Member Info for cyberduck

Considering Steve Morgan's sale unnerved the market, all things being equal, this should do something to address that.

I need to put the record straight here. I've just checked my figures and for some reason I had calculated my August figure incorrectly or had the wrong number in my mind. Having just looked again, I am seeing PB easily beating hardman's estimates for 2018. That's not as good as it sounds though because The consensus of Analyst opinion (5 analysts) is that revenue will increase for the full year from £47M to £94M. I have just done some rough calcualtions and estimates and don't think that is unachievable. A lot depends on what can come from 6 months of US revenue.

>I offered to reduce my price but was told had to speak to my LPE You can reduce the price yourself via the platform. Listed mine high and reduced on several occasions. Arranged viewings directly with viewers and negotiated direct with buyers (one fall-through) via the platform too. Had no need need to speak to LPE because it's all there for you (although he did phone me within 10s of my offer coming in to see if I wanted him to deal with negotiations). LPE looked at survey for me when the first sale fell through. Dealt with post-sales department for progress reports. All done online.

Looking forward to the "news" about PB's share price tomorrow from the Property Industry Eye website. After all they wouldn't want to be accused of being impartial and only commenting when the share drops. http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/punishing-day-for-purplebricks-shares-on-stock-market

>It just goes to show howe hopeless it is if they are unable to detect instantly from their own database that the reviews were made from another country That just isn't technically possible (see Virtual Private Network for example) and even if it was I could be selling a property in the USA even though I'm in the UK. >Furtermore an inept managemnt on both sides who cant deal with a major incident quickly Like TP say, they have to keep to their system and make sure they're not removing legitimate revues by contacting the reviewer and waiting up to a week. >Chaos occuring at a very important time for Bricks in the USA Why is it chaos? People getting overexcited about nothing if you ask me. If a US person is looking at TrustPilot it's plain to see that it is most likely that UK reviews have been added to the US site for some reason and that they are in the process of being removed. >Furthermore how can their sophisticated system work in detecting when they hand the ball back to their client to verify.Its a farce Not sure what you are saying. TrustPilot will have automated processes checking whether there is any unusual behaviour when a company is flagging reviews. e.g. that an abnormal percentage of negative reviews are being reported. If this was the case a human would investigate further. TrustPilot have looked into PB's behaviour and have said there is no misuse of the system by PB.

My own data (approximation) shows them being short on the Hardman estimate from September 2016. My main concern though is that the number of LPEs have increased dramatically (507 on May 26th to 685 today) but there's been no corresponding increase in listings. However market share has increased slightly (again approximation) which for me is the most important indicator as it's all about the long term. I think Hardman's estimates were based on 1.4M transactions per year for the market as a whole. With the listings being reasonably flat of late, the number of properties returning to market after being SSTC is more likely to be a reasonable proxy of PB's fall-through rate. Recently, I have this about 15% (again approximation) which according to Rightmove is the industry average. I have been told by an experienced Estate Agent that for some Agents this can be 30%.

Sain, from TP's website: "We have advanced, proprietary software that systematically scans our platform for abuse of our reporting function. We also investigate any reports of misuse sent directly to our Compliance Team via email at compliance@trustpilot.com." See https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/217632927-How-do-we-handle-misuse-of-our-reporting-function-by-companies-

Sain, Like I said earlier, I'm not defending them. I just don't think you'll get a better system. It's not commercially viable to check every review and no company is going to do more than they have to and will concentrate their efforts on negative reviews. If what TrustPilot says is true "To date, they have reported more 4 and 5 star reviews than 1 star." (and I think they would be foolish to lie - whistle-blowers and all that) then I believe that PB actually have some obligation (I did read something about legal responsibility but TP may also have some T&C's) to meet a certain criteria. The problem with the likes of AllAgent is that it's very easy to fake negative reviews so if you have a lot of competitors the review site will end up publishing damaging untrue comments which takes it into the legal realms of slander/defamation & libel (I can never remember which is which). >In the caseof the USA site Bricks challenged and get removed a review highlighting the fact that the other reviews posted were from the Uk which we know to be true and more importantly Bricks themselves to be true They flag a review up. It's up to TP to decide whether to remove. I'd put money on it that such a comment would fall outside what is classed as a valid review but I'm not interested enough to go and look unless you are prepared to put a small wager on it :)

>If you look at the review post highlighting the fact that the reviewers are from the UK on USA Purplebricks Trustpilot you will note its Bricks seeking to remove it not Trustpilot even though Bricks knowe its to be true.There is your proof I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. Are you saying that PB should not flag up reviews that they know should not be on the US site? Surely that would be wrong.

>All Trustpilot have to do is quickly check their own database of the reviewers They won't deviate from standard procedure and that is what you won't accept. I'm putting myself in TP's position and asking what I'd do in the same circumstances. This is my area of expertise. If you look what I said 2 days ago you'll see I was right. No special cases. They have to treat every customer the same way. Keep to standard procedures which they link to when a company flags up a review. I posted the link for you to read earlier. It's on every listing that gets flagged up by a company. Here's what they say "We cannot move a consumer’s review around our site without contacting them and being absolutely sure – that would set a bad precedent." It's all about standard procedures and being independent. If they start going against standard procedures, then people will have something to complain about, especially when they are clearly documented. Also, ask yourself what data they actually have. I've never left a TP review but don't you just give an email address?But that's secondary, the main point is one of consistency.

>I have scrolled back pages of 5* reviews on Purpelbricks UK and there are none reported or challenged unlike all the negative ones Sain, Most reviews will come via the email invitation once a property becomes Sold STC. These will on the whole be 3 to 5 stars in my opinion. None of these will require validation because the fact that they came via the invite demonstrates that they are from a valid customer. So, given that every valid customer who sells STC (over 80% of them) gets an invitation the vast majority of negative reviews will be from people who don't get an invite. When this small minority enter a review then it stands to reason that PB don't know they are a valid review and a high percentage of them won't be (this is normal, especially with negative reviews from competitors being by far the biggest problem in terms of fake reviews).

>Trustpilot dont allow gross errors to be addressed quickly the therei s something wrong with the system How do TrustPilot know that a review that is flagged by a company is because of a gross error? They may be aware there's been an error but couldn't a company flag up some valid reviews too? Get a few of those bad reviews removed under a false claim that they should be on the UK site? TrustPilot are doing the right thing. Sticking to standard procedures. They need to check each and every review that PurpleBricks report.

Sain, >The US fiasco has shown that Bricks can get a post removed even though they know it is true I'm not sure that's correct. When did that happen? Do you mean the UK reviews on the US site? Surely you can see that the reviewers inadvertently added them to the wrong site. Look at the latest statement from TP. It's exactly as I said the day before yesterday - they're just following standard procedures. http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/trustpilot-explains-why-it-will-take-days-to-sort-out-uk-reviews-of-purplebricks-

It's a real shame that Property Industry Eye see fit to encourage people to post non-legitimate reviews to PurpleBricks' TrustPilot pages. Really helping a UK company to succeed overseas there. They've gone down in my estimation as it would appear that the "mystery" of the USA listings can actually be solved by a little bit of proper journalism but they appear to prefer to encourage bitter Estate Agents to ridicule the company. Still I suppose it increases the page views to propertyindustryeye.com and that's what counts isn't it? http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/trustpilot-to-remove-uk-reviews-of-purplebricks-from-american-domain/ Sain, in regard to procedures, there's actually a link on each review that's removed https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/207312237 What we're seeing on PIE is not proper journalism. If you and I can solve the "mystery" then I'm sure a renowned journalist can. I'm not a shareholder but I find this all very distasteful.

Sain, Actually just reading their Open Letter with a bit more attention to detail and see: "Purplebricks report reviews with a view to identifying a reviewer who is not a known customer. To date, they have reported more 4 and 5 star reviews than 1 star" Who do you believe? TP or PeeBee? I don't think PeeBee is dishonest but I don't trust his analysis of the situation after having worked with him for a bit on the portaljuggling allegations.

Bankfool, I personally think sentiment is against them at the moment. 6 months ago, if they'd entered the U.S. market ahead of schedule, the shares would have gone on a rally.

>Yes that sounds plausible and simple but why 4 days after launch havent they been removed which they could get Trustpilot to do instantly ? I don't know but perhaps there is a standard system in place for these things. When I have looked at the US trustpilot site for PB I just think "it looks as though it's getting sorted". I know everybody thinks that TrustPiilot are in PB's pocked but TrustPiilot have their own long term plans and were around a long time before PB. I don't belive for a second that TP are going to jeopardise their own reputation for a short term gain by giving PB some benefit that other customers don't get. They will want to attract other customers from the online industry as well as from Traditional Agents and if they are seen to offer favours then other businesses won't go to them and the public will stop trusting them. If you read TP's release http://press.trustpilot.com/open-letter-in-response-to-questions-regarding-purplebricks-and-trustpilot they say "When reviews are reported by companies they are temporarily taken offline and investigated carefully. When those reviews are found to be authentic and compliant they are reinstated. Reviews only remain offline when the consumer does not provide the further information requested after a week.". Perhaps that is the procedure that the reviews are currently part of. Or perhaps there's another one for this kind of thing. I don't really know, but it doesn't surprise me that the reviews that have been reported by PB USA are still pending removal.

Sain, Were the UK reviews that you saw "new" reviews or copies of ones already on TrustPilot UK? I think I might have an explanation if they were new reviews. When you sell STC with PB you receive an email invitation to give feedback. When you click on the link it takes you to trustpilot. Previously the link was https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/purplebricks.com for the UK but with the USA coming online this changed to https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/purplebricks.co.uk. A plausible explanation would be that for a short period the redirects were going to the wrong TrustPiilot web address. Trust me, I'm a Computer Scientist :) If what you were seeing was new reviews, rather than copies of old ones (which is what I originally understood), then I think this is a reasonable explanation and what Karla was trying to explain to you.

That's what the law is for. Resolving disputes. I'm not sure what else they could do. If people can demonstrate that positive reviews receive less attention then I'm sure PIE would publish it. Like I say, if it was you, your business, or a company you invest in, I think you'd think differently.

Sain, I suspect also that there is organization behind a lot of the criticism. So perhaps not really David v Goliath Here's something from Chris Wood that I noticed. "It’s taken two odd years of incredibly hard work by a small group of agents from right across the UK including employees, managers, an industry supplier and an MD of a well known brand, to reach a point where we are able to show that initial concerns and suspicions are now being proven well-founded (see recent ASA and Watchdog programmes etc)." See http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/purplebricks-set-to-complain-to-advertising-watchdog-about-chris-wood/ There was also a comment where he played the victim. Poor little me. When I worked with PeeBee for a short period he asked if I wanted to join the table. I don't know if PeeBee is one of the ones working with Chris Wood but he mentioned Robert May. Also, Chris Wood has encouraged people to report PurpleBricks to the ASA on the PIE website. What did Watchdog actually find in their spot on PB? Perhaps it damaged PB, especially with all the references to it, but it was actually a big fuss about nothing. If you look at the recent ASA decision too. You could probably find 100 other Agents who would also be told to modify their website if anybody could be bothered to start a case and the ASA thought it would make any difference. I reported something Chris Wood has on his website and the ASA's response was that it is over 3 months old so they won't bring a case. It's not over 3 months old for anybody seeing it for the first time.