x

Stephen Crofts

768 Profile Views

About Me

my expertise in the industry

Stephen's Recent Activity

It’s great having a well know brand. The £millions spent on deceiveing the general public must be paying dividends - not with the bank though. Purple bricks revenues were up but profits were down, and now the growth of online “agents” seems to be “collapsing” according to the ticker tape report on EAT. It’s all very well having brand awareness much in the way that Ratners did but Ratners proves that you can have the best brand awareness in the country and still take a trip down the swannie!

From: Stephen Crofts 21 December 2018 07:57 AM

"A key measure of Purplebricks success is the effectiveness of its advertising and marketing spend" Most of their success is down to spending millions on lying to the public in their advertising and getting away with it.

From: Stephen Crofts 18 December 2018 09:04 AM

The key phrase in all of that is ..... "the agency says" and that, in my very humble opinion is where the spin stops in its tracks if anyone reading it has an ounce of common sense to be able to read between the lines. It not really a business unless its making some sort of profit - until that point its nothing more that an unpaid debt and some clever accounting. I rest my case. Thank you.

From: Stephen Crofts 13 December 2018 08:43 AM

Surely then (in the interest of accuracy - something of a stranger to PB) the statement in this case should be "70% of the online only market". Traditional agents are also all online, the online presence figure of all combined agents across the UK would see PB's 70% claim dwindle significantly - so the figure may be fairly accurate in one respect but has been applied to nothing more than spin.

From: Stephen Crofts 15 October 2018 09:16 AM

I shall meet this "news" with the contempt it deserves.... so here it is - "LOL" Trustpilot! - Irony 70%? - Lol again I am excited by the prospect that this is the start of the PB over expansion.

From: Stephen Crofts 15 October 2018 08:44 AM

Unfortunately and in my opinion, online reviews for large anonymous and national agencies are to be taken with a pinch of salt. I refer mainly to the ironically named “trustpilot” where an online estate agency has over 40,000 positive reviews yet every other review site is full of mostly negative reviews so I have to ask the question “why is that”? The same online agency also took legal action against one of the review sites to have the negative reviews removed... interesting. Meet anyone who have instructed the online agency and you’ll find that around 70pc are actually dissatisfied - mostly because the agency lie or at best stretch/contort the truth to get the listing. I find the best deciding tools are to check local reviews for local businesses as they are less open to manipulation and are very rarely paid reviews. Choose local every time.

From: Stephen Crofts 13 October 2018 09:57 AM

I will again make a direct comparison between Purpe Bricks and Wonga. Both claim to be the consumers champion, both offered a service with sneaky small print, both investigated continuously for their claims in advertising, both exposed as lying, both fail in their delivery of promises, both expanded into overseas territories, both were tipped for stock market superstardom, one has been sued and fined for their practices, one is simply getting away with what they can while they can. Both saw dips in their share price near the end. I hope the writing is on the walls for PB - they certainly deserve a fate equal to their own ethics.

From: Stephen Crofts 10 October 2018 07:54 AM

Unfortunately, and as one that has raised a few complaints with the ASA about this very subject, the slap on the wrist does nothing to prevent the damage already done to the honest service providers in the estate agency industry. In fact, the consequences to PB of lying in ads is absolutely zero, so why don't we all take a leaf from PB's book and say what we want, mislead the public, fail to mention hidden charges, fail to inform properly about all manner of important small print, and then once we've attracted the 10,000 or so customers from the lies we can shrug it off when we get a gentle slap on the wrist from the ASA. We don't do it because we all have a higher degree of professional integrity and have worked hard to build good reputations in our local market place - because we actually care what our customers think and don't have the budgets to bury bad reviews. When will the public realise that PB is not their friend? If they have to lie to get customers then surely that should be one of the biggest red flags going up when deciding on an agent. The problem is that the the lies told by PB and ASA rulings very rarely make it to the mainstream media so the average Joe is never any the wiser.

From: Stephen Crofts 03 October 2018 08:44 AM

Let’s hope this information can be independently verified before being released to the media only to be discovered as being another purple lie in 4 months time and once the damage to similar businesses of integrity has been done.

From: Stephen Crofts 27 September 2018 07:52 AM

It's nothing to do with people losing trust in traditional estate agency. In fact peoples trust in traditional appears to be growing on the back of companies like PB trying to pull the wool over their eyes. PB is the Wonga of the property industry, not entirely honest, a little bit sneaky and while their adverts cleverly tell you they are the consumers champion, they're actually not... sadly by the time you have succumbed to their "Con-misery" (the feeling of being conned into paying in advance for a service you will never ever receive) its all too late. "Here's my money, please give me a for sale board and and a password to a snazzy online portal where I actually sell my own property... hang on, no, wait!". Purple bricks have been clever - they've spent £millions setting themselves up as an online agent, and £millions more on TV ads trying to convince us they're not!!! Don't even get me started on their bolt on services.

From: Stephen Crofts 25 September 2018 10:26 AM

I’ve coined a phrase especially for companies like PB. “Conmisery” - the feeling of being conned into paying up front for a service you will never receive”

From: Stephen Crofts 18 September 2018 21:47 PM

Breaking News