how trustworthy?

Recent encounters made me wonder, how exactly do people value their words? When we agree on something, how easily swayed are we that this agreement can make a U-turn?

A friend of my brother introduced an acquaintance of hers (her former course-mate) that happened to be wanting to rent out their HDB flat. So we went to view it, found it ok, and thus, indicated our interest to rent. After a few days (which we presumed they must've been considering other offers), they came back to us and indicated that they were happy to rent out the flat to us. Yup, they said they were happy. So we said ok, and asked when do we sign the contract and whether there were any other fees involved. So they came back and said that we would need to pay agent's fee of about $400. Hello?!? In this equation, there was no agent.. why should we be paying agent's fees? Hence, we highlighted this to them and said, most of the contractual preparation can be done without an agent and we (tenants) can do the legwork for them.

So we met up again at their home, with them being friendly host and stuffs and we showed them samples of how the agreement looked like, the house inventory list that they need to prepare etc. So they said they will call us again once the contract is ready.

Lo and behold... 2 days later, they sms'ed to say, "Decided not to rent to you and your brother." Just like that. &%^%$*()((*$#@# <-- for child's safety, cannot print these words...

If don't rent then tell us earlier la... why bother to go through all these trouble of getting our NRIC as well.. just for pretence?!

Conspiracy theory 1:
They found other tenants that can pay maybe $1.8K or $2K for their flat

Conspiracy theory 2:
Their own intended accommodation have problem and hence they also cannot move out

Conspiracy theory 3:
They found it too troublesome to prepare the documents themselves and hence will need an agent to help them but don't want to bear the full cost of the agent's fee and thus will need tenants that are willing to be conned to pay half for them

Conspiracy theory 4:
They suddenly realised they don't like our faces after meeting us for the second time

In my own personal opinion, its likely theory 1 as they did not even supply the reason for the sudden U-turn in decision. If it's theory 2, then they would say so, and i wouldn't feel so pissed off. Theory 3, also likely and hence can be seen in the same light as theory 1. Theory 4, quite unlikely as I'm so likeable... (pukes!) hahaha

Sigh... what value is the human word? Probably zero.


ps: sent an sms to them to ask why the sudden change in decision... and the answer was "We decided to work through an agent." How lame... how sad. If that's the case, why bother asking your friends to recommend someone to you? Tsk tsk...