An agent is like a commissioned salesman, they get paid when they make the sale. If I've got that wrong please give me gentle correction. I am contracted with an agency, they aren't bad as far a I can tell, but they decided to charge me money to cover some of their fees. I'm not contracted to do that so they relented. There is another agency who wanted to charge m $200 if they signed a contract with me. That doesn't sound right. I could just see them after the contract is signed and they got my $200, just sitting there playing video games on my money.