] a change of management, fees, area cuts, commission cuts and extremely poor valuation quality/brand awareness, I move on to the next chapter of my journey.
“What a kick in the teeth to have put my all in to growing the business over the past two and a half years and it’s left as the new management do not wish to pay me commission I had worked hard for.”
The post had attracted 42 comments by late yesterday afternoon.
One claimed: “It’s not the only online agent I’ve heard of trying to keep agents’ monies. It was tried on with me too.”
Yopa told us last night it will not be commenting on this.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-power-mnaea-5a0213a7/detail/recent-activity/
Comments (13)
Yopa have raised something like £70 million in total.
LSL put in £20 m
Savills put in £18m
They kept getting good press in The Telegraph
Where is the accountability? Who decided on this investment – on what merit? Disruption? What would LSL and Savills have achieved by investing that money into front of house operations?
Why did they fund a round of advertising that tells joe public there current agencies are too expensive? As business acumen goes I would be asking serious questions of the decision making process by LSL and Savills and surprised EYE have not taken them to task.
Yopa claimed to be the fastest growing at one point – easy claim to make when you have a multi-million pound advertising budgets, do no sale no fee as an internet agent, and when you charge a fee its a pittance.
Absolutely spot on. Whilst reading my daily slice of PIE every morning it irks me that these companies have managed to raise (and squander) so much money. £70m is a number none of us will probably live to have known and the good that could have been done with it is frightening.
I would love to know the thought process and decision making taken not only by these corporates especially but also by countless buisinesses, individuals and investment groups to why they did it and what ROI did they expect?
I assume shareholders can ask this question too at an AGM. Hopefully they do or they’ll have a share price like Countrywide.
‘I would love to know the thought process and decision making…’
Simple. Greed.
The hurding instinct. Same as when financial institutions bought up estate agencies back in the day.
Its frustrating when companies act like this. Creates much stress and sometimes financial hardship.
However, this is a risk people take when jumping into positions without full research just hoping for the best.
There is a reason Yopa PB and others recruit self employed individuals. Ultimately it is because the companies have less responsibility to individuals and they know they can walk all over them and change the goal posts when they like. The average self employed lister will not have the time and resources to fight unfair decisions they will just move on.
Hopefully potential ‘partners’ looking to in the future work with companies such as this will do research and realise it is not the land of milk and honey that is portrayed to them.
Although i get why she has posted this, from my experience a lot of companies stop ‘commission’ payments due on the final salary if an employee leaves. High st agencies especially, and i have had this happen to me over the years when leaving a ‘high st firm’. Hence why so many employee’s do a ‘pay day’ bunk or give notice once they have been paid. So i am sure there would of been something in her contract that states that if she leaves prior to being paid then the company has the right not to pay commission due.
I guess her bigger gripe is that as she will be a self employed person then it is all commission via an invoice rather than just basic pay without the add on of commission.
I am sure Yopa have covered themselves within their legal contacts, and if not then she will be paid. it will be interesting to see with the media coverage if they do now pay the invoice ???
Bring on Regulation and Licensing. Sooner the better that we have a proper Regulatory body.
Yopa raised £20m last August. I’m guessing a similar amount is needed to keep them going another year. Things must be very tight right now as the cash quickly disappears.
I heard they needed to hit a certain high instruction target for June in order to get some further investment to keep them going.
I think we can expect to hear news very soon either way.
Staff being paid late which has happened recently is surely the sign that your point is very well made…
I had been told the same from someone who is working there . . . . .Problem been they were in need of 100’s more than they actually had with no hope of hitting it.
Fast forward 2-3 years, Yopa, HouseSimple etc will all be gone and PB will probably be scraping around for more cash. Over this time there will be more start ups claiming to be the new hot thing.
The public and potential employees need to wake up, these companies do not care about you or their staff, only your money. And before anyone starts, that is different to a good high street agent, who cares about their clients and staff very much
Sue the with money claims on line it is simple to do. Well done in getting media coverage to shame companies that behave dishonourably.
Possibly because they don’t have any money?