HouseValues, Justlisted HouseValues.com tricked me into a 12mo in line contract then supplied me with junk leads, worthless support and training, rude customer service, and now wants to rip me off for even more money! Kirkland Washington
My experience with this company has been very unsatisfactory from the point of subscription in June of 2006 on. The initial sales pitch I received was quite good but still through the course of numerous sales calls from their sales representative I kept resisting with my primary objection being that it seemed very expensive. I was new to the Real Estate business with limited funds, and was uncomfortable with a 12 month commitment.
Still they persisted assuring me that I would receive quality leads and top notch training to utilize their systems to the fullest extent and expert weekly coaching to help me work the leads they would supply to generate Real Estate transactions. I am sure their sales rep believed all this to be true however after I finally succumbed and agreed to a special offer to subscribe, all the niceness disappeared.
When I received my first very short training call, the person who was to be my coach was condescending and short with me providing very little insight as to how to effectively use there systems or handle the leads I would be receiving. To the best of my recollection the call probably lasted about ten minutes and she seemed very eager to get off the phone. Still being new to the business I was in a position of desperately needing prospective clients so I began to move forward with their program.
From that point on I received a total of about 2 or 3 coaching sessions each lasting 5 to 10 minutes and offering no value either toward giving me insight as to how to utilize their system or how best to work with the leads being supplied. After that I made several calls to my assigned coach but she seemed always to be unavailable. I remember that she did return a call to me to answer a question I had about the HOMEPAGES portion of their program only to be told that it was not available to my area. At least on that occasion she seemed friendlier but again, offered no advise, training, or insight to help me use their program successfully.
On two other occasions when I called in to their coaching or customer service dept and spoke to other individuals in that department I received short condescending treatment and again was never offered anything of value to help me utilize their program successfully. I was left with the feeling that I was a bother to them.
Additionally the leads being supplied by their program were no where near the quality I was led to believe they would be and they were totally unqualified. In fact, most of them I was unable to make contact with or they simply did not exist. With those whom I was able to contact, I discovered a very interesting array of people wanting to know the value of a property for all kinds of reasons having nothing to do with real estate transactions. I was totally unprepared for this but did my best with each and every one spending countless hours chasing down dead ends until I finally had had enough.
Perhaps if I had received reasonable guidance and training in the beginning as promised, it could have been more productive however at that point I had become so frustrated with their program that I just could not bring myself to continue.
After that when I began to take steps to discontinue using the program, no one seemed to care that I was dissatisfied with their program at all. Their only concern was that if I wanted to cancel, it was going to cost me x amount of money and that was it. At this point I began to get quite angry. I have been in sales of one kind or another for many years and firmly believe that customers should always be treated with respect and concern for why they might not be happy with the product or service being provided.
Obviously that's not part of this company's criteria. Everything was my fault. I was the bad guy as far as they were concerned. That's very interesting especially now that I have begun using another company's marketing system that cost much less and brings me good solid leads. They also provide excellent support and training and I am very happy with their program. I've been using it for just a little more than a month and already have a transaction in progress plus several solid prospects I'm working with because of it even though the market is much slower now.
I've gotten zero from the House Values program, not that they care. It seems to me that all they want is to extort money from me that they did not earn using their so called contract to do it with!
Ralph
Spokane, Washington
U.S.A.