Dear LegalBeagles,
We have been complaining about Purplebricks.com practices since December 2015, I will try to summarize it all up as small as possible and explain in detail on parts if asked.
Basically we signed with Purplebricks back in August 2015 to sell our home, we was advised to use the deferred payment scheme (fee payment is deferred for 10 months) because we are a low income family and we could not afford to pay the £798 fee. The Purplebricks Agent did not explain how the scheme works, he only said that after 10 months a company called Close Brothers Limited take the fee payment by direct debit.
After 3 months and only 8 viewings we was very unhappy with the service that we received and the type of people we got viewing our property. There was also a security issue with the way their online booking system works and we experienced a disturbing last viewing that made us stop using them for the remaining 7 months of the 10 months contract. We ended up going back to a local Estate Agent.
We started a yearlong campaign to complain about the service, security and miss selling of finance to various organisations including: The Property Ombudsman, The Financial Ombudsman, Trading Standards and the ICO, all regarding different aspects of Purplebricks and what we experienced.
None of these organisations where willing or able to take all of our complaints as a whole and offer a full compensation of the fee. Purplebricks was the most unsafe, misleading Estate Agent we have ever used, I would go as far as to say they are a scam that uses legal loop holes to get paid no matter what.
Our situation now is we now have a debt collection company called CARS trying to collect £823. This is not the first time they have tried to contact me and they only seem to try by email. The first email I received on 19/10/2016 they said this in the email :
We have been appointed by Purple Bricks to recover the above outstanding balance owed on your account. As you may have simply overlooked this debt, we are writing to give you one more chance to repay it before we take further action. If we do not hear from you within 10 days we will commence formal recovery proceedings.
The email suggested to me that they were just trying to pull a fast one and had no knowledge of what this was about. So I called them and I was correct they had no clue, I told them what had happened and that I was still trying to get help in fighting this. I also explained that this fee was paid to Purplebricks in the form of an unregulated Loan in my name that I was totally unaware of when I instructed them to sell my property, this was done by a company called Close Brothers Ltd. This got them totally confused and the person on the phone went away a couple of times to ask his manager what to do, they eventually said 'ok we will put it on hold and can you email us some more details' so I did. This is what I emailed them :
Dear Sirs
Thank you for the email. We are currently still trying to sort out our legal rights to dispute this Credit/Loan/Finance as explained on the telephone. We stated complaining about Purplebricks at the beginning of January 2016 to various body’s like TPO, Trading Standards and the Citizens Advice about the service we received from them, this is still ongoing. We later found out that this also included an unregulated Loan (not regulated under the Consumer Credit Act 1974) that was mis-sold to us, which was supplied by Close Brothers Ltd.
We was not aware, given or told at any point that this was a loan/credit or finance, both Purplebricks and Close Brothers have always denied that this was Credit, Loan or Finance. There was also no means test or check done to see if we could afford to pay back this loan, we told the Purplebricks Estate Agent several times that we are a low income family and could not afford the £798 fee, his answer was ‘You can defer the fee for 10 months and I guarantee you will sell the property before that’ he did not mention this was a loan, credit or finance and did not say anything about Purplebricks receiving the fee as a loan before we received any service.
If Close Brothers insist that this is not a Loan, Credit or Finance then I don’t see why C.A.R.S is trying to enforce it, if Close Brothers are still willing to pursue this with you, then I have enough evidence to justify this in court as to why we didn’t receive an adequate or safe service from Purplebricks and why we was mis-sold Finance, Credit or a Loan.
C.A.R.S have just emailed me again after 5 months saying the same thing in an email but this time it said the money is owed to Close Brothers.
I would like to know if this company C.A.R.S has any right to take this to court because at the bottom of their email and on their webpage its says this 'Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for accounts formed under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (amended 2006) licence No 521427' As this money was an unregulated loan then wouldn't this mean CARS are not authorised to pursue it?
Both the FCA and The Financial Ombudsman would not take up our complaint because it was unregulated finance and even though Close Brothers Ltd are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Who do we complain to now or do we wait for someone to take us to court?
Thank you
We have been complaining about Purplebricks.com practices since December 2015, I will try to summarize it all up as small as possible and explain in detail on parts if asked.
Basically we signed with Purplebricks back in August 2015 to sell our home, we was advised to use the deferred payment scheme (fee payment is deferred for 10 months) because we are a low income family and we could not afford to pay the £798 fee. The Purplebricks Agent did not explain how the scheme works, he only said that after 10 months a company called Close Brothers Limited take the fee payment by direct debit.
After 3 months and only 8 viewings we was very unhappy with the service that we received and the type of people we got viewing our property. There was also a security issue with the way their online booking system works and we experienced a disturbing last viewing that made us stop using them for the remaining 7 months of the 10 months contract. We ended up going back to a local Estate Agent.
We started a yearlong campaign to complain about the service, security and miss selling of finance to various organisations including: The Property Ombudsman, The Financial Ombudsman, Trading Standards and the ICO, all regarding different aspects of Purplebricks and what we experienced.
None of these organisations where willing or able to take all of our complaints as a whole and offer a full compensation of the fee. Purplebricks was the most unsafe, misleading Estate Agent we have ever used, I would go as far as to say they are a scam that uses legal loop holes to get paid no matter what.
Our situation now is we now have a debt collection company called CARS trying to collect £823. This is not the first time they have tried to contact me and they only seem to try by email. The first email I received on 19/10/2016 they said this in the email :
We have been appointed by Purple Bricks to recover the above outstanding balance owed on your account. As you may have simply overlooked this debt, we are writing to give you one more chance to repay it before we take further action. If we do not hear from you within 10 days we will commence formal recovery proceedings.
The email suggested to me that they were just trying to pull a fast one and had no knowledge of what this was about. So I called them and I was correct they had no clue, I told them what had happened and that I was still trying to get help in fighting this. I also explained that this fee was paid to Purplebricks in the form of an unregulated Loan in my name that I was totally unaware of when I instructed them to sell my property, this was done by a company called Close Brothers Ltd. This got them totally confused and the person on the phone went away a couple of times to ask his manager what to do, they eventually said 'ok we will put it on hold and can you email us some more details' so I did. This is what I emailed them :
Dear Sirs
Thank you for the email. We are currently still trying to sort out our legal rights to dispute this Credit/Loan/Finance as explained on the telephone. We stated complaining about Purplebricks at the beginning of January 2016 to various body’s like TPO, Trading Standards and the Citizens Advice about the service we received from them, this is still ongoing. We later found out that this also included an unregulated Loan (not regulated under the Consumer Credit Act 1974) that was mis-sold to us, which was supplied by Close Brothers Ltd.
We was not aware, given or told at any point that this was a loan/credit or finance, both Purplebricks and Close Brothers have always denied that this was Credit, Loan or Finance. There was also no means test or check done to see if we could afford to pay back this loan, we told the Purplebricks Estate Agent several times that we are a low income family and could not afford the £798 fee, his answer was ‘You can defer the fee for 10 months and I guarantee you will sell the property before that’ he did not mention this was a loan, credit or finance and did not say anything about Purplebricks receiving the fee as a loan before we received any service.
If Close Brothers insist that this is not a Loan, Credit or Finance then I don’t see why C.A.R.S is trying to enforce it, if Close Brothers are still willing to pursue this with you, then I have enough evidence to justify this in court as to why we didn’t receive an adequate or safe service from Purplebricks and why we was mis-sold Finance, Credit or a Loan.
C.A.R.S have just emailed me again after 5 months saying the same thing in an email but this time it said the money is owed to Close Brothers.
I would like to know if this company C.A.R.S has any right to take this to court because at the bottom of their email and on their webpage its says this 'Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for accounts formed under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (amended 2006) licence No 521427' As this money was an unregulated loan then wouldn't this mean CARS are not authorised to pursue it?
Both the FCA and The Financial Ombudsman would not take up our complaint because it was unregulated finance and even though Close Brothers Ltd are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Who do we complain to now or do we wait for someone to take us to court?
Thank you
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