“Agent review sites” have been out there for awhile. You know the type — a directory / database of real estate agents where in theory clients of these agents submit “reviews” of their agent and experiences.
Amazon does it with books. IMDB does it with movies. Sites like IncredibleAgents and HomeThinking attempt to do it with real estate agents. These types of sites aren’t exclusive to real estate agents — UReview.net is for attorneys, RateMDs.com does doctors, RateMyProfessors.com…. well, you get the idea.
I’m not here to argue the viability of the business model of these types of sites. Nor will I address whether they even serve a purpose. Some will say they do, others not. I haven’t really formed an opinion either way.
But this morning, a post popped up in my feed reader. It was from the Incredible Agent blog and the title, “How not to get a review deleted off IncredibleAgents.com“, piqued my curiosity.
Apparently a not-so-flattering agent review was entered into their system. The agent on the wrong end of said review would seem to be rather, shall we say “displeased” at his name being attached to a scathing review.
So Mr. Agent fired off an email to the CEO, complete with lines like:
Son, and I think I can call you that, since I am about twice your age, you are in trouble.
What you are about to get into is certainly not worth it.
And my favorite:
I know all about you and your family.
You are in the process of making a serious mistake.
Where I come from, that last little nugget would be nothing but a threat. And a serious one at that. I could probably find a line in the Realtor Code of Ethics that spells out in detail that firing off a threat like this is wrong.
But the unwritten Code of Common Sense, Decency, and Being a Good Human is clear enough for me.
All this agent had to do was provide the facts that would dispute the reviewers claim (assuming such facts exist). The review site provides exactly that capability.
There are several ethically centered questions that come to mind here…
- Are sites that allow anyone, anywhere to write anything about anyone “right”?
- Should these sites be moderated?
- Does the site owner have a responsibility to fact-check a posted review?
- Is putting the entire text of an email into a blog post acceptable?
- Did the email sender have a reasonable expectation that his email would not be shared or discussed in the open?
The transparency of the Internet, and its impact and ethical implications on bloggers of any flavor, is (or should be) an area for much consideration and thought.
And your thoughts would be?
Vicki Moore says:
If you don’t want your words used against you, you shouldn’t put them in writing.
Free speech is rampant on the net, whether it’s a particular site or yelp.com. There is a place on Damon’s site for a comment/rebuttal. That would have been the place for the guy to make his claim.
I have put an entire email on my blog – I think once you make an ass of yourself, you’re fair game to be made fun of.
December 5, 2007 — 2:52 pm
David G from Zillow.com says:
Facing your critics is never fun but it’s part of life. How you respond to criticism says 1,000 times more about you than anything else you have to say. This agent blew an awesome marketing opportunity when he chose not to respond to his critic … and worse, he’s now confirmed the accuracy of the critique by protesting too much. IMO, IA were rather kind not to add the e-mail to the review.
December 5, 2007 — 2:59 pm
Cindy says:
He had the opportunity to do a rebuttal on the site. If you are going to sign up for a site where you be reviewed your services then you need to be ready for what comes flying at you. The internet has very few places for you to hide.
December 5, 2007 — 4:18 pm
CJ, Broker in L A, CA says:
I haven’t been paying close enough attention to these things.
If I read Cindy’s comment correctly, you don’t get reviewed unless you have signed up/joined the site?
Or if that’s not the case, can you opt out?
December 5, 2007 — 7:26 pm
Utah Realtor says:
I think its a good thing. It holds Realtors more accountable to provice adequate service. It’s too bad more clients don’t use rating services.
December 5, 2007 — 8:03 pm
Georgia New Homes says:
It’s important for realty agencies to put all their focus on providing excellent service to their clients.
Good blog!
December 6, 2007 — 2:01 pm
Agent Scoreboard says:
Well its obvious from the email he sent that he isn’t up on the law, but what more tragic about it is that on that realtor’s website, he has about 15+ testimonials, if he was a wise agent he would ask his “clients” who left him feedback on his site to go to IncredibleAgents and leave feedback.
That one “bad” review when considered alongside 15 “good” reviews wouldn’t have effected his score one bit. Feedback is good… some will be bad… life is that way.
One element I didn’t like is the fact that incredibleagents allows “Unconfirmed” people to post reviews. There needs to be more scrutiny of postings
December 6, 2007 — 3:35 pm
Damon Pace - Incredible Agent says:
Update: This guy has called my broker and asked about my wife. Obviously he doesn’t know about my family as he claimed because I am not married.
@Jay: I don’t feel like I was wrong posting the entire email to my blog. Threats are not protected speech of any kind. If you had a video of someone threatening you or committing a crime would it be wrong to post it? Most personal communications should be protected, but not hate speech, threats or anything of the like.
I allow every agent the opportunity to respond to their reviews professionally. We also have a dispute policy that allows them to dispute the review and have it deleted if it’s complete non-sense. Very simple…yet not everyone gets it.
@David G: We are not done investigating the issue and we will probably add everything to his profile.
@Mike (Agent Scoreboard): You’re right that adding positive reviews are far better than complaining/threatening about 1 bad review. However, you are wrong that each review needs to be “Confirmed”. Reviews are opinions of service. How do you confirm an opinion? We are not a court of law and have no plans to hold court on every review left. I scan the reviews to make sure they are not blatant BS, but it would be rather difficult to do much more. We are only a vehicle to provide opinions and manage responses. Nothing more.
Not every consumer is going to have a definitive transaction with each agent. Some have fired their agent and there would be no public transaction history on those, yet they would be justified in having an opinion. In regards to the review in question, we have verified that this agent was involved in a transaction with this consumer.
December 6, 2007 — 9:37 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I don’t feel like I was wrong posting the entire email to my blog.
FWIW, I think your email is yours to do with as you choose. If it contains a do-not-blog stipulation, and/or if you care to sustain the relationship, that will govern your behavior. But your mail is yours when it hits your mailbox, real or virtual.
December 6, 2007 — 9:53 pm
Jay Thompson says:
Damon – didn’t mean to imply that you were wrong to post the email. In fact, I agree with your posting it. Just trying to point out that it raises a question. Certainly I’m not the first one to bring up this aspect of “email handling”.
Personally, I find the tone of the email you received leaves little doubt as to the accuracy of the review…
December 6, 2007 — 10:01 pm
Bob in San Diego says:
“However, you are wrong that each review needs to be “Confirmed”. Reviews are opinions of service. How do you confirm an opinion? We are not a court of law and have no plans to hold court on every review left.”
Review, opinion, or defamation? You are liable for what you publish. If it isn’t true, you don’t get to hide behind “opinion”.
When you get into the realm of professional reputation, it can be considered “per se defamation”. It can be expensive to defend against. Why would you assume such liability?
December 7, 2007 — 2:28 pm
Bob says:
Cindy is wrong about something here — real estate agents don’t sign up to be on Damon’s website. He just puts them there. I NEVER asked to be included on his website, but I’m on there.
The realtor in question is a friend and neighbor of mine. I think he was wrong to say anything about Damon’s family.
Nonetheless, Damon is not without blame here. He has set up a system where anyone can post anything, anonomously, about the realtor. Without information about the poster, the realtor’s only recourse is to go to Damon’s forum and submit a rebuttal. (Gee, thanks.) Sometimes, the post can be so vague that it’s just not easy to rebut the post — or you can find yourself denying something that simply ridiculous.
Want something removed from the site? No dice. Just post your rebuttal. Damon will not remove anything, even something that is demonstrably false.
Some cold comfort: Damon, in his wisdom, will use his discretion to filter out what he calls “total BS.” But if it doesn’t meet that standard — too bad!
If someone published things against my friend in their own name, he’d be able to file a lawsuit. But Damon won’t allow you to get that information so you can clear your name in court. It’s all in Damon’s hands.
Excuse me if I decline the invitation to jump on Damon’s bandwagon and praise his self-serving and slandering website.
January 24, 2008 — 8:02 am