Myrtle Beach real estate suit alleges stolen clients, profit

Myrtle Seaside, S.C.

Two South Carolina real estate businesses are at war with a third whose agent they’ve accused of stealing clientele, earnings and personal true estate info during secretive, “unauthorized” late-night business office visits.

Century 21 Barefoot Realty and its authentic estate agent Kevin Mills together with Century 21 The Harrelson Team sued Joel Barber and Darcy Varney of eXp Realty past week, alleging that Barber stole information from the two Myrtle Beach front-based mostly Century 21 agencies and used it to just take clientele and, as a consequence, earnings.

The lawsuit mostly aspects the alleged actions of Barber, who is accused of coming into Century 21 The Harrelson Group places of work “unauthorized” six occasions involving the several hours of 10:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. and accessing “password-protected” enterprise desktops to steal shopper knowledge. The lawful filings say the providers have evidence of Barber generating these trips simply because of films taken by The Harrelson Group’s Ring Digicam Method.

To steal the information, lawful paperwork reported Barber not only snuck into The Harrelson Group’s creating following hrs, he also experienced to get into a locked place of work belonging to one of the company’s other genuine estate agents. In a composed affidavit, The Harrelson Group president Greg Harrelson reported he believed that took place “without a important, possibly working with a credit history card to crack the lock” on the particular person workplace in just the setting up.

Login information for the laptop computer the info was stolen from also match up with the hours of Barber’s alleged visits, Harrelson reported in the affidavit. To get into the personal computers, the lawsuit towards Barber alleges he “hacked” into them in violation of the Computer system Fraud and Abuse Act.

Barber experienced been working on a deal foundation with The Harrelson Team, promoting and listing permitted attributes in association with the true estate agency, according to his employment deal that was involved in legal filings. The agreement also states that soon after its termination Barber was not to use any personal data or materials he obtained or figured out of in the course of his time with the enterprise. Barber had been doing work for The Harrelson Group considering that March 2017.

Barber’s deal was terminated Feb. 7, the identical day the lawsuit reported he entered Century 21 The Harrelson Team workplaces for the very last time.

In accordance to a Myrtle Beach police report, Barber was found by police on Century 21’s property the morning of Feb. 7 following Mills explained to police he considered Barber was there to steal info. Barber denied carrying out so and in its place informed the officer he was hunting for “ideas to greater improve his ‘team,’” in accordance to the law enforcement report. Afterward, Barber was escorted off the property by the officer and positioned on trespass discover.

The lawsuit versus Barber states that his target was to just take actual estate “prospects and potential customers assigned to other brokers” for “his possess particular benefit” and that of the other defendants, Darcy Varney and eXp Realty, a nationwide genuine estate company.

The lawsuit claims Barber not only took the private genuine estate info, which bundled listings and consumers Century 21 The Harrelson Group was performing on, authorized paperwork allege, but he also deleted true estate listings and client information from the company’s technique. Immediately after stealing and deleting the real estate information, Barber contacted shoppers belonging to The Harrelson Team and established up listings, letting him to get paid commissions that usually would’ve long gone to his former employer, lawful documents say.

Century 21 Barefoot, which shares a developing with The Harrelson Team, mentioned Barber also went into the business office of one particular of its actual estate brokers devoid of permission and took non-public genuine estate records off of a firm computer system. As with The Harrelson Group, login data clearly show the computer system was accessed all through several hours matching up with Barber’s alleged visits recorded by the Ring Camera Technique.

In an affidavit, Mills, of Century 21 Barefoot, mentioned Barber emailed “stolen leads” to a further competing actual estate agent, Ryan Picthall, whom he experienced allegedly agreed with “to break up earnings 50/50 fee on any ensuing sale.” A copy of an electronic mail from Barber to Picthall made up of true estate qualified prospects was involved in Mills’ affidavit. Nevertheless, the sales opportunities by themselves ended up blacked out, so it are not able to be verified irrespective of whether they ended up the stolen prospects that Mills claims.

Picthall, an employee of The Harrelson Group, did not reply to a phone contact or email requesting comment. He is not a defendant in the lawsuit and was nevertheless shown online as an staff of The Harrelson Team as of Wednesday early morning.

Mills also said in his affidavit that Barber “changed or deleted calendar entries” that Mills made use of to conduct his enterprise as a real estate agent.

Soon after Barber was fired, Harrelson mentioned in his affidavit that he noticed Barber listing homes for sale online “using information that could only be acquired from the non-community database” belonging to The Harrelson Group and employing images owned by the firm as effectively. Mills claimed the similar happened with his real estate listings.

Century 21 Barefoot, Century 21 The Harrelson Group and Kevin Mills did not respond to cellphone calls and e-mails requesting comment. Barber directed issues to his legal professional, Greg McCollum.

“This lawsuit is a organization dispute,” McCollum said in an electronic mail Friday. “We just received the lawsuit and are evaluating it now. This lawsuit is just 1 aspect of the story. Mr. Barber will be filing an solution and reaction soon.”

When asked about no matter whether it was correct Barber experienced long gone into the Century 21 places of work late at night and why, McCollum explained in e mail, “All brokers experienced obtain to the small business at any time.”

The lawsuit from Barber, however, states that “Barber, at all occasions, realized or really should have recognised that he did not have authorization to access or enter the place of work making in the middle of the evening, or pretty early hours of the early morning.”

Century 21 The Harrelson Team, Century 21 Barefoot and Mills asked for a non permanent injunction towards Barber, Varney and eXp Realty to prevent them from profiting off of the allegedly stolen genuine estate details.

The a few plaintiffs have also requested monetary violations for a host of accusations towards Barber and the other defendants, like deceptive trade methods, the stolen shoppers, laptop hacking and trespassing.

This tale was originally revealed March 9, 2022 10:53 AM.