An angry estate agent has hit out at the practice whereby property details are ‘scraped’ without their knowledge or consent on the internet by companies selling leads to lenders, conveyancing firms and others.
Although agents may have had to come to terms with their properties being listed on paid-for sites being scraped on to free ones without their knowledge, in this case, the same properties are being scraped on to the same site, to appear alongside the original listing, but with different contact details and a newer date for uploading.
Andrew Griffiths, of Andrew Estate Agents in Great Barr, Birmingham, was astonished when he checked his property listings on Google Maps.
On his properties, he found two entries – the first uploaded, at his request, via Dezrez, and a second, there totally without his knowledge, branded as NetMovers.
For example, Andrews has a £149,950 property listed, which was uploaded last June. The listing includes his photographs, and gives his own phone number and email address for contact.
Immediately below this listing is another which neither he nor his vendor knew anything about, this time a listing branded as being from netmovers.co.uk
The pictures and property details are identical. However, the NetMovers listing was not uploaded until December and the contact details given are not for the agents, but instead give netmovers’ email address and telephone number.
A furious Mr Griffiths called netmovers to protest and says he was told that what the company was doing was okay and legal, and that netmovers sells services for mortgages, removals, etc, and passes on these leads.
However, Mr Griffiths said he had never given permission for this property – or, indeed, any of his other properties – to appear under the netmovers branding. He also pointed out that his vendor had not given permission.
Mr Griffiths said: “I also told netmovers that the photographs are my copyright and cannot be used without my permission.”
EAT spoke to the same person at NetMovers that Mr Griffiths spoke to, who denied that the company was selling leads although he did admit that email or telephone responses to his company were checked before the inquiry lead was passed to the selling agent.
We were invited to put our questions in writing to a director, Rick Jones, in an email. We have done this, but at the time of posting up this story, have not yet had a response.
Last October, NetMovers was apparently an online estate agent but we understand has since changed its business model to become a property portal, which takes its property listings from various aggregators.
There is absolutely no suggestion that netmovers has done anything wrong and we are not aware of any legal test case.
However, as this is a hot topic among agents, particularly as we're aware of lead-suppliers actively sourcing new methods when Google Maps takes its search facility down this month, we’d like your views.
Comments
I don't work for or represent the company.
http://www.sentormss.com/assassin.html
A little hypocritical don't you think?!
We're all quite happy to use information 'aquired' from property portals and other agent's individual websites when it's of benefit to us (vizzihome for example??). When it makes us look good or makes it possible for us to produce some advertising, then we don't see the problem in leaving sold stock online even once the property is sold.
Why get so up in arms about NetMovers when we're all quite happy to reap the benefits of 'scraping' when it suits us?
@ michael white- why have you not revealed the offending web site- do you not really know it then?
Get you Adam all very well but the info is sometimes so badly out of date it makes a nonsense of it all. Everything today is so quick so why cant the stealers of information get it right and keep it up to date at least. I got no problem with free advertising but if its out of date it makes us look like numpties. We have a bad enough press as it is without dimwits making the situation worse.
The internet is a free place. Never before has information been so freely available. The lack of national boundaries prevents universal law from creating rules and protocols. The technology to scrape information and data from the internet and place it in a revised format with enhancements cannot be stopped and should therefore be just accepted.
I have had the same with Globrix or whatever they are called and the few enquiries I have had are for properties listed yonks ago and have been either sold or let
Tricky one this. Can you prove loss? Did they try and pass themselves off as main agents? Photo copyright infringement is not really enough for legal action.
I know of two listing sites that will divert all leads to my email if they come through google property. Scrapping is common across the internet, sometimes copy whole sites as replica and using google ads to steal click throughs.
Sounds like an OFT job, but I suspect that if the customer pays there £25 willingly, not much they can do either.
Personally, I would hire a hacker to screw their site up or superglue in the door locks would slow them down for a couple of days.
While we are talking about sharp practice, we should consider agents that pose as buyers to snatch houses off other agents or put false offers to buyers and seller to close deals. Never happens?
Enquired as a tenant about one of our properties we have/ had for let, they said that i would have to pay £25.00 before any viewings can be arranged. Correct me if im wrong but has it not been illegal to charge someone a fee to simply register there requirements???. Netmovers claim it is to carry out a credit referencing check. Something meeds to be done about this company as it can have a negative effect on estate/letting agents.
As a member of IDEA I have come accross these guys before.
Net Movers have also been targetting DEAs. Asking if they want to be "exclusive suppliers" to all the people that list with them. And dangling the possibilty of lucrative deals as a self employed lister.
It is of course a scam, nobody has ever got any work from them and the same "exclusive area" is regularly offered to other DEAs.
The fact that they are "getting away with it" like so many other of these companies is saddening to say the least.
We came across this company (netmovers) when we noticed our properties appearing without permission.
The difficulty is that many are out-of-date listings for properties already under offer.
We found them very amateurish and felt it was a scam. We have asked them to not list our properties, but of course they have just carried on.
Hmmm... So I dig around on the website to see what surfaces...
Under T&C's -
"NetMovers acts as an aggregator of the rental properties displayed on its website. The properties are fed into the site by third parties, either directly by their agents or other property aggregators.
NetMovers requires all applicants to open an account for a fee of £25.00. Membership will last for a period of three calendar months from the date of your payment. You will agree to undertake a tenant reference, which will determine the ability of NetMovers to process any enquiries you wish to make.
NetMovers will endeavour to pass your enquiry to the relevant agents or the property aggregators who have uploaded the property. In certain circumstances NetMovers will not be able to forward your enquiry or the property may have been let or removed from the market, in which case your NetMovers membership will start from the date of your first accepted enquiry."
Copyright info:
"The copyright and all other intellectual property rights in this website (including all trade marks, service marks, trading names, text, images, code and files) belong to NetMovers Ltd or other companies within the Reach Global group of companies. You may download material from this website for the sole purpose of using this website. However, you may not copy, transmit, modify, republish, store (in whole or in part), frame or pass-off any material or information on, or downloaded from, this website without our prior written consent."
Over to you guys, now. Enjoy your field day! ;0)
Always a pleasure...never a chore!
michael white - what web site, if we all apply pressure it may help.
Just to add a twist of lemon to the debate; we had a call from a lady wishing to view a property listed on RM for let. During conversation she said she had originally seen the property on Netmovers the day previously, had telephoned them to arrange a viewing but had heard nothing back from them. Strange we thought as we've sole agency on this particular property and don't use Netmovers. Stranger still when the lady advised us that she had given them all of her details such as dob, marital status and paid them a "viewing fee" of £25 via a debit card.
Had a look at their website, sure enough all of our listings were there, so we called up. We thought we should play them at their own game and pretend to be a potential viewer using a different sole agency property as the example. Sure enough, they went through the same questions culminating in a request for £25 via a debit card. When asked when we could have the viewing, they said they would "have to talk to the landlord" and get back to us. At this point we did, the Rogue Traders "Reveal" and challenged them. The back tracking was pathetic to say the least.
We've since found out which website they're scraping from and we're in communication with them about putting a block on.
Meantime, all I can say is they're UTTER SCUM!
I scraped my knee once.
Websites scraping websites, other websites scraping that website and before we know it, the property information is distributed across dozens of websites. Agents complain about this all the time. Scraping is a big problem due to inaccurate information held on websites, not being updated regularly, resulting in stale data. There are varied opinions on the pros and cons.
Here at dezrez we hold a firm stance over the scraping (preventing it where possible)and usage of data. We are given the responsibility and trust from our agents to ensure their property information is supplied to the intended destination. There is no real reason for portals to “scrape” data as we welcome property portals to integrate directly into our software. This then gives the estate agent the decision whether or not to opt into that particular portal.
Bit of an usual concept scraping details. I wonder does it hurt them, is there much loss of blood and do they cry a lot ????
I am often frustrated by this, and not only for the reasons already stated, but because these so-called portals scrape the data from our hard-won property listings to aggregate their site in order to attract site visitors and in so doing, build their own brand and business.
Oh yes, and when we have 'freely' given them the tools to create their portal, and one that is now attracting a large market audience, they will then see fit to charge us for subsequent listings, because of course, it is now a valuable route to market.
Not forgetting either, their 5 year exit plan, a six figure sale tag and a long sabbatical to the Seychelles.
Granted it's not such an easy model these days, but it's paid dividends for many I can, but won't name.
Anna is getting hotter.......... and the rest of the posters are so naive its incredible
Picking up on the comments from Richard Copus, this activity is also a breach of the CPR - or to give them their full title, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. These replace both the old Trade Descriptions Act regime and, most likely, the Property Misdescriptions Act.
I know of one agency which was put throw the hoop by their local trading standards officers due to an internet-related error which was outside the agents' control but would the TSOs accept the point? Would they heck?
For what its worth, I believe that Savills Bath office got so fed up with this happening to their sole agencies that they got a court injunction to stop it. Not going to name the scrappers in case I get it wrong. Not a cheap rememdy either.
B
I doubt we will ever know what people make using our data, ask your software suppliers where they get extra payments from sending your data to others, see if they tell you? At least this lot are open about thier scam!
Etsate Agent Today to me
Bit of a typo Ros on you Email account. us Grauniads normally do that srt of thing.
Agents can get around this by embedding a html coded link back to their web site listing page within the property description. Also consider including your agents name within the description.That should discourage unscrupulous portal and lead generators from scraping those particular listings.
Personally I don't really care about the copyright issue, but what I do care about is the sheer 'pain in the arse' factor.
These sites scrape the details but don't remove them. The net result is we're getting calls from people enquiring about properties that have been sold or let months ago. It wastes our time and their trying to explain that the site they saw the property on is unauthorised, and not one we use.
All it does is make us look bad because we appear not to be keeping our stock list up to date, when in fact, we're meticulous.
You people are on a different planet ! wake up - its in the public domain, everytime someone visits your own website the photos are auto downloaded onto their computers, you own nothing once it hits the public domain. Plus these houses are no secret, its selling, did you check if your vendor had any objections to other sites trying to sell their house for free ? get it out there, once its sold you wont be sharing the cash with anyone, they are doing you a favour, more free advertising for your client
1. The photos are copyright to the agent or photographer (subject to any other agreement).
2. The property is owned by the vendor, not the agent, who can take direct action against the scraper by-passing the agent. If the scraper is advertising the property incorrectly, which is often the case, or the property is no longer on the market, surely the home owner would have a case. Trouble is, nobody bothers to do anything.
Am I correct?
Richard Copus
The legal term for it is THEFT! The intelectual property rights of that instruction belong to the the Agent for it is he who has the contract with the his client to market the property under his own branding. The biggest obvious issue here is when a potential buyer responds to a dual advertised home such as in this case they could call the 'scraper' with the likely consequence that their call will not be dealt with properly thus losing the potential buyer altogether - and the instructed agent wouldn't have a clue! The practice is corrupt and surely must breach trading standards, representing yourself as the instructed agent when that is not the case.
A bit of a scam me thinks. But the photos are copyright. The largest screen scraper is Globrix and you need to sign up with them to allow them to scrape, so permission must be sought. Also the descriptions are copyright as YOU wrote them.