Feel Like You’re Being Stalked?

This article hit a sore spot I've had for over thirty years. My father was living in our family home in Short Hills, NJ, and had a couple of life-threatening crises. The wonderful Rescue Squad took him to the hospital twice. The second time, he did not recover. Two days later, one of the woman on the rescue squad came to my house in her apparent "other" guise to try to get me to market the house with her. I was planning to live there with my daughter and had no intention of selling. I politely refused. Talking to my lawyer about the estate, etc., he said what she had done was not only incredibly bad manners, but also frowned on, if not illegal for rescue squad members. He used the term "ambulance chasers". The woman came back not long thereafter. I told her she would be about the last person on earth to whom I would gave a sale. I'm still angry, all these years later.

Does anyone remember the “Welcome Wagon”? After my husband and I bought a home in a new area 30 years ago, we were subjected to an aggressive series of contacts from one of their reps who was determined to get inside our home to “welcome” us to the neighborhood and, oh by the way, market local businesses. I finally had to dispense with diplomacy and simply say, “No, we are not interested, don’t call again!”

Google your address and find out whether your house is on sale. I did that a few years ago and found that, yes, my house was on sale. After contacting the agent by e-mail, it was removed. I turned 80 five years ago and since then I get offers to buy my house "for cash"; these offers come mostly on postcards but yesterday one agent left a message on my phone answerer. I ignore them all. Today, the house is listed by Zillow (but not "for sale", just "off market"). They have the correct purchase price ($190,000 in 2007); the current value they give is $236,589, up $196 in the last 30 days (you can't be more precise); Zestimate Rent: $1,682 per month. Realtors and agencies like Zestimate are a nuisance, but they are easy to ignore and, speaking for myself, I would not trust them. The same goes for the audiologists who send me letters several times a month and, I expect, would be delighted to sell me overpriced hearing aids that I do not need (not yet). If you are only in your fifties, be prepared. It starts around age 60, with offers for long-term care insurance, until about 65. After that offers comes in waves, depending on your age. I am at the "hearing-aids and house-selling" stage. You can't trust them, so just ignore them.

Too many comments here are mean-spirited and out of line. I have known and worked with hundreds of Realtors and brokers over the years, and found nearly all of them to be good-hearted, kind, decent people. Recognized by the courts as an expert in Realtor conduct, I am more than qualified to make that observation.

I received a few calls at work from realtors after the death of my MIL. How disruptive and rude. Thankfully I was not inundated as Ms. Walsh was. This is such an intrusive practice, but with the amount of personal information readily available on the internet it is hardly surprising that I could be tracked down easily.

This is a very sad thing, you know. When I split from the ex, my parents and I bought a house. I've gotten mailing after mailing in the three years since. They never end. It makes me pine for the days when I did business with the same real estate agent through decades and multiple transactions. When she kept the drawing that my then 3 year old daughter had done hanging in her office (or maybe in her files, LOL). She helped us sell our first house. When we moved back to the area five years later, she was the only agent to return my call. She remembered me. She helped us buy our second, then third house. And sell the second. The third was foreclosed on the ex who was feckless and abandoned it. By that time, she was retired. She never sent me junk mail. She never had to. But she has remained my supportive and close friend of now, over 20 years.

A snow storm will also bring out the bottom feeders. They can't show houses so they harass other people by phone. One woman demanded to know what the current agent was doing wrong when the house didn't sell right away. They promise big bucks till you sign on the dotted line. Then when the house isn't sold in two weeks they need to lower the price. There was a study in many years ago in this paper that while they may pressure you to accept a low offer, they keep their own houses on the market longer. Yes, our recycle bin was full of real estate agents' junk mail touting how they are the best. What should we expect? Real estate agents are no different from used car salesmen. They just have a different product to lie about.

It's not just for-profit companies doing this brand of morbidity marketing. My mother's and father's obituaries both noted they gave to animal welfare causes when they were alive, and within weeks we were deluged with non-profit organizations (animal rights, horse sanctuaries, etc.) soliciting for donations "in their honor." Worse, most refused to remove the address from their mailing lists despite repeated requests. Even years later, they still send them to my current address thousands of miles away since I was the executor of the estate.

When the mailer contains a postage prepaid envelope I fill it with the solicitation and mail it back. Let them throw it away, and help support the Post Office at the same time.

I am looking at a post card to my recently widowed Mom right now. This is not much different than solicitation for credit repair and debt abatement that comes to a house from public and industry records. I know real estate agents who keep a list of the elderly. I know real estate agents who show up at wakes and funerals. It is accurate that real estate agents are a dime a dozen and all self employed hustlers licensed by the state in which they live. There are too many chasing the same prospective clients and properties. It is a small minority that greatly prosper in the business. The median income for a real estate agent in NY is $25,000. A pittance considering they pay their own expenses and both sides of FICA. To me, it seems few realtors grew up and went to college telling themselves - “I want to be a real estate agent as a career”. Rather, in wealthy suburbs , it is commonly housewives looking to get out of the house and. to be second earners. And as it concerns men, it is often middle-aged men who were downsized from a salaried career and cannot get back into well paid corporate role.

I got a ticket for driving in virginia for aggressive driving, a code violation they have criminalized and turned into big business for lawyers and courts alike. Within a few days of receiving the summons I started to get junk mail from the many local lawyers in virginia who have come to 'specialize' in this ticket (i.e. they know all the court staff personally). What a racket.

Within a week of my father's death brokers were calling my mother or sending her small gifts of condolence. Left at the door and brought in person. The worst part was that she fell for it, believing them to be sincere, and kind.

I had a hearing test once(my daughter mumbles and I though it was me) now I get hearing aid mailers every week. Never bought a thing....had one test six years ago. And the daughter..she is a teenager now and makes herself heard..

We get mailers asking us to sell our place a few times a year. I used to think that these were personalized or that someone really had an all-cash buyer, until yesterday... Yesterday we got something that externally looked like a card from a friend, but turned out to be a letter saying that a broker had a buyer looking for an apartment just like ours. I saw that there were a few of the same handwritten mailer hanging out in the recycling bin near our mailboxes. Apparently the broker had written the same card to every person in the building. Mine joined the others in the trash. I get that real estate is a tough business, but why does that mean that brokers -- or anyone else! -- get to annoy the heck out of people who've just gone through a big life change? We've come to expect marketing and advertising as a fact of life, but advertising is also rude and intrusive and it costs us our free time and attention.

Several years ago, my husband decided to resign his exec position and sent out sn email to his network to let everyone know. One of the people on the email list was the colleague who had connected us to the real estate agent who had sold us our house. Within a day, she reached out to say hey, guess you'll be moving (not true) because you lost your job (also not true) so can I list your house? What a vampire. Sadly for her, he rather quickly had his choice of several new positions and we stayed right where we were. But when we do relocate, she won't be getting this listing.

Losing my home privacy was causing me to lose my sanity. I have done the following: by placing a locked, wrought iron gate at our home entrance I keep away all of the riff-raff. I only unlock it when I am expecting someone. Because I receive many fraudulent calls on our landline, I was considering getting rid of it. Now it just rings twice and goes to voicemail: if I recognize the caller I pick up. Otherwise I delete the call and sometimes block the caller. There are multiple ways to block a caller--through the phone or through AT&T. I've researched it thoroughly. An unrecognized caller on my cell gets blocked manually (and I don't answer the call). I've found that the so-called blocking apps don't work at all. As for junk mail, into the recycling bin it goes. I get very little. My husband was scammed out of $2400 over the phone a few years ago. It's not going to happen again.

I used the StreetEasy app to search for a coop in NYC. After saving a property in the app, my email and phone number was sent to agents. I have been inundated with unwanted calls, texts and emails from strangers who are unrelenting. User beware!

Following a devastating home, one neighborhood real estate agent donated a sofa, and another bundled and delivered to us contributions from our neighborhood -- both gestures my grief stricken wife and I gratefully accepted at the time. Our home took a full year to rebuild; do not recall at any point even mentioning we might sell. Years later, the long-held vetriol of the second real estate agent came out, apparently when the realization came we had no intention of selling our home. So a word of advice is to never accept 'kindness' from a real estate agent -- even in the depths of grief.

The types of things mentioned in this article are all independent third party services offered to real estate agents and brokers for a fee to help them build a list of potential leads. The residential real estate trade is rife with such "services" and scams. The agents are preyed upon by these vendors as much as the homeowners are preyed upon by the agents. It's all part of their marketing plan to build their business and since each agent is essentially a business unto itself the hapless homeowner receives multiple solicitations from multiple agents within a short time span. This can probably be traced back to a particular vendor of such services that conducted an aggressive marketing campaign targeting the local Realtors in the community. Or maybe there was real estate convention recently, or seminar for newly trained agents. There is no reason to fret over such ads anymore that you would for an invitation to join a local gym or offer to buy mattresses at bargain prices. If you put your number on the do not call list they are required to heed that. I received a number of letters that were increasingly presumptuous from a local Realtor after my mother died. I finally sent him a "cease and desist" letter. I just used those words in the letter. They sound intimidating because lawyers write that a lot. The letters stopped and word gets around among Realtors. They all talk to each other.

We recently bought a condo and we get letters saying not to forget to get a copy of the deed, that we will need it if we want to sell etc. This is something you don’t need, you can get yourself and don’t need to hire a company to get. Scams, all scams.

Just to clarify, ( I was a realtor) the multiple listing service does not advertise and list a property when the owner dies. The MLS only lists properties that have been put there by a real estate agent or broker when that property is sold or put up for sale by the owner. Real estate agents and brokers know about deaths because they scan the public records for such information, probably facilitated by a computer program or a service they pay for to provide that information.

Vultures chasing hearses. In California, a recently deceased’s family must file documents with the county Probate Court soon after death. These go into a database that is soon accessible by the public. This information is used by real estate sales-lead developers. The file includes if a Last Will is involved or not, executor or not, spouse, marital status, beneficiaries, if real property is left, its address and value, if encumbered (lien holder), names and addresses of family members. The deceased might have passed just a week or two ago, yet the relatives are beset with pitches to represent them as a seller’s agent for the property.

When we moved across country, we got rid of the landline. At the time of our move in 2013, it had devolved into little more than a conduit for spam. For a while our cell phones were fairly safe. I refused all requests by retail establishments for my number, my husband was less cautious. No matter, eventually the spam came to us both. Now the messages are more threatening. Must of gotten fifty calls in the last month regarding my social security number being compromised. While in the SS office last month ( about 30 minutes) for a different matter, I overheard at least two people who actually made appointments because of that particular scam. Not everyone has the wherewithal to immediately dismiss these abusive calls. The FTC, under every administration, has been absolutely worthless in defending seniors from these illegal abusive scams. And when bills aimed at protecting people have been passed, Congressmen consistently insert language that subverts the intent of the law. The more vulnerable you become in this country, the more your country hangs you out to dry, thanks to politicians (mostly, but not all, Republican) who favor lobbyists with money over representing the needs of their constituents. Eventually I came to the conclusion that our country doesn’t even consider us citizens. We, the People, are just another economic resource sold out to private interests to be bled dry until we’re gone.

So the real question is what can be done to stop this? I have accidentally thrown out mail that was important because it got mixed with solicitation letters that were packaged the same way.

It's not just scanning the obituaries. When my parents passed away we didn't list it in the obits. The only way the real estate brokers and jewelry buyers knew they were gone was from county records. Which meant they went through the trouble of looking through government records (or paying someone to do that for them) to see who had passed away. I gave them bad yelp reviews. Not much but it was the only recourse I had.

I and my neighbors receive postcards and letters from realtors almost weekly now. Mostly from Chinese-American realtors based in Brooklyn interested in the East Shore of SI. I'm in a safe desirable area and letters and postcards don't bother me. Even the realtors that ring my doorbell are always nice polite people. But stalking the obituary pages is pretty low. Is it true that back in the 1970s renters would scan the ,obits and then look up the deceased's address in the phone book in an attempt to get a good apartment?

Not just real estate! I recently made the mistake of contacting a couple of car dealerships looking for a pre-owned Subaru. Thank god it was only two. I was hounded, stalked, emailed, texted, telephoned relentlessly for two weeks. THIS is how to do business?

Why is any of this surprising? Real estate agents are and always have been the used car salespeople of the real property world. They wouldn't know decorum, social boundaries, or a fiduciary duty if any of the foregoing fell out of the sky and hit them in the head.

This article left out some other sometimes vulnerable people considered stooges ready to be milked. Seniors. My sister owns her house in an up and coming St Paul neighborhood. The way these sharks harass her is just disgusting. Phone calls, letters, door hangers and actual knocks on her door. Just hoping that some dementia will allow them to rob her. Seniors get every scam in the book and it is so endless.

Reminds me of the practice of lawyers hounding accident victims to start a lawsuit. They were called ambulance chasers. I’ve been a real estate for 22 years and never contacted a home owner who suffered a loss of any kind. My company and, I assume many others, created an non-harassment agreement prohibiting this behavior, which i know isn’t limited to real estate agents. I just bought a new car and now I get so many letters (open immediately they all say) that my warranty is about to expire (I have a 5 year warranty from the company I bought it from) and offering me a new warranty. My car agent says they get the information from the local DMV and send out these letters to car owners. It’s a land based version of online ads. You browse an item and immediately a plethora of ads appear offering deals on what you searched for. What an awful way to make a living.

I rent a rundown apt. in what is now apparently the new Amazon HQ area in NVa. I did get lots of marketing solicitations for blinds, furniture, rug cleaning and the like when I moved in. But sense the announcement that the new AZ HQ is being built reasonably close by, there's been a flood of what 'appear to be' personal notes to the 'homeowner' from some 'nice person'- like someone who claims they're moving to the area because they're getting married or starting college - who wants to offer to immediately buy this apt 'without any hassle.' Sometimes I do a search of the individual name who suggests they'll take the property off the homeowners hands and it's usually turns out to be from someone who buys and flips properties in this area. If I'm really irritated I search more about them and learn things like whether they're recently renovated their home or installed a pool on their property. I like the apt and want to keep it so I don't forward any of this stuff to my landlord (it isn't addressed to him personally) who lives in another state - who's difficult & doesn't take care of the property. But the recent onslaught is enervating. My younger sister owns a townhouse about 10 minutes from the new AZ HQ site and I assume she's being flooded with offers from hustlers like these who think she's stupid.

This wretched practice is despicable and should be stopped. However, being employed in a firm where I am in contact with numerous real estate brokers on a daily basis, I am not at all surprised by this piece. My opinion of the vast majority of them, which is shared by my co-workers, is far from complimentary. Most of these men and women are rude, aggressive in the extreme, and, dare I say, avaricious vultures. Needless to say, we are always pleasantly surprised when one of them does not fit this description.

Take this as an opportunity and ask all callers open ended questions. This way they get a curve ball and you can have fun. Where did you go to college? What did you do when you first decided to work in real estate? How many properties have you personally purchased? Avoid questions that they can answer with yes or no. Then simply put the phone down when responding and don’t answer. Pull an acting pause.. so they get no response . Just keep asking questions . Amazing how fast the conversations will end. Never respond to their questions. Seize it as an opportunity to have fun.

Ask the caller where they live and suggest that you come meet with them after 10 pm. When they hesitate, cuss them out and then threaten to call the police.

After my husband died the lawyer advised me not to remove his name from our property because of this kind of problem. Of course, anyone can read the obits and I still get flooded with offers by mail. I haven't been plagued by dealers coming to the door, but I am in my 8th decade and I suppose it is just a matter of time before they start coming.

I get at least one mailing a day from some firm wanting to buy my home. Although I am not a spring chicken, I am not about to sell my house, especially to someone, or company, that sends me mail with a bulk mail stamp on it and addressed as if it were hand written. I don't know if they know about my home's location. I have a three bedroom house with a finished basement and it sits in the best school district in the state of Georgia. I know what houses around me are selling for even if they have been flipped by someone who did not know what they were doing and paid no attention to building codes. I have seen some Micky Mouse work done on a house that cost the flipper $65K and sold on the market for almost $300K. Since the man who did the flipping is a cousin of the head commissioner, not once during the flipping did a person from the building code department come by - he is also a cousin of the same man. The buyerbuilt a garage after the purchase and that would have required a building permit and visits from the code inspector. That house had not been maintained for eons, painted only one time in 45 years with rot all through it. The electrical was put in, but not according to code. I know what was done wrong, I was in the house during the process and in the past, this old man was in the home repair business. My house does not need flipping.

The US Postal Service, bless their hearts, still let us see what kind of mail is involved by the stamp or franking. If it says something like "PRST STD", then it is junk, no matter what. Out it goes, no matter how pretty the envelope color, no matter how blaring the text about "Last Chance!" and "Urgent Personal Information!' If there's a real stamp, that means the company sending it had to pay more than a pittance, and had a guarantee of delivery (Presort Standard junk mail has no delivery guarantee, and therefore cannot be used for anything of genuine importance). Paying attention to franking can reduce the junk-mail burden considerably.

From what I gather, this evidently happens to people who live in cities - and large cities, at that. I have two nice homes in this very small town. Selling them would be more of a give-away than an actual sale. My principal home, two bedroom, 1-1/2 bath, kitchen, dining room, living room, entry hall and den, brick, central air, double large lot, very nicely landscaped, with fruit trees and a fish pond, would bring, at the outset, no more than $100,000, if I were that lucky. Probably more like $75,000, being realistic. When I see these places in cities selling for hundreds of thousands, if not many millions, I wonder if I live in a third world country. The variance in living expenses across this land varies far more than one would think.

I've turned off the answering machine on my home phone. If I don't recognize the number or name I don't answer. If someone has a legitimate reason to contact me they know how to reach me. We listed our home and took it off the market. I was hounded by realtors who I would never use or interview because of that. I think it is harder though when you've suffered a the death of a loved one. When they did get through to me, I felt free to respond however the mood struck me.

As a widower too unfortunately it seems that Ms Walsh's scenario is all to familiar for the survivors. It's not only limited to real estate transactions but other potential for fraud exists as a result of personal information that gets listed now as public record. The solution could rest with state lawmakers creating language that can protect this information thus further protecting the surviving spouse going through a difficult stage of life.