Emmins and his colleagues claim to have found evidence that Purplebricks is using a review-boosting method they call “selective review request”. This involves screening out customers that staff suspect are not satisfied, asking for reviews before homes are sold, incentivising staff to get customers to leave reviews and asking satisfied customers to leave multiple reviews.
Is it really that good then?
In May, Purplebricks’ co-founder, Michael Bruce suddenly quit and later the same month the company shut its Australian branch. Two months later, it announced it was withdrawing from the US market – only a couple of years after starting operations there. Purplebricks says that the decision to exit the two businesses has “given us the opportunity to refocus on our UK and Canada businesses.”
I might not invest.