Suit Targets Movers’ Use of Home Listings
A San Fernando Valley realty group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against two moving companies and three real estate brokers, claiming they illegally used copyrighted, confidential information to solicit business from homeowners trying to sell their homes.
Officials for the San Fernando Board of Realtors said the defendants--which included Mayflower Transfer & Storage Van Lines in Orange and Global Van Lines of Van Nuys--obtained information from the computerized Multiple Listing Service, operated by the board, to harass homeowners with junk mail and phone calls.
One homeowner, Ron Green of North Hollywood, said his house was only on the market for two weeks “before I started getting deluged with phone calls, post cards, everything. The attitude of the callers was just awful, they were so forceful. They would say, ‘We know you’re moving.’ It got so bad that my wife just started hanging up on them.”
Green added that he felt the calls were “an imposition and a real intrusion on our privacy.”
The Multiple Listing Service lists nearly 40,000 homeowners, along with their addresses, phone numbers, financing information, list price and complete property profile.
Steve Owen, president of the realtors board, said the information is for the use only of member real estate agents in real estate transactions.
Members must sign a contract stating they will not release the information for other purposes.
“But in the last three years, we’ve gotten hundreds of homeowner complaints saying they have been put through continual harassment from companies who had personal information obtained through the service,” Owen said.
The board accused the moving companies and the three real estate agents named in the suit--Patricia Miller, Richard Sharp and Paul Thomas Jacobs--of copyright infringement, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraud and conspiracy. The suit seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against the alleged violations.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, contends that Sharp, a Hesperia businessman, got the confidential mailing lists and service information from Miller and Jacobs.
That information was then copied and sold to Global, Mayflower and others who used it to solicit homeowners.
Officials for Global and Mayflower said Tuesday they had no comment on the suit. Sharp and Jacobs could not be reached.
Miller said she did not believe she should have been named in the suit. “I was conned as much as the board was,” she said. “I got in and got out in a very short time. I didn’t know Richard Sharp. I was doing another friend a favor. When that got out of hand, I quit the whole thing.”
Miller refused to elaborate.
Board officials said they have revised the computer system and instituted safeguards to slow down, if not prevent, illegal accessing of the computer listings.
