This might not seem significant for a real estate buyer and seller but I think it should be. Most do not understand exactly what lead generating sites do. In a nutshell, these sites are created to appear at the top of search engines when buyers and/or sellers do a real estate related search on their search engine of choice. Because of the deep pockets these lead generating sites have (such as HomeGain, House Values and more) they appear at the top spots in the search engines.
Buyers and sellers don’t know what kind of sites these are and fill out forms to get more information. What happens with their information is that it is sold back to the “local real estate agent” that will then contact the potential buyer/seller. What prospects don’t know is that the agent(s) they’ll be referred to are paying a pretty penny to get these “leads.” Yes, that’s exactly what you are – a paid-for lead.
I tried this many years ago (before I had my own websites) with HomeGain and another company. I lost over $1,200.00 on HomeGain and didn’t get one good, qualified lead. The other company was a pay-for-lead type of situation and I actually got credited for a bad lead or two until I simply stopped accepting any of their leads as once again, I did not get one good lead from them.
That’s just an explanation to non-real estate agents so they can understand what these lead generating sites are about. Now for the story.
A real estate blogger is being threatened by yet another of the many real estate lead generating sites, ePerks. You can read about it here: Real Estate Blogger Being Sued by ePerks (be sure to follow all of the links so you can get the whole story). The blogger being threatened is Vlad Zablotzkyy and his original post about his personal opinion of ePerks was followed by comments from others that feel burned by this company.
There was also a barrage of anonymous positive comments popping up coming from the same ip address (same computer network). Vlad figures these came from ePerks employees. Read through the entire story from the link posted above to get all of the threats and downright nastiness posted against Vlad by once again, someone that would not post their identity, making true libelous allegations against Vlad.
Why am I posting this in a local real estate blog? Because ePerks believes they can overrule our First Amendment rights by threatening a lawsuit against one person’s opinion and the fact that the person posted his opinion on the Internet. ePerks tried making a deal with Vlad by having him remove all offensive comments, posted by other people who had bad experiences with ePerks, too.
Vlad certainly has the capability to remove those posts but why should he? Why should he be strong armed into censoring his blog from real people’s experiences with this company? Is this not the United States of America where freedom of speech is so revered?
Will this lawsuit actually be brought forth? Although Vlad received a letter from an ePerks attorney asking him to cease and desist he has yet to receive any court papers. However, this has definitely affected Vlad and his family. If this case does make it to court it will cost Vlad money to defend himself. He has had many sleepless nights over this.
Will ePerks win such a lawsuit? Seems highly unlikely to me. Vlad was stating his opinions and others followed. If this right cannot be held up in our own courts then we’re all in big trouble. The Internet is here to stay and we’ve seen similar situations, although I haven’t followed up on any of them (a developer was suing a real estate agent for defamatory statements made on a blog). Some other company sued a blogger (non real-estate related). Another suit by a website traffic generator against a blogger was thrown out.
It is many people’s opinion that these lawsuits simply bring more negativity to the plaintiffs than the little guys who made a blog post or two about it. In Vlad’s case, his blog is not considered the top 50 real estate blogs so doesn’t get the amount of traffic that the top blogs would get. What kind of damage would Vlad’s opinions (and others who commented) really cause ePerks?
In fact, ePerks actions is creating quite a backlash towards them in the real estate community. Real estate agents and others in the field are banding together to get the word out. Some are wishing they could have read about ePerks before shelling out their own money to them. There are now negative posts on top blogging sites and platforms such as Active Rain, Bloodhound Blog, Agent Genius and many more. Hopefully, the word will keep spreading.
Remember, folks. If you’re looking for a local real estate agent on the Internet, do a search and don’t fill out forms on these large portals. Look for a few websites run by local agents or brokerages and find the site you find is the best (easiest to use, offers the most information such as a full MLS search such as this site, etc.).
Keep in mind, if you continue using these lead portals it might cost you more down the line. You might be contacted by agents that can’t generate their own leads and might not be up on today’s market and that’s why they pay for these services. So you might be paying in the long run yourself by utilizing these lead generating portals.
