Cowbird agents resort to plagiarism at Lake Arenal

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The only CRGAR and NAR certified Realtor at Lake Arenal, Costa Rica

We have adapted to a great many unusual circumstances in Costa Rica, most of them gladly, but the unusual practices of some of the real estate agents we found at Lake Arenal, so different from the professionalism of the United States, have finally provoked us past the bemused head-shaking stage. We have written directly to these agents, asking them to remove our photos from their websites, without success. Below we cite instances of their plagiarism, telling where on our website you will find our original photos - and some text - copied onto their sites.

A very happy flock, these cowbird agents

Jim Aoki	Rene Aoki	Terry Moran
We add Terry Moran to our page, since omitting Terry would discredit his role as the first and pre-eminent of the sub-species Homo Cowbird at the lake. Arenal Lake Partners was just building its nest almost six years ago when Terry copied his first of the new agency's photos. As of the inception of this present page, he has four sets of our photos, at least, and a fifth set copied from the work of San Carlos Properties in Fortuna. That set is entitled Lake Front Elegance. We used those same photos also (our H205), but we worked with San Carlos properties on the listing. Our own photos appear in Moran's listings entitled Rainbow Bay Elegance (our H118), Spacious Tropical Home on a Large Lot Adjoining 80-acre Jungle Preserve (our H178), Versatile 4 Bedroom 3 Bath Volcano View Home (our H177), and Our Greatest Fire Sale Home (our H176). As for the Aokis of Remax Rico Realty, as we noted on our Home page, they have faithfully plagiarized two of our commercial listings, B64 and B68..
The photo of the cowbird on the oropendola nest is by Jim Burns of www.jimburnsphotos.com. We have his permission to use it. The photos of the three agents are copied from their websites, and we will remove them when they remove our photos from their websites.*

A giant cowbird invades an oropendola nest.

*A Giant Cowbird, molothrus oryzivorus, seeks entry to an oropendola nest.

"Motivated" agent markets properties without owner consent

Moran consults with a property owner.

One of the agents above, Terry Moran of Moran Real Estate, has exhibited a tactic that adds another interesting note of intrigue to the practice of real estate at Lake Arenal. Currently he advertises for sale a hotel on his website without ever communicating with the group of California owners. This is the Hotel Alturas, located about 10 minutes north of Nuevo Arenal. We have helped the owners with questions for a couple of years. Then last year we saw their hotel advertised by Mr. Moran on his website at $450,000. The California group was quite surprised. They asked us to put the 10-room hotel on our website at $395,000, which we did. His competitive fires stoked, Mr. Moran changed his price to $325,000, again without consulting the owners. This instance is not the only one we are aware of.

The Hotel Alturas at Lake Arenal

Cowbird agents expand their plagiarism

Today's cursory look at Jim and Rene Aoki's real estate website (Feb. 28, 2013) quickly turned up two more listings with materials they have copied from us at Arenal Lake Partners (www.arenalbuyersrealty.com). One is entitled Mountain and Countryside House For Sale in Nuevo Tronadora, for which they have captured seven of the photos which we took when we listed the house several years ago as our H13, priced at $55,000. The other is a very recent listing entitled by them House for Sale in Guadalajara, which is our H206 at $235,000. In this latter case we have no quarrel with the photos they have used as they were supplied by the owners to both agencies. Instead, we find that they have copied much of our text, leaving out some sentences and retaining the rest except for changing a word or two and ruining some punctuation. There are probably other examples of plagiarism by the Aokis, but we're not going to take the time to pick through their fouled nest. If they themselves will do so, removing what they have copied from us, we will remove our words and photos that reveal the current plagiarisms we have found.

info@arenalbuyersrealty.com

Tel 011-506-8348-2084

Founded by a Broker previously licensed in Colorado and Washington

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