Twitter campaign against online agents

A Twitter account appearing to be from a traditional high street estate agent is waging a social media campaign against online rivals with strident attacks on eMoov and Hatched.

@TheHonestView - an account run by an unnamed individual or group going under the pseudonym Mr Honest' - has been criticising online agents since August.

The account holder appears to be a traditional agent because he (if it is a he') has tweeted criticism of vendors too, such as this one on August 17: If so many vendors think they know better than estate agents then why don't they open up their own agency.

Three days later this was followed up by this tweet: How do vendors think it's ok to make derogatory remains about my team without a blunt response

However, Mr Honest' reserves his strongest criticism for online competitors.

Alongside a photo of property details listed on eMoov the unknown agent tweets: This is why you don't instruct a cheap agent like @eMoov #amateurs.

And over the weekend there was a series of exchanges between the anonymous agent and Adam Day, founder of Hatched. A typical tweet from Mr Honest' was: The guy from Hatched thinks as long as you offer all the services of Estate Agency that [sic] enough...not if your service is poor.

This is the latest of a series of Twitter-spats between online and traditional estate agents in recent weeks.

A few days ago Russell Quirk, chief executive of eMoov, was engaged in a war of tweets with Noel Flint, head of London residential offices for Knight Frank - one of Knight Frank's out-of-London offices is a follower of Mr Honest'.

In recent weeks another London agent, Ed Mead, a director at London agent Douglas & Gordon, has been using Twitter to criticise easyProperty online agency.