Buy Owner (www.buyowner.com)

Business Reply

Rebuttal : Complaint #13747 Nielsen

Dear Manager:

The Facts on this case: First, I always tell our clients to check a company out with their local BBB to see how they treat their customers. BUY OWNER company has been in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for over 16 years and 24 years in the country, so they should have had thousands of customers in those years, right? Well, check it out for yourself: our record is outstanding! Our phone #s: 214.654.9777 (for Dallas BBB) and 817.263.7777 (for Ft. Worth) If we had a lot of customers like this one, would we even be in business? This is an advertising company. Tens of Thousands of dollars a month are spent to attract buyers to view properties that are for sale by the owner. We would be happy to verify that fact in writing with TV station invoices.

Now, all that being said, let's address this gentleman's complaint. First, the company did indeed respond to his complaints in writing. Note that he only gave it a 3 week period of time, when the average days on market is 65 to 90 in this area. Secondly, he neglected to mention that he attempted to reverse the credit card charges shortly after the webpage was built for him, photos were taken, buyers matched with his property, sign calls answered, photos readied for the monthly magazine, etc.

By refusing to pay for services delivered, and that he agreed to pay for, he's negated he ability to use the BBB to arbitrate his complaint with our company! (scanned copy enclosed of BBB of Dallas. Closed case.)

He says he got no response from the advertising, but the records show he did several get calls in that short time from buyers, that's before he stopped the charges.

Notice the he does not mention anywhere that we have a Rebate Policy through MLS Realty that he could have taken advantage of, and he would have gotten approximately $2,099.00 of his advertising BACK! That is 80% of the money his ad cost!

We are always concerned when a customer is unhappy. We here in the customer service department try very hard to work out an equitable situation. All our policies are stated in writing, and our clients actually initial that they have seen them. -Scanned Copy attached for this client.-

Bottom line: our goal is to help you sell and save money.

I do not know what your policy is regarding rebuttals, but to be fair to us, as well as all the companies that deal with consumers fairly and try to solve problems, I would certainly hope you post this.

Best regards,

Brandon Baker

BUY OWNER

DFW Area

214.654.9777 ext 216

Dear Complaints.com:

I have an ongoing (nearly year long) dispute with a company called Buy Owner.com (currently via the BBB, but shortly via State Attorney's General). I would appreciate your consideration of my complaint. A detailed account of our dispute is provided below:

Thank you,

Dirk N

Argyle, TX

(214) 693-2sss

Email User

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BuyOwner

6500 Beltline Road, Suite 100

Irving, TX 75063

Dear Buy Owner:

We are sending this letter to inform you that we are formally disputing the fees associated with our listing (DAL15735). We believe BuyOwner has provided unsatisfactory and ineffective service that is not commensurate with the premium charged for said service. A written billing dispute with our enclosed list of unsatisfactory items has been formally submitted to Fidelity Mastercard for resolution.

You charged us $2649 on 7/8/2005 for your services. We are willing to negotiate a small portion of the "disputed" amount of $2649.00 to cover:

1. BuyOwner's photography fees (not to exceed $200)

2. BuyOwner's fees for their sales "verbiage" (not to exceed $100

We expect all other fees associated with their "advertising service" (in the amount of $2349) to be reimbursed to us. We believe this amount is fair and reasonable given the short length of time and lack of traffic we've received using Buy Owner's services.

Please NOTE: We recognize you specify a strict "no refund" policy within your manual – HOWEVER - in our case,

1. We were NOT made aware of this policy at ANYTIME prior to or during the sale.

2. This policy was similarly unavailable on your website.

3. We only received said "policy" approximately 4 days following the posting date on our credit card when we received the "A Better Way to Sell Your Home" manual.

Best Regards,

Dirk Nielsen

Homeowner

The following aspects of Buy Owner's Service Quality we find unsatisfactory:

1) "Hundreds of Views" but NOT 1 interested buyer?

a) Not ONE buyer that has viewed our home at www.buyowner.com has resulted in a qualified showing.

b) ALL 25+ buyers who have physically been shown our home have been the result of:

i) Word of mouth

ii) External realtors,

iii) Our open houses, and

iv) Custom marketing we invested in:

(1) www.creeksideway.com

(2)Custom flyers

(3)Our purchase of "open house" signage

2) Buy Owner Flyer Quality

a) The Buy Owner flyer (produced from their website) PDF lacks critical information about our property (like square footage) and is not editable.

b) The Buy Owner flyer does not format correctly (we had a sentence run into our pictures) thereby appearing unprofessional to prospective buyers. There is no ability to correct this and we were forced to create our own custom flyer.

3) Photography

a) The 360 degree photos Buy Owner commissioned were unsatisfactory:

i) The images were washed out and lacked clarity

ii) The images don't appear to match the functionality of other Buy Owner listings (e.g. some other Buy Owner.com listings appear to have better quality 360s than ours).

iii) The images were never confirmed with us prior to advertising them.

b) 6 photographs were taken, but their quality was never confirmed with us prior to posting.

c) The Buy Owner photographer seemed in a "big rush" to get in and out. Since photographic representation of a home is a critical aspect of selling the home, we feel this service was unsatisfactory. That said, we recognize this is a "sunk cost" and are willing to compensate Buy Owner accordingly.

4) Website

a) The Buy Owner.com website has generated only 1 call since July 7th (July 10th) or approximately 2 weeks of advertising.

b) The 1 person who called, did call through the 1-800 number, but was not pre-qualified (as promised during the Buy Owner sales pitch)

c) Ability to access the Buy Owner.com website [as a seller] required 2 calls to customer service (though during the Buy Owner sales pitch we were made to believe we would be contacted immediately following the sale).

d) Buy Owner.com "visitor" statistics are misleading

i) They do not capture unique hits. In other words, their statistics record a "view" of your home each time the same person views the page. This artificially inflates the statistics and is deceiving to the seller.

ii) Buy Owner's statistics also include the seller's viewing of their own page. In our case, this has artificially inflated our "view" statistics by at least 20-25% and is likewise deceiving to the seller.

iii) No other detailed traffic statistics are provided for consumer.

e) No method (we can see) to advertise "open houses" online (as promised during the Buy Owner sales pitch).

f) Inadequate factual information on website regarding our home (e.g. compare the fact-based information from Buy Owner to that of MLS).

g) There is little to no ability for the customer to modify their listing information (beyond price, email address and some 30 word captions under the pictures).

h) BuyOwner.com provides no step-wise process (or even basic information) on how a potential buyer should proceed if they want to make an offer.

i) Directing open house visitors to BuyOwner has caused confusion because there is *no* information for them on how to make an offer.

ii) Determining how to educate buyers on the "buying process" is left entirely to the home owner to sort out (though this "buyer education" was part of the sales pitch).

i) The Buy Owner picture "expansion" is too small.

i) In other words, when buyer's click the pictures, the "big" versions are still so small, prospective buyers can't see many details.

ii) As a result, we were forced to setup our own website ( www.creeksideway.com) to ensure sufficient pictorial detail.

5) Customer Service

a) We were never contacted by Buy Owner (unless we called them) after they "closed the sale" (though this was promised during the Buy Owner sales pitch)

b) We ask for and were promised a 2nd [Virtual Tour] photo shoot (to correct the washed out problems in our 1st shoot). This was never performed (as promised by the Buy Owner customer service in Las Colinas, TX)

c) The sales price of our home (a critically important part of the sale) was suggested, but not [professional] substantiated by facts or comps. An MLS report was provided by Buy Owner approximately 4 days later, but by then the sales price had been established and printed & distributed on flyers.

6) Directional Signage

a) The Buy Owner-provided yard signs are small and arguably unprofessional in appearance when compared with the competition (Re/Max, Keller Williams). As a result, we are being forced to invest in our own "custom-made" yard signs.

b) Buy Owner provided no specific "Open House" signs (only directional signs were provided. We were forced to purchase our own.

7) Contracts / Forms

a) The contract forms provided by Buy Owner are commonly available for FREE from the TREC website (e.g. anyone can download them).

i) Buy Owner should not represent "reprinting" FREE documents as an asset of their paid-for service.

ii) The provided contract forms are effectively useless anyway, since they are perforated on the edge with binding holes. This forces the customer to download the same forms to print "clean" copies (for faxing, etc.).

b) The Buy Owner's materials provide little or no direction for filling out required forms (as we were expecting based on the sales pitch).

i) Texas and most Title companies require certain forms to accompany a completed contract. Only one of these was provided by Buy Owner:

(1)Seller's Disclosure OP-H (provided)

(2) Addendum for Property Subject to Mandatory Membership in an Owners' Association 36-3 (not provided)

(3) Third Party Financing Condition Addendum 40-1 (not provided)

ii) As a result, we have researched and completed each of these our independently.

c) There does not appear to be any additional contract support or advice within provided documentation (e.g. how a buyer or seller should fill the contracts out, though this was likewise promised during the Buy Owner sales pitch).