Woman Offering £3.5M Property for £25 Responds to Online Abuse

People are in with a chance of winning a five-bedroom luxury house in Caversham, Berkshire, for £25 ($33). (Screenshot via GoogleMaps)

A woman who is offering to sell her £3.5 million (US$4.6 million) property for £25 ($33) has been sent “vicious and nasty” abuse from online trolls.

Helen Weller and her husband Gary decided to run a competition for buyers to win their five-bedroom house on the River Thames in Caversham, Reading for £25.25. People can enter the competition by playing a game of spot the ball, online.

The couple came up with the novel idea after spending months trying to find a suitable buyer for their multi-million pound property, according to reports. But their offer has brought an unexpected backlash of abusive messages from online trolls.

In an open letter penned to the online trolls on Facebook, Weller wrote,” I have never experienced such hatred from people I don’t know or have never met.

“Whilst the hurtful poison you pour out doesn’t have an effect on me apart from bewilderment, I can see how if I was young, impressionable or an insecure person it would be devastating.”

It costs £25 to enter the competition and 25 pence for the transaction fee.

Weller told getreading, “They have been sending some really vicious and nasty stuff. We have also had people saying, ‘This is a scam’, ‘This is a con,’ and ‘The house always floods’. I have even been told that I’m ’bringing down the housing market'.

“One thing I would really like to get across is it’s not a scam, it’s not a con, and if it was, you wouldn’t be able to pay by credit card.

“We are just giving people the chance to win and live in a really nice house for £25. It’s like the lottery but the odds are much better”, she said.

She added, “But I’m not upset. I don’t know these people so their opinion doesn’t matter.”

Buyers are in with a chance to win the house if they guess the centre of a spot the ball image online, that has been decided by a panel of three judges.

A winner will be picked out if 200,000 tickets are sold during the promotion. If this goal is not reached, the winner will receive 75 percent of the revenue received from the ticket sales. There is a maximum of 500,000 tickets available until the competition end date on March 28, 2018.

Here is her letter in full:

“Dear online and email trolls,

“Please explain why you do this? I have never experienced such hatred from people I don’t know or have never met.

“Whilst the hurtful poison you pour out doesn’t have an effect on me apart from bewilderment, I can see how if I was young, impressionable or an insecure person it would be devastating or perhaps you could explain to my 91-year-old mother who thinks a troll is a plastic doll and who is protective of her daughter and son in law, why you should say such things about someone you have never met.

“My parents taught me if you can’t say anything nice then simply don’t say anything, why did yours not teach you the same. Ask yourself before you do this how would your parents feel reading such stuff about you.

“So next time you contemplate doing this from your faceless invisibility put your selves in the receivers shoes and remember that your venomous poison only belittles and diminishes you as a person, whilst it just makes me your victim grow stronger. Perhaps this is the lesson we need to teach our young.”