After a nearly three-year odyssey, a Canadian real estate agent has lost his license and agreed to pay thousands of dollars in fees to the British Columbia Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) after repeatedly lying about his online ethics class.
Ang “Leon” Li, formerly of Interlink Realty, was registered for a May 2023 mandatory continuing education course hosted by BCFSA and conducted via Microsoft Teams. The course was called “Ethics — Building Trust.”
According to investigators, Li asked a family member to impersonate him and attend the training on his behalf. During the training, and after consulting online photos of Li, staff became “concerned that the participant was not Mr. Li,” according to the consent order.
When the staff asked the participant to confirm their identity, they did not do so. When asked to call BCFSA, the participant claimed their phone was broken and left the Teams meeting.
When the provincial regulator followed up with Li, the agent claimed he had attended the course and that the reason he didn’t look like himself was due to “allergies, lack of sleep, and sickness.” The BCFSA did not believe Li and found that he had committed academic misconduct. He was suspended and unenrolled from the course without credit.
Following the suspension, Li completed the course and renewed his license in September 2023, but the BCFSA continued to follow up through its compliance and enforcement department. Li still maintained that he had attended the original Teams meeting, but that the power had gone out in his home when the staff asked him to confirm his identity.
Li also repeated the claim that he was sick and, upon learning that he was still under investigation for academic misconduct, claimed that he “felt compelled to cancel a flight to attend his grandfather’s funeral.” He was also “shocked” at being investigated and said he should not have been disciplined in the first place.
The BCFSA asked Li to provide documentation for his claims, including “information and/or documents respecting Mr. Li dealing with an electrician to address the electrical issues, a copy of his May 2023 phone statement, documentation regarding his cancelled flight and his grandfather’s death certificate.”
When Li was unable to provide all of the requested documentation, he received a “non-compliance warning letter.” At that point, he changed his story again, confessing that he had not attended the original course. Li agreed to a finding of professional misconduct, to have his license canceled and to pay $4,150 in enforcement expenses within two months.
