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Zillow started
recording conversations between Realtors and Buyers shopping on their website
in October 2015. Zillow’s legal stand on this is they have the Premium Agent’s
permission. Zillow says they only need one party’s permission to record conversations.
Why is Zillow be doing this?
America's favorite website for residential real estate (soon to be China's as well) is spying on consumers?
Z says it is for
the good of agents to play back a conversation that may have been completed on
the fly. Z knows how to sell a story to agents. Zillow is an information "aggregator." They
are a lead generation site, not the free Multiple Listing Servic information site. Every keystroke,
time on site and habits of consumers is tracked. This information can be sold,
and not just sold to Realtors, Lenders, Banks, Insurance Agents, Credit Fixers,
Remodeling Pros… you get it... information makes the big Z almost five hundred
million dollars a year.
Zillow doesn’t
care if a listing is already sold or if their Zestimate is wrong. About forty
one percent of the listings on Zillow are already sold, off market, or
incorrect. They have more advertising sales men and women than they have
engineers in Seattle, (the building across from me in Irvine, San Francisco,
Lincoln or New York (Oh and read the story about the Big Z cornering the market
on rentals in NYC).
Zillow
represents premier agents as if they are the listing agent. One of Z’s great tricks
soon to be shut down by the CFBP is how Zillow sales agents get Lenders to pay
for Realtor ads.
So what else
do I think Z is doing with the recordings?
Since Zillow
has intense tracking models they can compare the voice, wording, timing, exact
sales pitch and responses from a top agent. This spy like information can be
sold as education for agents or used when they begin their own Z agencies and
sell real estate directly.
Google, Microsoft, Mine Government and everyone with a cell phone
is recording our lives...
How do you
feel about being spied upon?
Below Zillow
Consumer Affairs rating a 1 of 5
“Stand Out Where It Matters Target buyers and sellers in your local market and increase
visibility for you and your listings.” Zillow slogan
Teke Wiggin’s full
article here
From the Inman article posted today:
“A number of critics questioned the legality of the recordings.
Federal law only permits the recording of a phone call if one party to the call
has consented to the recording, they point out. And some state laws go further,
requiring all parties to consent to a recording.
Jay Thompson, director of industry outreach at Zillow, countered
in a Facebook conversation that Zillow’s terms of use disclose
to consumers that their phone calls might be recorded. And Zillow
told Inman in an email that the listing portal also informs consumers that
they are being recorded at the beginning of calls, “even in the states that do
not require two-party consent.”
Zillow agent advertisers, meanwhile, “are made aware of the
feature during their on-boarding process and through product release
information,” and they have the ability to disable the feature, Zillow
said.”
Go look at Zillow's Premier Agent Training Videos. They explain how an incoming Consumer call is transferred to a Realtor and recorded so the agent can play back anything they missed. What Zillow and Trulia their other company want to do is corner all online real estate transactions
http://www.zillow.com/agent-resources/news/industry-updates/introducing-premier-agent-app/
Here's you COOL AID
Zillow stock is
down from a
high of 33 to 18 today
Consumers are not going
to like this news
Is Big Brother Z is going to
drop all my reviews now? YES
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