Our office in Hertford has been open just five months and already the dirty tricks from a competitor have started. A High Street estate agent in Hoddesdon, who shall remain nameless but who are part of a national chain, has so far booked a valuation and a viewing under false names as a way to find out how we pitch for new business and to waste our time. We had this kind of thing happen when we opened in Somerset so know what to expect.
The elusive Mr Falconio who booked a late evening viewing of a house we have just put on the market aroused our suspicions by refusing to give a mobile ‘phone number and true to form didn’t turn up (so wasting our and our client’s time) and didn’t call to say why. When we called in the morning to find out why we went straight through to the agent’s office – they went to the trouble of creating a false hotmail account but used their actual number which wasn’t very clever. A later email from “Mr Falconio” was made us laugh – it alleged they hadn’t come as “he had to stay late at work” and his girlfriend had decided “after lengthy discussion” that the area was wrong.
In the other instance I went to a valuation for a supposed Mr Thomas – only the person who met me was the manager from the same office pretending to be the flat’s owner. We know this as he told another client that he’d met me that morning when he found out he’d lost another instruction to us. As the only person I met that day was Mr Thomas – whose disappeared into thin air when I have tried to get him subsequently – it’s easy to see what it going on. I’m sure if I popped into their office “Mr Thomas” would be staring up at me from the manager’s desk!
My two clients both know who is responsible and their advice is to just rise above it. That was my instinct too as I take it as another back handed compliment. We’ll just focus on what we are trying to do, which is to offer clients a fresh alternative approach to selling their homes, and hopefully to save them some money in the process.