If the buyer wants to contact the seller directly (bypassing the agent and revealing the buyer’s identity) it is easy to locate the seller using tax records (you have to physically go to the assessor’s office and bring the address of the home). If you really feel the agent is pulling a fast one (like the $200k in electronics in the OP) it would be very worthwhile to do this. That really sucks about that deal, that seller lost out on $200k due to the agent’s shennanigans. Even to a millionaire that’s a depressing loss.