I am not trying to explain it away nor am I trying to rationalize it.
If indeed that the listing you spoke of, was listed with this broker and had not been expired, cancelled, or withdrawn then yes it is clear fraud. However, do you know for a fact that it had not been in withdrawn status during the listing period? Do you know if it had been cancelled or had it expired once, maybe twice, maybe three times?
If you would like to give me the MLS number I can give you the exact history of the home with regard to listing status. If you don’t have the MLS number you can give me the address.
Now you said this was a Prudential listing. Cyphire, I am sure you have read my posts and if anyone bangs pretty hard on Prudential I think I am in the front of that line. First off, we all live with fraud every day for most of our consumer products, as well as a host of other goods and services.
To say there is no recourse is not true. You and every single person on this site can go and file a complaint with the DRE. There is NOTHING STOPPING you. In fact it would be far more effective for people to complain to the DRE about the irregularities with MLS rules, mortgage brokering frauds and things like that rather then posting them on Piggingtons. Many a posting has been made on this site about suspected fraudulent transactions and cash back to buyers. Many of the times I have looked into them and debunked them or spoken my opinion that they looked clean. Yet there have been a few instances where they looked shaky.
However NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THIS SITE have I ever heard of ANYONE actually filing a complaint to the DRE.
Why is that? Most likely because it is easier to complain about something then to actually put time and energy into following the system in place to remedy it.
Now well taken point about the car. Yet when I bought a car I never knew how long it sat on the lot. When I look at a boat I don’t know if it had previous offers on it. Again, not to bang the drum over again, but NOBODY ever complains about Realtor.com or Zillow, or Zip not producing the information as well. Nobody complains about FSBOs being monitored or standardized in any way. Why is that?
Now regarding your listing selling 10% above list price. Yes to me that would be fraud. Was your home in a price range? Was the sold price 10% above the low end? I am not trying to rationalize the fraud here but I am just trying to form a clean angle on the who thing.
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In general Cyphire, I absolutely agree with your points. I am not trying to play devils advocate and man do I ever hate trying to defend the establishment or the way things are. I don’t like it, and I don’t do it. I can conduct the way I do business but I cannot police others. It would be suicidal for me to do so.
It does not make it right (what they do). I think there “may” be recourse when enough people take action.
