This is unbelievable. I just got a call a few minutes ago from one of the listing brokers of the property outlined in my post from yesterday. He politely asked that I take down their marketing brochure and was nice enough to state that he is fine with the fact that I posted my thoughts on the property. I told him I would consider removing the embed and would send him an email with my decision at some point today. He said the embed violated the terms of the confidentiality agreement on their website. I responded by saying that I believed the embed constituted fair use. To me, once these offerings are sent out to the public (especially in a mass email to thousands upon thousands of recipients as this property was) they are out in the open. See image below:
Do they think that deleting my account will prevent me from receiving further offerings? Its not like I can’t create another account in 2 seconds. This is a classic example of a BigCo. not understanding the internet. Attempting to suppress this kind of dissemination of their marketing materials is an exercise in futility. In reality, anyone with a pulse can create an account on their site and download any offering they have.
What these guys should do is call the owner of the property and show him my post. Maybe they could get a price reduction as a result. You are welcome.
There is a lesson here: Don’t say anything bad (or truthful) about CBRE’s listings or they will delete your account.
What a joke.
5 comments
@BrianOFlanagan says:
September 30, 2009 at 4:47 pm (UTC -8)
what an outrage! Clearly they don't want smart people such as you anayzing these deals, hoping some sucker comes along and takes their projections a fact value. Outstanding work, Chris
Retail Chatr – Commercial Real Estate Blog » Blog Archive » Inland Empire Shopping Center For Sale – Calling All Investors Seeking To Lose Money says:
September 30, 2009 at 1:40 pm (UTC -8)
[...] worst thing is that humble opinions such as yours make situations like [the one depicted in this post] look very silly for CBRE [...]
CI says:
October 5, 2009 at 1:54 pm (UTC -8)
[...] worst thing is that humble opinions such as yours make situations like [the one depicted in this post] look very silly for CBRE [...]
Michael O'Mara says:
October 8, 2009 at 1:11 am (UTC -8)
If you really want to get their attention then blog about the connection between a CBRE executive and a politician (husband & wife) and how CBRE landed the FDIC account!
Chris Rodriguez says:
October 21, 2009 at 3:40 pm (UTC -8)
I was thinking about that but there is sufficient information out there already about this controversy.
This article is a good example: <a href="http://bit.ly/1qE3Y” target=”_blank”>http://bit.ly/1qE3Y
Richard Blum, CBRE’s board chairman just happens to be the husband of US Senator Diane Feinstein. I’m sure the FDIC contract has nothing to do with Senator Feinstein’s husband being associated with CBRE – yeah right.