The REALTOR’S® many obligations to other REALTORS is awfully clear, especially when it comes to talking about one another. Take for instance Article 15 of the National Association of REALTORS’ “The Duties to REALTORS®,” which reads:

REALTORS® shall not knowingly or recklessly make false or misleading statements about competitors, their businesses, or their business practices. (Amended 1/92)

Standard of Practice 15-1

REALTORS® shall not knowingly or recklessly file false or unfounded ethics complaints. (Adopted 1/00)

Standard of Practice 15-2

The obligation to refrain from making false or misleading statements about competitors’ businesses and competitors’ business practices includes the duty to not knowingly or recklessly repeat, retransmit, or republish false or misleading statements made by others. This duty applies whether false or misleading statements are repeated in person, in writing, by technological means ( e.g., the Internet), or by any other means. (Adopted 1/07)

Why am I mentioning this now? According to CrimeLibrary.com, police have arrested a 42-year-old Miami-Dade, Florida REALTOR named Dean Isenberg for posting fake escort ads on the Internet that included the personal contact information of a rival REALTOR. According to police, the incidents began last summer, when 44-year-old Debbie Blasberg, a local Miami REALTOR and a married mother of two, reported that she was receiving hundreds of unsolicited phone calls and text messages from strangers inquiring about sex. One of the callers had confessed that he found her number in an escort ad on Craigslist.org.

Ethically speaking, what Dean Isenberg did is reprehensible in every sense of the word. In addition to the criminal charges he now faces, I sincerely hope the National Association of REALTORS censures and condemns his actions with a lifetime ban!