29-05-2025
Real estate agent sorry for competition offering free rent for five-star reviews
A Queensland real estate agency has backtracked on a promotional giveaway for its tenants, offering the chance to win free rent in exchange for a five-star review.
Ray White Rockhampton emailed its tenants on Wednesday at about 3:40pm, offering opportunity to one of three free-rent prizes.
A second email was sent at 4:45pm with an amended offer, in which tenants only had to leave a Google review.
However, it encouraged people to leave a five-star review "if you think we deserve it".
Less than an hour later, a third email was sent.
"We recently launched a competition offering tenants the chance to win one week's free rent in exchange for leaving a Google review. After reviewing the promotion further and seeking advice, we've realised that this could unintentionally breach Google's review policies and potentially raise compliance concerns," the email read.
"To ensure we remain fully transparent and compliant with all guidelines, we've made the decision to cancel the competition effective immediately.
"We sincerely apologise for any confusion or inconvenience this may cause. Our intention was to celebrate and reward our tenant community, but we acknowledge that this approach may not have been appropriate.
"If you've gone out of your way to submit a review, we thank you for your support, and we will be in touch."
More than 60 people left five-star Google reviews after the email was sent.
However, there were also several reviews calling out the promotion as "dodgy", "suspicious and disgusting" and "appalling".
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was alerted to the promotion.
The ACCC warns against offering incentives for positive reviews, as it risks misleading consumers and breaching consumer laws.
The commission says incentives to provide reviews must be applied regardless of whether the reviewer leaves a positive or negative review, and the review must reflect it was incentivised.
The promotion appears to have breached Google's Deceptive Content and Behaviour policy, which states it does not allow merchants to "offer incentives — such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services — in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review".
Those who posted a five-star review may also have inadvertently breached the same policy by providing "fake engagement".
Ray White Rockhampton director Riley Neaton acknowledged the business made "an error of judgement" and said it had asked Google to remove all the reviews received as part of the promotion.
"We have apologised profusely to our tenants for this error in judgement," he said.
"We promise it will never happen again.
"The average Google rating for Ray White Rockhampton is 4.8 based on 764 reviews [from before the promotion], indicating generally positive feedback."
