(WXYZ) — A warning has been issued to female real estate agents about a man who may be a threat.
Realtor Amy Stack of Thrive Realty Company said that overall most interactions with potential buyers and sellers were nothing out of the ordinary. However, three weeks ago she said she had a strange interaction with a man who found her information online.
“Unfortunately, that comes with the territory of being a female agent,” Stack said.
She said she missed back-to-back phone calls from the man who claimed he wanted to sell a warehouse he owns with his mother in Detroit.
“The first thing he noticed was he found me online, saw my picture, and knew I could do the job,” Stack recalled.
When she called back, Stack said red flags were popping up one after another.
“He said he wanted to take me shopping and to church,” she said. Number.”
She said she ran a background check on the guy using an app called Forewarn. She says she uses it regularly.
“He had a lot of scary accusations coming up,” Stack said.
The man is a registered sex offender with the first offense in 2003.
Realtor Rachel Blue of Elite Realty said her conversation with the man also began on the phone. She got the call in August.
“He asked me if I wanted to come and see the building. I said, ‘Sure, that’s fine. And then he said, ‘Are you going to bring someone?’ It was my red flag,” she recalls.
“And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to bring my photographer to take pictures. (He replied, ‘You don’t need to because I already have pictures,'” Blue continued.
She said he told her to make sure to wear designer boots. The times he came to the office, she wasn’t there. However, he left voicemails which 7 Action News listened to. In one, he was irritated that she hadn’t returned his call.
Blue said she searched extensively and could not find the property the man claimed to own.
Recently, an organization called Realcomp issued this internal bulletin for realtors, along with the Greater Metropolitan Realtors Association, to beware of a sex offender behaving strangely towards female realtors.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s the guy,'” Stack recalled his reaction.
Blue recalled, “It was really shocking.”
“It’s kind of sad that someone did this to 14 people and there were no consequences,” Stack said.
Blue said, “Personally, it wasn’t like a law enforcement issue for me. It was kind of like a wake-up call.”
She said she wears concealed and officers are encouraged to take a self-defense course.
Blue said: “I have an app on my phone where my family knows where I’m going. Every time I go to screenings I send my location (saying): ‘Hey, this is where I’m going .’ If I’m worried, I try to take someone with me. Even with women…it doesn’t matter, man (or) woman, you have to take the same precautions.”
Nathan Boji, president of the Greater Metropolitan Association of Realtors, said, “We’re very keen on educating about safety and industry best practices.”
He said September is Realtor Safety Month. Boji said GMAR held classes for its 11,000 members on topics including situational awareness and self-defense tactics.
Also, strategies like parking on the street instead of in the driveway, not letting anyone come between you and the door were discussed, letting others know if you have visitors, and bringing someone along with you.
“We take it very seriously. We talk about it throughout the year,” Boji said.
