My wife is a top performing RE/MAX Realtor in Florida. She is no stranger to hard work or to prospecting for new business. When a HouseValues rep contacted her to explain ho they could give her 20 local leads in an area of her choosing for $800 a month she was intrigued and signed up for one package for her and one for her buyer's agent. After a couple of months she began to realize how bogus these leads really are. A very high percentage of them were absolute fakes (name: fladjlfdj, number: 555-555-1234, etc), another large group was owners checking on their agents who were already listed, and a ton of tire kickers. Of the few that were actually considering selling many were offended that they were contacted by and agent and explained that they wanted to simply get information on line.
After 6 months of agonizing over this service with absolutely no results and over $10,000 invested my wife called in to complain about the uselessness of the leads and tried to cancel. She was told she could not however the rep suggested that she try changing one of the subscriptions to a different area to see if results improved and she did. The results did not improve.
This month was supposed to mark the expiration of the subscriptions that my wife had so that after this costly experiment we can get back to real deals and move on however her credit card was again billed by Housevlaues. We called only to find out that when she called to cancel and the rep switched her territory this reset the 12 month clock on her billing and they now want her to pay an additional 6 months on that subscription.
This is one of the most deceptive tactics I have ever seen and they have now threatened collections if she tries to get out of paying this additional 6 month period. If anyone is organizing a class action suit, please include us.
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