You can tell them off but you should then write them off as a future source of business.  

It is better for us ask the buyer to get the address of the property they are selling.  At least you could have checked in zillow or realtor.com to see if they were telling the truth. It is frustrating, when we waste our time with no pay. There are times,  I wish we could charge $75.00 per hour for consulting

Hi John, sometimes people are just not considerate of our time. Sounds like this guy was just trying to use you to leverage his partner to buy him out.
It's generally not worth your time to pursue it I would just walk away.
Bob

Of course!

That's the nature of the business. We just need to work diligently to sort these folks out before wasting too much of our time on them. 

Fool me once, shame on you!@ Fol me twice, shame on me!

Sorry to hear these people wasted your time. 

I try not to put too much work into people until I see that they are serious. 

Yeah, it would have been better to be at home watching TV drinking a beer :)

I require everyone to be straight & forthcoming.  I sometimes run into people trying to commit occupancy fraud, and they're usually easy to see through, we usually have a conversation and sometimes move forward, but most often I cut ties - I don't have time for dishonest people.

Clients aren't clients until they are under contract and before accepting new clients they should met your client profile so both of you are aware of the goals, and objectives and the time line to complete the task.

Welcome to real estate. It's just simply the buyer/sellers do not know what they are doing & need additional guidance. You have to judge if that is within your business model or not.

I'm thinkin' not ....

I demand honesty with my clients.  If something doesn't appear "right", I do call it out to make sure I understand correctly.  If they are not honest, they become my liability and their commission is not worth the risk.

We all get taken in occasionally. The best thing you can do is learn from the experience and move on to another client. Don't waste your emotional energy on this one. You will be giving too much power to these folks.....and they are not worth it.

John Mosier Red flags usually cause problems down the road.

For the first senario I don't believe the seller has any obligation to tell you all of his financial facts.  Just list it and sell.  In the 2nd one, it happens all the time.  If I had closed all of the deals that were promised to me for the last 15 years, well it's just life.  Don't consider your research a waste of time.  That type of info will reappear down the road.

My strategy with both buyers and sellers is to get an investment from them into the process before I over invest. If they are unwilling to take a step in my direction, the Red Flags go up. We shadow dance until the truth reveals.

I try to present it to the client that I can't help them or provide the level of service that they deserve if I don't know the full story- they have to be honest with me =otherwise, move on

I would have a conversation with them and if I think I am wasting my time I would be honest with them and tell them i do not think I can help them.

Good morning John. The minute I find out someone wasn't straight with me about anything it would require an immediate conversation, otherwise it may happen again.

I would say yes. Should someone be hiding something, it is best to get it in the open and be transparent.

Absolutely. If I even suspect there is something going on behind the scenes I will have a frank conversation. I do not like hidden agendas and fell like it hinders me doing my job.

Welcome to the world of Real Estate!  We get all kinds and many of them have something to hide.