One day at dinner time, an inspector of a government department was chatting with a former colleague who owned a consultancy company.  During the meeting, the inspector mentioned that he had been in financial difficulties recently. The owner of the consultancy company took the chance to lend a helping hand to the inspector by offering him a loan of substantial amount.  At the same time, the owner of the consultancy company requested the inspector to copy to him from the database of the departmental computer and saved them into his personal USB.  Those records concerned the business organizations that had failed to comply with the regulations enforced by his department.  In return for the help from his former colleague, the inspector obtained over 100 records and sent them to the owner of the consultancy company.  The owner of the consultancy company used the records as a sales lead, approaching those business organisations on the list and touting his consultancy services to them. Some of the business organisations received sales calls from the consultancy company almost as soon as they had received warning notices from the government. They suspected corruption and reported the matter to the ICAC.

A sales manager of a web design company was moonlighting at a rival company.   To get more business in this competitive sector, the rival company offered the sales manager 6% commission on every contract he secured for them. During his day job at the web design company, the sales manager communicated with clients by e-mails, and it was easy for him to retrieve the clients’ business information that came with the e-mails he received.   He made use of the convenience provided by the system and diverted the e-mails to his secret employer.   He conducted six of these illicit transmissions within four months, and he also dishonestly secured contracts for the rival company by deceiving two clients into believing that his primary employer had an agency agreement with its rival.

Timmy, an estate agent, was commissioned by Mrs Chung, a landlord, to sell a residential unit at $9,000,000. Ms Lam, a client, expressed willingness to buy the unit at $8,780,000 but instead of informing Mrs Chung of the offer, Timmy told Mrs Chung that a client had agreed to buy her unit at $8,580,000 in the name of a limited company. He persuaded Mrs Chung to sell the unit at a reduced price for cash flow reason as there were signs that property prices were going down. Mrs Chung eventually agreed. However, Mrs Chung later found out that, after the transaction was completed, the buyer had immediately sold the unit to Ms Lam at $8,780,000. She reported the case to the ICAC which subsequently revealed that Timmy was one of the shareholders of the limited company which was the buyer.

Mrs Mo, a flat owner, commissioned an estate agency as the sole agent for the sale of a shop premises priced at $13.6 million. The company assigned Anna and Bill to take care of the matter.

One day, Anna found a buyer who offered to buy the premises for $14 million. As Anna could not reach Mrs Mo at that moment and had to leave office for an urgent meeting, she asked Bill to contact Mrs Mo. When Bill contacted Mrs Mo, he told her that a buyer had offered $12.8 million for the premises. Bill eventually persuaded Mrs Mo to accept the offer and sign a provisional sale and purchase agreement.

The next day, Bill told Anna that the shop premises had been sold to his client Mr Sung who was willing to re-sell the premises to Anna’s original buyer as a confirmor. Sensing something was suspicious, Anna reported to her supervisor that Bill might have breached the company’s code of practice by showing favour to Mr Sung to sell him the premises at a lower price.

While the estate agency conducted an internal investigation, Bill begged Anna to falsely claim that she had only met the original buyer who made the $14 million offer after the provisional sale and purchase agreement had been signed. Anna immediately refused.

In fact, the whole situation happened because Bill did not want to share the commission equally with Anna. Instead of co-operating with Anna, he wanted to handle the transaction alone. He thus sought assistance from his friend Mr Sung in buying the shop at a lower price and then re-selling it as a confirmor to Anna’s original buyer at a higher price. Through this way, Bill not only could receive more than $50,000 commission from both the buyer and seller, he could also share the profits from the price difference with Mr Sung. The estate agency refused to pay Bill the commission and reported the situation to the ICAC.

Director Mr Lai was a village-type house developer and a director of an estate agency. His agency had acquired a land lot in the New Territories for constructing village-type houses.

Mr Lai assigned the project to his assistant Clement who held an estate agent’s licence. Clement knew Mr Shum who claimed himself a village representative. They often gambled together and Clement ended up owing money to Mr Shum. When Clement failed to make a repayment, Mr Shum asked Clement to deceive Mr Lai by making use of Mr Lai’s eagerness to get the project underway so that Clement could repay the debts. Clement felt he had no alternative but to do as Mr Shum instructed.  One day, Clement told Mr Lai that Mr Shum, the village representative, had asked the company to donate $500,000 to the village fund. Otherwise, the village residents would object the coming village-type house construction project. To avoid complications, Mr Lai made a cheque to Mr Shum and Clement returned a false receipt on Mr Shum’s behalf.  

Later, Mr Lai suspected that corruption might be involved in the incident and reported it to the ICAC.  After investigation, it was found that Mr Shum was not a real village representative, but only an ordinary villager.

Ronald worked in an estate agency. His employer trusted him and provided him with training; yet Ronald felt he could have done better. Ronald planned to marry his girlfriend in a year’s time. To prepare for the costly wedding, he applied for a huge loan from a finance company, putting himself in a position where he had to work very hard to repay the debt. After successfully renting out Ms Yeung’s flat at $30,000 per month, Ronald asked Ms Yeung to deposit the $15,000 commission into the bank account of a consultancy firm which was set up by himself. Ronald also lied about the consultancy firm being a subsidiary of the estate agency which he worked for. To conceal the whereabouts of the commission, Ronald submitted a false report to his employer stating that Ms Yeung’s tenancy transaction had been facilitated by a consultancy firm and Ms Yeung would only be willing to pay commission to the consultancy firm. Ronald’s employer was suspicious about these arrangements and checked the consultancy firm’s details. Ronald’s dishonest act was revealed and a report was made to the ICAC.

Gordon was an estate agent in an estate agency.  Mr Yu, a client, commissioned Gordon to sell four commercial units, specifying a minimum average price of $20,000 per square foot. As Gordon knew his cousin Johnny planned to invest in commercial buildings in that district, he recommended Mr Yu’s units and sold two of them to Johnny at around $18,000 per square foot. To thank Gordon, Johnny offered him “tea money” of $150,000. Gordon then found another buyer, Mr Pau, for the remaining two units, asking $24,000 per square foot in order to fulfil Mr Yu’s price instructions. After several negotiations, the transaction was concluded at $22,000 per square foot. Although Gordon succeeded in selling Mr Yu’s units at an average price of $20,000 per square foot, Mr Yu suspected that Gordon had favoured Johnny and corruption was involved. He therefore reported the case to the ICAC. Gordon argued in court that the transaction had been concluded according to Mr Yu’s wishes and neither the estate agency nor Mr Yu had suffered any loss. However, the estate agency employing Gordon had stipulated that no agent was allowed to accept any private advantage from clients. The seller Mr Yu was also dissatisfied with Gordon’s behaviour.

Vincent, an estate agent of an agency, facilitated the sale of Mr Leung’s flat to Mrs Pong at a price of $34 million. In line with regular practice, both buyer and seller had to pay 1% of the purchase price as commission to the agency. After the transaction was completed, Vincent showed an agreement and a fax to Mr Leung and Mrs Pong. The agreement indicated that the transaction had been carried out through two estate agencies, Vincent’s agency and Agency B. The fax was issued by Vincent’s agency and indicated that Agency B would collect the commission on its behalf. As the agreement and fax bore the signatures of the persons responsible in both estate agencies as well as company chops, Mr Leung and Mrs Pong paid the commission accordingly. In fact, Vincent had forged the agreement and fax document with a view to embezzling his employer’s commission using Agency B’s account. Agency B was later to return 80% of the commission it received to Vincent. Meanwhile, Vincent told his employer that another estate agency had beaten him to the transaction. Vincent’s agency made a report to the ICAC after suspecting that Vincent had been bribed to refer business to another estate agency.

Holly was a real estate agent.  She was amazed to find that her Sales Director and other colleagues used various “deal-closing techniques” on prospective clients.  The most effective technique was what they called “the other party”.

Pushing the potential buyer for a decision, Holly’s colleagues would create a “buy-now-or-never” atmosphere by all means.  The colleagues would misinterpret the availability of the property concerned by saying that it was also viewed by many interested buyers of other colleagues.  In front of the potential buyer, they also either pretended to make lots of enquiries or engaged in a heated debates with other colleagues about the availability of the property.  The purpose was to increase the purchase desire as well as to impose pressure on the potential buyer.

According to Holly’s boss Mark, it was a real estate agent’s job to "help the potential buyer with a purchase decision".  Holly had her scruples and disagreed with such psychological manipulation.  However, after six months, she found herself lagging behind in terms of sales figures.  Mark remarked that Holly lacked ‘sales techniques’.

Should Holly also adopt the psychological manipulation that her colleagues had found so successful?   Or should she try to close deals in her own way, and be upfront and honest with her clients?