'That was the last we saw of Paul:' New homeowners thwart greedy real estate agent's plan by making him lose his $20,000 commission

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
May 28, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

It is an unfortunate truth of adulthood that you will likely deal with a shady real estate agent at some point in your life. These folks can be tricky to navigate. This is not to say that all real estate agents aren't trustworthy, but it is to say that if you go into a process with that mentality in mind, you might avoid getting swindled.

In this instance, we have a couple that wanted to downsize and found the perfect new home for them. They had a verbal agreement with the real estate agent that all documents would be signed on Monday and that the scheduled open house over the weekend would be canceled, since the agent already told the couple that the place would be theirs. Of course, when the couple just so happened to be driving through the area over the weekend, they noticed that the open house was very much still happening. Keep scrolling to see how they got even!

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    Cheezburger Image 10510670592
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Thankfully, this author and his wife knew how to avoid allowing other prospective homebuyers to take their new place from them. However, when it came time to sell their current place and the same real estate agent wanted to be their listing agent, the author saw an opportunity to finally enact the proper payback that this liar deserved!

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    A while back my wife and I decided to downsize and so we were out there dealing with those bastions of honesty, real estate agents, on a
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    weekly basis. We attended an open home for an apartment that we fell in love with, and after
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    another arranged viewing, we made an offer with the agent Paul.
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    Now Paul was your stereotypical agent, sharply dressed, talkative. and smarmy with an attractive assistant to hand out the brochures.
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    But he had the listing for what we wanted so there was no avoiding him. Our initial under listing price offer was refused with a counter offer which we
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    thought was over the odds. But we wanted it badly and as we were downsizing the extra $20000 or so was not a strain. We agreed to the price on the strict proviso
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    that the impending open house for the weekend did not proceed as we didn't want to run the risk of someone throwing in a higher offer. Contracts
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    were to be exchanged on the Monday. This was agreed to by Paul.
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    Cheezburger Image 10510671104
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    I drove past at the time of the open house, just to check out the neighbourhood again and saw signs out. The lying bi rd! So being petty
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    we went up to the apartment, said hello to Paul and Jackie who were a little surprised to see us, and then proceeded
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    to follow around any visitors and point out the deficiencies as we saw them. We also monopolised Paul and Jackie's anytime people
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    were angling to chat to them. They couldn't fob us off, we were buyers.
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    We were the first in and the last out. 10 groups left knowing every fault in the apartment, the area and with the complex.
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    I was ped but kept it amicable because this was exactly what we wanted and I didn't want to jeopardise the purchase. Through
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    gritted teeth we liaised with Paul and exchanged contracts on the Monday as planned.
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    But the best part was to come. As down-sizers we had a house to sell, almost double in price to the unit we just purchased. The property
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    we bought was tenanted so we had six months until we could get vacant possession which suited us as we could get our old home ready for sale.
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    Of course, Paul was keen to get our listing and was on to it straight away. I didn't discourage him and actually got him around
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    to look at our old home to recommend improvements we should do before listing the property for sale. He was
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    only too happy and came up with a detailed plan for us and came and presented to us in a professionally done package. He followed up every month asking for updates.
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    It took us 5 months of work to get it ready to list. We phoned Paul to come out and have a look
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    at the property ready for sale. He turned up and was blown away by the improvements and you could almost see him salivating to have this listing. He arrived with
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    comparable sales and a price in mind and did pressure me to sign listing documents then and there. But I made the excuse that my wife was away for the next couple
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    of days (she wasn't) and there was no way I could agree to a listing price and sign documents without her. We made an appointment for later in the week.
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    And that was the last we saw of Paul in person. Our listing with another agent went live on the property websites two
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    days later, and the first person I forwarded the advertisement to was Paul. I simply said that this was a direct result of lying to us about cancelling the open house and that we
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    couldn't reward someone who did that to us. We got an offer that we couldn't refuse on the very first open house.
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    The new agent pocketed just over $20000 in commission. Probably loose change too agents but it wasn't Paul's loose change at least.
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real estate agent revenge homeowner revenge-stories new homeowners petty revenge entitled people karma real estate entitled people
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