Firstly, the offers you secured for us were laughable at around £260k - way under the property's realistic market value. Again, untrue that my brother or I could not accommodate 2 viewings - you cancelled two viewings (at the viewer’s request) and didn't rearrange. We would never have refused the opportunity of a viewing as we were very keen to sell.

"Despite that, we marketed Mr Levene's bungalow for 18 months until June 2013 when he withdrew it. 6 months longer than we were obligated too, in fact. And so we really can't reconcile Mr Levene's belief that we have been misleading over our terms and conditions. That simply isn't true."
this is rubbish - the property was on your site from Jan 2012 - Oct 2012 - ten months. Then I withdrew from the market, after you wrote to say it could be withdrawn and re-advertised with you at any point. What you did NOT SAY was that any such 'break period' would continue to count to the 12 month contract period. When I put it back on your site in June 2013 it was only on for 2 weeks before you terminated the contract. It was therefore on for a total of 10 months and two weeks. SIX WEEKS LESS than the contracted period of 12 months. Not only did you not make clear that the marketing period is only for 12 months, but you also conveniently failed to mention that any time that the property is withdrawn from your website STILL COUNTS towards that 12 month period.

As for the main point, your T&Cs state: 'Marketing fees represent a twelve month marketing period...' This is deliberately ambiguous and vague. It could easily be interpreted as referring to the marketing that you conduct through 3rd party sites like Rightmove, but that the property would nevertheless still be advertised by you indefinitely. This I could accept because of the cost involved with advertising with them and other property portals. My belief that this was the nature of your offer was reinforced by your letter to me outlining the options stated:
"Our cost options include a ‘one-off, lifetime’ marketing fee of just £295 plus vat. There is nothing else to pay at anytime and this is our charge no matter how long it takes you to sell."

Mr. Quirk, 12 MONTHS IS NOT A LIFETIME. And as for no additional charge - yes, but again, as long as it is sold within 12 months - which you deliberately do not state and make explicitly clear. Instead you hide that fact away in your T&Cs and couch that clause in a deliberately ambiguous and woolly way, so as to mislead, as I have explained above.

So, you are clearly not transparent, explicit and open about your terms and conditions. Quite the contrary in fact. I have a good mind to take this to the trading standards institute - and let’s see what they say about it.

And finally, your security and screening procedures are very slack, and is an accident waiting to happen. You do not take any details of viewers except their mobile number. No landline, no address. Every conventional high street agent I have ever dealt with always take a viewer’s address and landline as standard for obvious security reasons. I am a pretty fit guy and therefore I was not too perturbed by this. But I say to anyone reading this - if you are happy to have any old Johnny turn up at your door and for you to show them around your house that's fine. But if you are a single female, or elderly, or not particularly fit - then think twice because if you get bashed over the head and robbed, then all the police will have to go on will be a pay as you go mobile number of the viewer - from which an address is very unlikely to be traceable.

I'm really sorry that Mr Levene does not feel that we lived up to his expectations. But I think that we should be clear on a few things, just to ensure a fair representation of the facts.

Mr Levene listed his bungalow with us in January 2012. Over two years ago. The price that he wished to list at was 'offers in excess of £300,000'.

Despite us arranging several viewings over the subsequent few weeks, it quickly became evident that the price was too high. But far from us being useless, we did introduce TWO offers to Mr Levene from willing buyers, one in April 2012 and one in August 2012. Unfortunately, he rejected both.

We did suggest to Mr Levene that he reduce his price. A decent agent will do this if activity is slow. It's important to realise that an agent is only as good as the price that the seller insists on achieving. It simply isn't feasible, no matter how widely advertised, for a property to sell if its price is far too optimistic as it was in this case.

In total, eMoov arranged nine viewings for Mr Levene between January 2012 and June 2013 including two that the owner was not able to accommodate and therefore had to be cancelled. Many of these appointments were arranged with Mr Levene's brother as his first point of contact for such appointments. We're not sure therefore if he is aware himself of the total number of viewings that were actually arranged.

With regard to our marketing period, our terms and conditions are displayed at the foot of our home page and are very clear:

'Marketing fees represent a twelve month marketing period.....'.

Despite that, we marketed Mr Levene's bungalow for 18 months until June 2013 when he withdrew it. 6 months longer than we were obligated too, in fact. And so we really can't reconcile Mr Levene's belief that we have been misleading over our terms and conditions. That simply isn't true.

The property has now sold via another agent. But for a figure that is far lower than the £300,000 plus that it was originally priced at with eMoov. According to Rightmove, some £20,000 less. And, of course, the market has moved upwards in the ten months since we have not been advertising it.

We can't acknowledge that our dealings in this instance have been useless. And having sold £350 million of UK property since we launched, saving £9m in estate agency fees for home sellers, we don't accept that we are a 'rip off'. We're quite unhappy at that actually as it is rather unfair, given the facts here relating to pricing issues and the number of viewings and offers achieved for Mr Levene.

But we are sorry that in this instance things didn't work out for our customer. And we wish Mr Levene well with his sale.