iSold addresses listed on Rightmove did not exist

News Category: Industry News

A Bristol agent has reported iSold to Trading Standards after finding that addresses listed for iSold branches in the city either did not exist or were people’s homes and, in one case, was a flower shop.

Yesterday, after EAT made inquiries, iSold said the branches were ‘notional’ and that Rightmove had listed the addresses by mistake because of a ‘technical issue’.

Until yesterday, it appeared that iSold, the online estate agency venture owned by Spicerhaart and run in partnership with Tesco, had no fewer than seven offices with addresses in the Bristol area.

Of the seven branch addresses listed on Rightmove, six started with the number one.

The addresses for iSold offices in Bristol were: 1 Sheene Road; 1 Webbs Wood Road; 1 Portland Street; 1 Badminton Road; 1 Eastgate Office Centre; 1 Park Grove. Only one of the seven had a dissimilar address, listed as The Council House, College Green.

But Bristol agent Adam Offer, managing director of Besley Hill, said the address of one of the offices listed – at 1 Badminton Road and which happens to be opposite one of his own branches – is a flower shop and another is a link road with no properties on it.

He said: “I have spoken to the florists and they know nothing about iSold. One thought is that it could be the flat above but it doesn’t look much like an estate agent’s office to me.

“I also went to look at the other addresses. The 1 Webbs Wood Road is an address that does not exist as it is a link road with no properties on it.

“The Henleaze address does not exist either: the published address is 1 Park Grove, Henleaze. The actual address is 1 Park Grove, Westbury Park. I have spoken to the owner of this property and he knows nothing about iSold.

“One Portland Street, Clifton, is a large Georgian property that looks like it is split into apartments. I knocked but no one answered.”

He added: “I have raised a complaint with South Gloucestershire Trading Standards and am waiting for their take on this. I am absolutely appalled.

“If notional addresses were needed, why seven of them? Unfortunately, it does look like an attempt to mislead the public and I'll also be taking this up with Rightmove.”

On each of its seven Bristol entries on Rightmove, iSold assures the public that is “honest, open and transparent”.

Yesterday, a spokesperson for iSold said: “iSold advertises its properties and services on Rightmove in the same way as any other agent, but because of the way the Rightmove system works, Rightmove has allocated notional addresses to iSold for local mapping purposes.



“Rightmove has never intended to actually display this address on its website or suggest that iSold actually has a physical branch in this location. Rightmove is taking prompt action to resolve this technical issue.”

A Rightmove spokesman yesterday evening confirmed this was the case. He said: For internal purposes, we create a postcode for each area iSold sign up for within the location that they operate. The corresponding addresses and maps should have been removed from these pages after the initial setup and have now been taken off the site."

Pictured: the flower shop whose address was listed on Rightmove as a branch of iSold



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