A mailshot by Connells-owned online firm Hatched resulted in a complaint to the advertising watchdog.
Hatched’s mailer said:
“Dear Home-owner,
“We’re very sorry to see that your sale has recently fallen through with Haybrook, Swinton, but we wondered if we could help you find a buyer (whilst also saving you £1,000’s in the process?!).”
The complainant objected that the mailing was in breach of the advertising codes as it was not clear that it was a marketing communication, and the claim that the sale had fallen through was misleading.
Haybrook, in Swinton, South Yorkshire, is a part of Spicerhaart.
A spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Authority said: “We contacted the advertiser who agreed to withdraw the letters from their marketing.
“We reminded them that their mailings should be clearly labelled as marketing communications and told them not to repeat those claims in the future.”
Also informally resolved was a complaint about an agent, Hamiltons, which advertised a two-bedroom apartment.
The complainant said that when they went to view the property they discovered the second bedroom was in fact a basement that had the potential to be converted, but as yet there was no building control approval in place.
The agent said the claim had appeared as a result of human error.
A third informally resolved complaint was about an advert for a villa on the website of JV Properties.
The advert said the villa had a barbecue, but the complainant said it did not have one.
Again the ASA doing little more than a slap on the wrist – if even that.
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How about a set of straightforward easy guidance rules outlining what you ca’t do…..with automatic fines if you do. For instance you can’t claim you can save someone £1,000 when you don’t know what they were being charged in the first place.
Does anyone know if there is a set of rules already apart from the very unwieldy CAP guide?
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Yep, the aggrieved agent can go to the court and take civil proceedings for breach for BPR’s. They can use the ASA’s ruling to very good effect and claim defamatory and loss of buinsess. They can also formally complain to the OFT for a criminal proceeding. The rules are already their, just no-one is proactively policing them, or the doctrine that is in place with regulators = isn’t interested. Shameful.
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Leaflet lands on a door step and damage already done…. “Don’t do that one again” is simply not good enough, as they will just produce another worded differently.
Introduce a mandatory fine, perhaps £5,000 – make the culprits think twice before paying Vista Print £50 to produce damaging tripe and stop all this “you have to approach the business first before coming to the ASA”.
Soon you will only have to say sorry to the person you mugged on the street to stop the police getting involved.
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You are in a competitive industry Ric you can expect liars to lie, cheats to cheat, scammers to scam. Invariably the more remote is boss from the client the less decency and ethics you can expect.
Good agents don’t need to tout for business, business goes to them. Agents offering cheap fees touting for business? I hardly need to go on.
My first indication of wrongdoing is to find someone claiming or advertising outside normal KPI’s; an agent who achieves 88% conversion listing to exchange does not need to charge 0.26% plus VAT unless they are; lying, genuinely stupid or are deliberately losing £12 million a year. An agent who claims to sell everything for 99% of asking price doesn’t have to buy business with an extra £100 off their 0.15% fee if they are any good at all.
A £5000 fine will simply come out of someone else’s money and the dishonesty will continue.
Clients get the agents they deserve, I have been talking about a case this morning, the cheap idiot agent missed the £150,000 building plot in the garden of a £130,000 property effectively that cheap agency fee turned out 96% plus VAT!
Keep doing what you’re doing, the corporates will dissolve away as will the latest plague of liars, cheats and scammers, someone will replace them, they always do.
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I bet Connells would soon raise complaints if every local independent agent targeted their properties.
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Imagine a world where the corporate hybrid agents and others may have access to all the real time data they need to prospect your clients or future clients in a more compliant manner, without the huge national advertising costs?
Would that scenario prove to be much more costly than any PB initiative?
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Exactly why we are dropping PSG (Encore Live) now ZPG own them! The reality is; every valuation and/or applicant you register on Encore Live is now viewed at Zoopla Towers and what they can do with that data worries me no end.
I would feel safer if Rightmove did Agency Software! and I will say it again, Agents Mutual could have spent a bit of cash more wisely giving agents some control over software too and developed a cloud based system to work with OTM, adding some funky features allowing buyers and vendors to communicate with their agents better.
Perhaps if they win the court case, they could give agents another angle to see the benefits of us sticking together and bring a bit more to the table than a place to stick a property advert.
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Have a look at Expert Agent advertised on the right as ‘we’ll fill your diary with extra valuations’
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I agree Ric although it is not Z and PSG who now has access to the whole real time data market.
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Wait a minute i used to work for Haart how can they complain when they do the exact same thing, we where always set targets to poach other agents propeties with letter stating
Dear sir/madam
I have recently seen your property advertised with (agents name) and we still see the property is on the market, we have tenats that are interested in veiwing you property(we never had anyone looking) please call me to arrange some viewings.
Paul smith has double standard on this website, does he own it as its always pro Haart, i have never seen a article on her about all the bad and corrupt things that Haart do, Haart are a sinking ship all the good staff have now left and are working at better agencies i just went off and started my own and the local Haart branch near me i am smashing to bits on new lets.
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