Ron Hubbard of Top Dog Leasing, in Laguna Beach, is the worst real estate agent I've ever dealt with.
My roommates and I found a listing for a great home on Cragslist. We contacted the agent, Ron Hubbard, who seemed more than willing to get us the property. He told us there were 4 other parties interested in it, but the owner left it up to him to decide who should get it, so he picked us.
He told us where the keys were hidden, and that we could go by and check out the property whenever we wanted. We did, and loved the place.
When we were committed to getting the place, ha had us over to his "home office" at 990 Del Mar Ave, Laguna Beach, CA 92651. When we arrived, it looked like a beautiful home, but had hardly any furniture in it. This seemed odd, and raised a flag with us.
As he sat with us in his office, he had us sign the lease, but told us it wouldn't be official until the owner had signed it. He then insisted on having us wire the security deposit to him that day, to "hold" the property for us until the first of the month. He had never told us that we would be expected to put up any money when we made the appointment. He also tried offering a job to my one roommate who is a very attractive young woman.
One of my roommates has bad credit, so her mother was going to send the money, but decided to look him up on the internet first. That's when she found the complaint posted here: http://usacomplaints.com/reports/0/301/RipOff0301590.htm
When we confronted Ron about it, he simply dismissed it as an ex-employee who was disgruntled. He didn't even address the fact that his license had been revoked and that he was operating without one (Go to Real Estate License Lookup. Ron Hubbard's License #00808797).
We then tried to contact the owner, as his phone number was on the lease, but he never returned any of our phone calls. Ron continued to contact us, trying to push the deal through. When we insisted on paying with verified funds to the owner himself, he started to get an attitude. He would say insulting things about two of us to the third one he was speaking to on the phone, he even hung up on me once.
At this point even our co-workers were commenting on how stressed out we were and asking why we were still dealing with the guy, he was obviously a scam artist. I called him to let him know that we no longer wished to deal with him and that we would be looking for a different property through a different agent. His reply was, "OK, perfect." Then he hung up on me again.
I would just like to add that I have never, and would never, work for this man, so if he tries to tell anyone that I'm a disgruntled ex-employee, he's lying about that too!
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