The Real Estate Council of British Columbia (RECBC) has both fined and suspended a former employee of MAC Marketing Solutions for committing “professional misconduct” by providing “false or misleading” statements to media.
Nicolas Hans Jensen, who works for Onni Realty Inc., took part in a charade on February 9, 2013, when some MAC Marketing employees under his control pretended to be waiting for wealthy parents from China to come to help them buy a condominium as part of Chinese New Year celebrations.
Jensen is suspended for the two weeks between July 9 and July 22, must pay the costs related to successfully completing the Real Estate Trading Services Remedial Education Course and pay the RECBC $1,250 for expenses related to its investigation.
MAC’s CEO Cameron McNeill apologized to media immediately following the February 9, 2013 incident and said he would conduct his own investigation.
Jensen resigned from MAC 12 days later.
The day before that resignation, McNeill told BIV that a “senior manager” had left his company.
“Some poor judgments were made and those poor judgments led to unfortunate circumstances,” McNeill said at the time.
The BCREC told BIV the same day that it was launching its own investigation.
The situation was seen at the time to be part of a trend related to media manipulation by real estate marketers.
Another example of this at the time included VancouverIsAwesome.com editor Bob Kronbauer being paid by what was then an in-receivership Village on False Creek, formerly the Olympic Village, to promote life in the village even though nowhere on his website did it make it clear that he was being paid to do so.
Then there was the situation in April 2012 when real estate marketer The Key was launching what it called "Groupon for condos."
A Global TV story by reporter Michelle Miller featured a woman named Tara Fluet, who was described as an investor in the program to group-buy condos. A woman by the same name had a LinkedIn profile that stated that her job was a sales manager at The Key.
