allAgents
Purplebricks reviews on allAgents.
- Online estate agent Purplebricks forced allAgents to remove Purplebricks reviews from its site.
- It called into question the validity of the reviews and threatened legal action if Purplebricks failed to remove the reviews.
- allAgents removed the Purplebricks reviews in September but now it's reinstated them.
The battle between online estate agent Purplebricks and estate agent reviews website allAgents is heating up after allAgents republished a number of reviews of Purplebricks on its website that Purplebricks believes to be fake.
The vast majority of the 79 Purplebricks reviews are one star and the company has an average score of 1.27 out of 5, with just 9% of customers saying they would recommend Purplebricks, which competes with the likes of Foxtons.
allAgents removed the reviews on September 18 to avoid getting into what had the potential to become a costly legal fight but they were reinstated on December 12, according to a spokesperson for allAgents.
allAgents started a £50,000 crowdfunding campaign in October to help fund its legal costs but the spokesperson for allAgents said that it fell "just short" of the target.
allAgents said that it's re-contacted all the Purplebricks reviewers to confirm the validity of their postings. Of the 26 negative reviews Purplebricks claimed were fake, allAgents said it was unable to verify three.
allAgents's director Martin McKenzie said in a statement:
"We stand behind the reviews, which have been proven to have been written in good faith. 'Fakegate' has been shown to be just what it always was - the bully-boy tactics of a company unwilling to deal with the concerns of genuine customers.
"Our re-instatement of Purplebricks' review profile and the disputed reviews has shown how solid our process is, and we sincerely hope Purplebricks will accept this and not threaten further legal action. We were unable to verify just three of the reviews, not surprising as some of them were two years old and three genuine reviewers have asked for their post to be taken down. A number of reviewers were very angry at having their authenticity questioned and we have decided to add their additional comments to the site."
A Purplebricks spokesperson said in a statement:
"We have noted AllAgents reinstatement of certain reviews on Purplebricks. We have asked on numerous occasions for evidence that would allow us to verify whether or not they were from genuine customers, AllAgents have been unable or unwilling to share this data with us for reasons best known to themselves.
"Our position has always been very clear - we welcome all reviews from anyone who has been authenticated as a customer, whether they are good or bad.
"We do not welcome reviews from people who have not had direct experience with us, as this can lead to misinformation for consumers."