A property website is making an extraordinary series of ‘get rich quick’ offers, and has ambitions to take over the property listing world. The offers include £100 a week 'compensation' if the property does not sell.
If it decides to challenge Rightmove, Propertywikia already has curious – and no doubt coincidental – links.
For example, when EAT asked about Propertywikia’s ownership, we were told it was owned by the RMV Group. EAT has not been able to trace a company called RMV Group, but a Google search for ‘RMV Group’ comes up with Rightmove Group in top place.
RMV is the ‘ticker’ symbol for Rightmove shares.
There is absolutely no suggestion whatever that Rightmove is in any way connected with Propertywikia.
EAT was also told that Propertywikia is part of 3i Catalyst, a venture capitalist company which lists Rightmove as being among clients that ‘we participate with, fund or advise’.
The 3i Catalyst website, which seems to have nothing to do with the better known 3i, does not, however, mention RMV Group or Propertywikia.
Propertywikia is currently trying to attract ‘affiliates’ by dangling rich rewards.
The site says it makes its own money by receiving finders’ fees from 5,000 or so investors. For example, it says it earned £14.8m in July. It claims also to earn advertising revenue, which it says so far to date amounts to £22m.
It also says that its backers have £73m of funding.
The site offers free listings. It also offers £100 compensation every week to both sellers and affiliates that a property does not sell after 12 weeks (the site claims to be selling properties within eight weeks).
For buyers, it offers to pay legal and surveying fees plus 50% of removal costs. For tenants, it offers £100 compensation every week if they fail to find somewhere to rent within 12 weeks, plus 50% of removal costs and free use of a negotiator.
For property agents, it offers free listings and free sales leads. However, the site really appears to be trying to build private sales listings, as elsewhere it tells affiliates: “With the growth of the ‘For Sale By Owner’ concept in the property market, things are changing and changing fast. More and more sellers are listing their property on internet property portals in an attempt to avoid paying hefty agents’ commission fees.
“PropertyWikia has found a way to capitalise on that small shift in thinking to provide you with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that could secure your financial future forever.”
The affiliates appear to have to do very little other than introduce properties for listing on the site, in return for which they get £2,000 commission per property, payable within 30 days.
But at the weekend, a message appeared on Propertywikia, apparently from an affiliate in the US, asking about unpaid commission for July.
Affiliates are currently being offered a free 24-hour trial of the service. If they wish to upgrade and ‘buy’ their own sales territory, there is a one-off cost of £109.
In the UK, Propertywikia operates from an address given as: (Part of the RMV Group), Level 33, 25 Canada Square, Canary Wharf. The address is home to Citibank, but level 33 is advertised as being available as serviced and ‘virtual’ offices where ‘hot desks’ can be hired.
There are some properties listed on the site, which also features glowing testimonials.
The sellers of two tiny one-bed flats, which don’t appear to be priced to sell, are presumably hoping to benefit from the £100 a week on offer as ‘compensation’ after 12 weeks.
Both are in Lambeth, south London, and are for sale at well over £2m each.
One property, listed at £2.6m, shows a picture of a tiny, cramped kitchen.
The second, in Larkhall Rise, Lambeth, is on at £2.6m, and measures just 549 square feet.
Potential buyers of properties are advised to obtain any legal information, including EPCs ‘within Home Information Packs’.
Would-be affiliates are told that all they need is a PC and the ‘unashamed desire to make money’. They are told that the system means that they will even get paid on failure.
As this sounded attractive to EAT, we called Propertywikia and spoke to Julian Vincent who told us that Propertywikia is a British firm and that it operates a ‘network marketing scheme’. He sent us a ‘bullet point’ email which he promised would be a ‘light bulb’ moment.
In it, EAT learned that Propertywikia “sell well over 1,000 properties a month. Much of our property does not even reach our website’s content as it is bought by investors and registered buyers before it is published to the general public.”
Propertywikia claims to have sold 2,419 properties in August, and says that it has over 7,500 private buyers lined up plus over 5,000 investors, including banks, building societies and pension funds. It says it needs more properties to sell.
Affiliates are told that all they need do is to find properties for sale and contact the owners. Either the affiliate or the seller can list the property.
The affiliate can also introduce other affiliates, and for every listing the sub-affiliates introduce, also get paid.
So, is there a catch? It appears not, although you do have to list 125 properties within a 25-week period in order to get paid your ‘no failure income guarantee’. Furthermore, all 125 have to be sold by Propertywikia. Alternatively, you have to have 175 properties listed, with the guarantee validated even if none is sold.
However, the system allows the listings target to be achieved with the help of sub-affiliates. It also appears that the affiliates still get paid commission, even if they don’t reach the target for their ‘no failure income guarantee’.
The Propertywikia site scores well under the Alexa traffic scoring system. However, it also notes that 17% of people searching for it use terms such as ‘Is it for real’, and ‘Is it a scam?’
EAT would be very interested to hear from agents who have had dealings with the site.
Comments
Yes, Trevor, agreed; it's a total scam. Evidently designed and built that way from the ground up since 2007. Not sure where you get the Thailand connection from but PropertyWikia's emails (and 3iCatalyst's) track to an IP address registered to Telefonica O2 in Prague, Czech Republic. You might be right about the two guys and the bedroom. The...er.. dishonoured Czechs?
And yes, the Canary Wharf address is a big front. More big front than a Dolly Parton look-alike parade.
PW may still have an account with HSBC, but you can bet your last Rolo the cash has been spirited away to an offshore account. I wonder where?
Well, I know an affiliate who got a refund a while ago from PW -- within the 30 days -- and he had to phone his bank to find out where it came from; his statement identified the source with a cryptic "SB". Turned out it came from a bank in SERBIA.
I would say your chances of a refund, Trevor, are as unfeasibly slim as Miss Parton's assets are unfeasibly... ahem... 'curvy'.
As they say in the States... sorry for you loss.
I spent over £1500 on the PropertyWikia scam. I requested a full refund which, although promised, never materialised. Anyone looking at this so called business opportunity should walk away, it's a total scam. It's purely a couple of young blokes working from a bedroom in Thailand. The canary wharf address is a front, there are many scam companies that use this prestigious address, beware. Paypal have closed the PW account, PW now bank with HSBC in Edgware Road, this is not a good advert for HSBC, allowing scam businesses to use their banking facilities. I asked HSBC for my money back and their rep in the Southend on Sea branch more or less said no can do, it's your problem for getting involved. HSBC, in my opinion, are laundering money for PW with total disregard for the people like me that have been ripped off. If you want your money back from PW then I suggest you contact HSBC at Edgeware Road, London. Hopefully, if they're the bank they say they are, they will deal with this account in the correct manner ... AND REFUND MY MONEY!!!
@seh 'Julian Vincent' is the false identity of the individual who fronts PropertyWikia; the so-called Affiliate Manager whom affiliates dialogue with on a day-to-day basis. But no-one has ever met him, no-one has ever seen a photo of him; no-one has ever seen any kind of 'bio' about him.
The truth is, 'Julian Vincent' is simply an alias of the fraudsters, who we now know are controlling the 3iCatalyst-PropertyWikia scam from the Czech Republic.
Crooks and fraudsters !
Who is JV (Julian Vincent) anway?
You gotta check out this hilarious cartoon over at RealScam.com:
http://www.realscam.com/f12/property-wikia-fraud-so-many-levels-878/#post13878
Enjoy.
Propertywikia SUCKS BIG TIME!
It`a anybodies guess, but from the grammatical faux pas,it`s my guess that the source is Nigeria
Propertywikia is a scam - similar to other user posts on here as soon as you reach a point where you are eliglble for compenasation then you receive an e-mail stating you need to pas a security check,which is imposible to do. They say if you don't perform it within 72 hours then you lose any entitlement to compensation. I e-mailed them to state there was no way to perform the security check (and guess what their turnaround time for answering e-mails is,assuming they do answer),yes it's 72 hours. They have no intenton of paying out compensation to anybody. How they can be allowed to state their bold claims is beyond me and is surely illegal
Advertised our spanish property with Property wikia anf got near the 12 week mark when we received a "security" check email asking us to forward our original registration details - having done this we were told they were incorrect - all I can say about this site is that it is a load of spherical objects !!! No way are they going to give you £100 per week !!
Ladies And Gentlemen...
PROPERTYWIKIA HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!
“I applied to PW for a refund within my 30-day cooling off period. I sent my letter recorded delivery, but was returned 'Not known at this address'. I then sent e-mails, and tried to ring - all to no avail. I then contacted Alertpay (who I had paid through) and they have refunded my £109 payment minus £2.25 admin fee. Sorted!!!!!!!! But how stupid was I to believe PW's spin? At the time of enroling, I could not find any concrete evidence against them. Lesson learned :-))”
(Source: Jonathan Briggs - Property Tribes)
http://propertytribes.ning.com/forum/topics/property-wikia?xg_source=msg_com_forum&id=2886658%3ATopic%3A288142&page=11#comments
I hardly need say it, but if you crossed these parasites’ oily palms with AlertPay like Jonathan did...
Beat the rush and get your AlertPay refund NOW!
I have a hunch it won't be too long before we also find that PropertyWikia-dot-com has left the Internet.
My story is EXACTLY the same as Lara's. I so regret putting my house on that website- and since they have locked me out and won't respond to my emails I have no way of getting my house off of that website. And to make it worse, someone else also listed my house without authorization and it remains on there too, even though I have sent them my request to have it removed. I feel sorry for anyone who paid to be an affiliate! If you are considering PLEASE BE AWARE THAT IT IS A SCAM!!!
Check out the latest instalments in the rise and fall of 3iCatalyst / ProperyWikia:
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?p=1100610#post1100610
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?p=1101324#post1101324
Enjoy!
Over the last few weeks, I've been doing my due diligence on 3iCatalyst trading as PropertyWikia (part of the RMV Group). And I mean DEEP due diligence.
All the evidence leads to the conclusion that it's just one big conspiracy to defraud affiliates.
Starting with post No.119, check out the detail in my reports, here:
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=142743&page=3
Hope you haven't handed too much of your 'hard-earned' over to these charlatans.
Jools
I am one of those who tried their luck at Property Wikia. I had nothing to loose because I want to sell my house, so I listed it, for free.
Now !'m more more that 3 months further and elligible for their compensation because the property isn't sold (didn't got any reaction by the way during those 3 months).
So first, everything seems okay. They's send you an mail telling you to confirm the data you filled in when you registered.
And then, guess what, the problem start. Their webpage where you have to confirm it, says that your data are incorrect.
You than just have bad luck because there's no other possibility to confirm that you indeed are the owner. In this way, they don't have to pay.
They don't respond my many mails (or I get a kind of automatic message 'confirm that you are the owner'.
When you send emails to the support, it's undeliverable, they don't take the phone.
I was happy to get someone on the phone once, and the person told me he knew what the problem with my confirmation was but that he had no intention to tell me, I indeed had back luck and then just broke off the phone.
There's no possibility to access your own data, and the website's links don't work.
I heard this same story from more than 20 people.
So, yes, PropertyWikia.com is fake. I think it's just to get money from their affiliates and collect email addresses to use for spam.
Well guys i paid £109.00 2 weeks ago, so did one of my friends, he asked for his money back and got it back today, No scam there, the way i see it 109 is not alot but if it was free everyone would have a go and most would open an account and not bother doing anything with it,
a space waster, the 109 your more likley to make more of a comitment.
try it your self
http://www.cashwikia.com/3258621790/250K
If you landed here, then you are an entreprenuer researching PropertyWikia and probably finding like I already have that it's a SCAM. It's been already been done before under a differant name!
Anyway, why in the World would they charge you for sales areas? If they were legit they would give them FREE, first come first serve and they would have happy very motivated little workers making them lots of money. It's very simple, the scam is in the sales area costs! HELLO!
What part of this scam do you not understand?
Any street level scam artist will see this straight away!
Only intelligent people fall for this, not the street educated.
Anyway, If you wnat to earn everyday please look at the "JSS tripler" It's simple, invest and earn 2% daily 60% monthly on all your $10.00 positions
JSS Tripler has made me very happy!
http://adv.justbeenpaid.com/?r=bobbydin
PS...do a Alexa search for www.justbeenpaid.com and you'll see how this has gone through the roof in just 7 months
Lovely house for sale in Brittany, France
www.houseinbrittany.weebly.com
Mr Lee: "check out its Alexa ranking after just 4 weeks"
WOW! - you've suckered SO MANY into viewing this painfully awful website that you now register on Alexa!
Check ratings again in another month when people realise you may as well turn the computer off and view the blank screen for inspiration!
Still - glasd to see you didn't spend muh on the website build...
PS.
If we have no author spots left on http://www.howtosellpropertyfast.com/
just contact us if you are interested to be apart of a big team of writers working on one property website :-)
we have loads more property domains set up and raring to go... What sort of Alexa ranking could we have for
http://www.howtosellpropertyfast.com/ in a year
if we already have a good one after a month.
Property Wikia Scam, na once in a lifetime opportunity if you join our team, if wikia fails we will buy franchise.
http://www.pwikia.com/join/ show your faith and commitment.
I have bought and paid for two areas, I am not worried if they are a scam / I wasted 10 times that last year on Mc Donalds, sweets,beer and sh.. like it.
I do not think they are sam, if they are it will be one of the biggest most of us will get to witness.
Why I am not worried,
I am part of a small but growing team of marketers all working on one website...... all about property, not to mention the real estate content that we will add along with mortgages / insurance, etc get the picture.. check out its Alexa ranking after just 4 weeks
howtosellpropertyfast.com/
If you want to join our team of marketers join my wikia team here www.pwikia.com/join/
visit howtosellpropertyfast.com/ and tell us you want to join our marketing team.
Your skills should be on par with ours or better}
Anyone read this yet? http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=142116
Advice to the other 'PeeBee'. Get a life. This lot already know I haven't got one...
Realising Repetitivity: "Unrealistic property advertisements ought to be outlawed by any responsible Government.." Why? If they are unrealistic, then they will simply not sell. Why suggest the Government waste their time and resource in this futile manner? No laws are being broken. The only 'losers' are those who choose to advertise - and it was THEIR choice!
The right click comment was not evidence that it is a scam.
I'm simply saying, why would a reputable company, create a disable on something quite basic?
Google doesn't. Estate Agency Today doesn't.
You're right. It's not a scam. Send your £109 today.
Bet you're looking forward to banking your £ 180,000 ten weeks from now.
.
Wardy,
you're not wrong fella, that's a deep sea diver I'm never going to see again but crickey it's money well spent to stop the flood of cobblers the daft old goat normally gobs off all over the show
Jonnie
Well just laughed out loud at! the right click comment - what a load of tosh !
If you are in firefox go to your 'tools', 'web developer' and 'view source' and voila you can view it!
drrrrrr
fiver to the cats home please jonnie
@DavidB
"If you go to any legitimate website, and right click your mouse button, you will get a drop down menu that lets you 'view Page Source'
If you try this on their website, they have blocked that facility."
Actually, many sites disable the right click - it is a very simple bit of javascript that does this - in an attempt to stop people viewing source and nicking their pictures or their javascript code.
You can always view source by clicking (in Internet Explorer) the View menu and then selecting 'Source' from the drop down menu.
Alternatively, you can disable javascript in your browser - although this may well cause the site to not work properly.
Disabling right click really isn't evidence of a scam
I have been in Real Estate 22 years and Property Finders are very common. To source properties for buyers is not unusal. To get paid by the Buyer is common.
For $179 for an HQ area one time fee is not alot to lose as we all have lost alot more in MLM or cheap start up programs.
As this is all online it isnt needing to hire alot of space to have a business it can be run from a laptop.
I say if people are sceptical they have every right too BUT when buyers pay $5000 to PropertyWikia to source properties and in turn PropertyWikia pay $3200 to its affiliates there are no losers here.
I personally purchased the underlying New Zealand Licence from PropertyWikia for a nominal sum. I understand it is for 2 years at which it gets converted to a Franchise agreement.
I am at this point recruiting affiliatea globally.
The old saying is only invest what you can afford to lose.
I am happy and look forward to a positive outcome with PropertyWikia and as an ex real estate agent this is more attractive to me than the tedious hours I did doing open homes, prospecting, running buyers around, competing with agents for vendors properties. Doing all this for FREE at my expense.
I say give PropertyWikia a chance if it doesnt pay we are all punters. If it does pay we secured the strongest real estate on the internet being our own HQ territory.
http://www.propertywikia.me
Skype - terrycuthbert
For those that might be tempted
There are two parts to a successful Pyramid (Ponzi) scheme.
The first part is greed, and a desire to be rich for little effort. We are all potentially susceptible to this (including me!).
The second part is a LACK of understanding about exponential growth.
It’s a combination of both components that gets the punters in.
Is there money to be made in a pyramid scheme?
It depends how long you can keep the delusion going.
The first 10 ‘affiliates’ could potentially get quite rich, but it will be at the expense of 10,000 ‘affiliates’ that send £109, and have nothing to show for it.
Berni Madoff did very well out of it, until he found himself in jail of course!
@Chris - very tempted myself
It had seriously crossed my mind to give it a go for a laugh....still might actually, someone from here needs to do this to actually find out what the con is.
Last comment is NOT mine !
Thank you PeeBee, shame it took some one like RR to make me break ranks and comment.....he dont half get me going!
Realising Reality, your comments are almost as sh*te as your terrible excuse for a website, against estate agents (which has thousands of listings, the same ones that you moan about on rightmove, scraped from other estate agents).
http://www.property-match.co.uk/
Go away.
The thing i find most peculiar is when visiting the website and finding the testimonials page. all the contributions were given on the same dates? coincidence?... probably not!
wardy: Welcome back!
'PeeBee': You are a prat. Thick to the point of not even being able to come up with a name of your own? Or simply trying to be funny?
Either way - Realising Reality has a contender for Most Pointless 'Contributor' to this site...
Agreed, it is a nonsense.
However,
@Realising Reality
Your ideas should go down well in a country like North Korea or similar.
Its only £109, I am slightly tempted. Anyone else willing to pee 100 quid up the wall just to see!!
Sorry 'what an idiot'
I'm presuming that the 'PeeBee' post below is from the imposter.....
Generally he is more inventive in his choice of comments than 'he's and idiot'
I know a Brian Thomas. I think he's Welsh.
What an idiot !
http://scam.com/showthread.php?p=1081670
enough said ?
@Wardy, I reckon he dropped off the planet to try and find a solicitor as daft as him to take the case!
With the amount of properties on his cr*ppy little site, and the sales conversions, one could be excused for thinking an anorexic mouse would starve to death if it was relying on him to pay the Tesco bill!
I think EAT deleting this story would be best so some poor sod does not become aware of it and then fall for it!
to good to be true...........? no brainer!
@ Country Lass,
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Do you think he will have to pay his legal fee's up front or do you reckon he has a lawyer who would sue for free thanks to all the conveyancing case's he passes them?
I've just done a search of the owners of the domain name propertywikia.com
Here it is.
Registrant:
PropertyWikia (part of the RMV Group)
Level 33, 25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf,
London, E14 5LB
United Kingdom
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: PROPERTYWIKIA.COM
Created on: 29-Apr-07
Expires on: 29-Apr-13
Last Updated on: 09-Feb-11
Administrative Contact:
Thomas, Brian incubated@3icatalyst.com
PropertyWikia (part of the RMV Group)
Level 33, 25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf,
London, E14 5LB
United Kingdom
+44.07924590594 Fax -- +44.07010758732
Technical Contact:
Thomas, Brian incubated@3icatalyst.com
PropertyWikia (part of the RMV Group)
Level 33, 25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf,
London, E14 5LB
United Kingdom
+44.07924590594 Fax -- +44.07010758732
If anyone has the time to check it out further they can, but my view is it is a scam.
Remember the old adage.
IF IT SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT PROBABLY IS
It's a classic Pyramid Scheme.
Try this on their website.
If you go to any legitimate website, and right click your mouse button, you will get a drop down menu that lets you 'view Page Source'
If you try this on their website, they have blocked that facility.
It's a scam, although I have to admit it is a well designed scam!
Maybe he's still on his "I'll unmask and sue you' kick!
Should be amusing....
Careful though Wardy, you might find yourself on the defendant list with me and PeeBee!
Seems a great idea to me.
Wish I'd thought of it first.
Never mind.
Fun Boy,
Agree mate, he’s back! And with a………………erm, not a bang as such more of a wet (and ill advised) farty noise.
Yup, swaggering in repeating him self like a Glaswegian vagrant tanked up on Tenants Super and shouting at whoever will listen to him it’s the EA resident drunk, Realising Reality [clapping and whopping noise]
………………now its nearly 11.30, the daft old goat has pitched in with three posts already, his personal best in a day was 70 something, I assume he passed out in a puddle of his own wee with exhaustion so lets have bets on what he can manage today, can he break his personal best?
Ill have a fiver on 50…………anyone else? – Fun Boy, if we all ignore him then that’s a fiver ill never see again so lets see what we can get out of him – duplicate posts don’t count, he’s good at them and has already ‘done a double’ in a 5 minute period but lest keep him going eh?
Jonnie
Shut your face before you embarrass yourself.
That’s mine.
Look before you leap Wardy. That's my advice.
Realising Reality
'Unrealistic property advertisements ought to be outlawed by any responsible Government, if it cares for the very society which it is supposed to be governing, by election?'
That’s flipping rich coming from you and your woeful excuse of a website. I haven’t looked but are you still listing my sold stock as available and at wrong prices without my permission?
what a jerk
DO NOT PANDER TO THIS PLONKER
'Realising Reality
THESE IDIOTS ARE TRYING TO TURN EVERY THREAD, EVERY STORY INTO A HPC DEBATE.
PLEASE, PLEASE FELLOW EA's. DONT RISE TO THIS, IT IS UTTER IGNORANCE ON THE PART OF THIS INDIVIDUAL.
What's on offer here, is everything that is bad about the free listing debacle, whether this be via selling agents, or not.
Unrealistic property advertisements ought to be outlawed by any responsible Government, if it cares for the very society which it is supposed to be governing, by election?
Never mind Propertywikia, they should be taking a look at the nonsensical asking prices being quoted on Rightmove first. Prices frequently bear no relation to current market values. There's nobody checking - It's daft!
No wonder so few houses are actually getting sold these days. Does the present government care? Well it certainly should.
What's on offer here, is everything that is about the free listing debacle, whether this be via selling agents, or not.
Unrealistic property advertisements ought to be outlawed by any responsible Government, if it cares for the very society which it is supposed to be governing, by election?
Never mind Propertywikia, they should be taking a look at the nonsensical asking prices being quoted on Rightmove first. Prices frequently bear no relation to current market values. There's nobody checking - It's daft!
No wonder so few houses are actually getting sold these days. Does the present government care? Well it certainly should.
QUOTE "Propertywikia says their backers including banks and pension funds have £73m in capital".
If this is true and the banks only have £73m left (which is pennies in the grand scheme of things given they have hundreds of billions in bad/toxic loans/euro zone and US debt to realise....its time to withdraw all your remaining cash (if you have any) and head for the exit.
this is a COMPLETE FRAUD and will be reported to the Police.
Property conman Keith Fryer is sent to jail
If it sounds too good to be true, & involves sales,.....
not to mention the catches listed & an affiliate already chasing an unpaid commission.
Boiler room?
Another "we sold out" article from EAT. Looks like a load of sh*t to me. Way to busy and crappy ads all over the place. Not to mention that you have to select about 15 criteria (slight over exagerration) before it will even let you search.
I doubt any of my clients will have heard of this in the next 12 months.
Whoa there! Someones nicked my pyramid.......
"Revenue stream 3 - you can refer other affiliates into the level below and they will do the same to create a down-line of up to 19 levels deep. All listings from the affiliates in each level count towards your own guarantee's 175 validation target."
Utter tosh.