Estate agents fume over site glitch

ESTATE AGENTS DOWN UNDER are fuming that a nationwide sales website failed to deliver emails for eight weeks.

The site, realestate.com.au, had a programming fault so that email servers did not receive queries from prospective punters. It didn't stop all of the emails, just a select few that the system didn't like which it stored.

Then, for no apparent reason, it delivered all the backlogged emails at once and agents received a slew of email queries from the site that were up to eight weeks old.

Real Estate Australia CEO Simon Baker said the bug delayed nearly a fifth of all emails.

Agents, who pay about $650 a month to have realestate.com.au connect them, are steaming and want to know how the outfit could have let the bug go unnoticed for so long.

Agents also felt like idiots because they started ringing punters up to flog them a house only to discover that they sorted out their sales weeks earlier and wondered why they had not been contacted.

Realestate.com.au had since contacted buyers whose queries were delayed and told them of the glitch so as to protect the reputations of the agents. µ

L'Inq
Sydney Morning Herald