If you want to find a genuine cash homebuyer, one of the most informative things you can do is to see what other users have made of the companies and their service in the past.
You can do this by asking to talk to previous customers, and any reputable company should be happy to arrange this if they have nothing to hide. Alternatively, you can check out the feedback on independent cash house buyer reviews on sites such as Trustpilot and Google. Millions of people trust these sites to get an idea of what a company is like, how they treat their customers and how they respond to complaints.
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Unfortunately, even the best independent review sites can’t always be trusted.
In this article, we’ll show you some of the ways that review sites can be manipulated or ‘curated’ by companies to show them in the best possible light. We’ll help you to spot some of the tricks that less reputable cash buyers use to boost their positive reviews and remove negative ones, and we’ll show you how you should read review sites to get the most accurate picture of the cash house buyer being reviewed.
Your next step
We’ve already checked out all of the best cash house buying companies in the UK, impartially measuring each one against our stringent standards. You can see the outcome in our reviews section, and you’re welcome to do your own research to confirm our opinions.
Alternatively, you can trust our judgment and let us recommend the best cash house buyer for you.
Simply click the cash offer calculator button below to get an initial estimate of the value of your home in a quick cash sale.
If think you can work with that price, we’ll connect you directly to the first-class services of a fully vetted home buyer we know you can trust.
Not as independent as you think
The first thing you need to understand about independent review sites is that they are not as independent as you might think. Like most people, you probably think that sites like Trustpilot and Google Reviews are made up of spontaneous comments by real customers who have used a service, but often this is far from the truth.
Companies can manipulate the process behind the scenes in a number of ways, including:
- Paying to become a member – Companies can pay to become a member of the review site, and this allows them to ‘curate’ their reviews. As a paid-up member of the site, they can choose who and when to ask for reviews and can even ask to have bad reviews removed. Naturally, companies will only ask for reviews from satisfied customers, and not from unsatisfied ones.
- Getting bad reviews removed – The terms of membership mean that companies can request to have reviews removed on a technicality, such as mentioning someone by name. Companies will do everything they can to have bad reviews removed like this.
- Paying reviewers – Some companies will even go as far as paying customers to leave a good review, or even paying them to remove a bad one. This undermines the independence of the process completely.
- Faking reviews – As we discuss in each of our own impartial reviews, dodgy cash house buyers are not above hiring hire fake review writers to write positive reviews about them, or negative reviews about their competitors.
There are also other review sites, such as Feefo and reviews.io, but these are less well known, and so it is less likely that customers have left a review there spontaneously. Reviews on sites like these are often only left in response to an invitation and are more likely to be heavily curated.
PSW takes no payment and we allow no outside influence on our cash house buyer reviews, so you can trust us completely to find a genuine cash homebuyer for you. The first step is to see what you could get for your home by clicking below.
How to read independent review sites
Fortunately, there are ways that you can read independent review sites to help you find a genuine cash homebuyer. Here are a few handy tips for getting the best from the likes of Trustpilot:
- Arrange by most recent – the most recent reviews will tell you about how the current team will treat you. Most lists will default to ‘most relevant’, but you can easily change this to ‘most recent’
- Read the good reviews – good reviews will tell you the positives about a company, such as good communication, expert advice and a fair price. Just remember, these may not always be genuine feedback or even genuine customers.
- Read the bad reviews – bad reviews will often tell you a great deal more about a cash house buyer, including typical tricks like last minute price drops and slow sales where they haven’t actually bought the home, but tried to arrange a secondary sale in the background. Bad reviews are more likely to be authentic.
- Look for review manipulation – if you click on the ‘company activity’ box on the right of the Trustpilot review screen you can see how much a company has tried to manipulate their reviews. This section will tell you if they ask for reviews, how they respond to negative reviews and how many reviews they have flagged up for removal.
- Look for the timing of reviews – if you see a batch of good reviews immediately after a negative one, then chances are these have been faked to maintain their rating. Look for a sudden rush of reviews, often in the small hours of the night.
- Look for named staff – some companies will ask reviewers to name individuals in their feedback, specifically so that they can have reviews removed if they turn out to be negative. If staff are named regularly in positive reviews, then there’s every chance the company has had negative reviews taken down.
With so many tricks at work, you’d be forgiven for losing all trust in so-called independent review sites. But don’t worry, you can trust our impartial experts to find a genuine cash homebuyer on your behalf using their unrivalled industry knowledge and experience.
To find out who we recommend, click below for your personal price estimate, and if you’re happy with that, we’ll connect you to the best.
Things to consider when reading reviews
Of course, not all cash house buyer reviews on review sites are manipulated or faked. A lot of them are genuine. However, there are still some things that you need to bear in mind, even with genuine customer reviews. For example:
- People are more likely to leave a bad review than a good one – people like to complain, but they are less inclined to leave compliments. It’s human nature, but it can skew the reviews in a negative way.
- Some people are naturally more middle of the road – even if they have had excellent service, some people will still be reluctant to go the full five stars and will only award four as their best rating. Similarly, some just won’t damn a company with a one-star review. This can affect the average score, so it’s important to read the reviews themselves, rather than just looking at the star rating.
- Some people don’t understand cash house buying – if you don’t know how cash house buying works, then the 20% price reduction can seem greedy and insulting and prompt an angry tirade. Unless the offer in question was significantly below the industry average of 80%, it’s usually safe to disregard these negative reviews
- Some people haven’t even used the service – brief and vague reviews are often what are known as ‘first call’ reviews. Companies will ask for customers to review them after their first contact, so all you are getting is a review of their initial response, rather than the actual cash house buying service they provide.
Take them with a pinch of salt
At the end of the day, you need to take independent review websites like Trustpilot with a pinch of salt if you want to find a genuine cash homebuyer. Sometimes they can help you to get an overview of the company, but they are just as likely to lead you astray.
These sites should only ever be a small part of your overall research to find a genuine cash homebuyer, alongside the kind of checks that we explain in our companion articles. ‘From gold standards to red flags’ will show you how to avoid scams, while ‘Digging deeper’ will show you how to thoroughly investigate a company’s business.
One set of independent cash house buyer reviews that you can trust to find a genuine cash homebuyer, are the ones that you’ll find right here on the PSW website. Whether you’re investigating a specific company, or you want our expert recommendation, the first place to start is with the cash offer calculator, which shows you how much you could get for your home. Click below to start your fast home selling journey so you can get on with your life with your debts cleared and your personal problems solved.