Often when I am contacted by a seller to purchase they are also in contact with a wholesaler. But, they don’t even know it. So often wholesalers do not make it know that they are not planning on buying the house nor frankly may very well not be able to. What they are doing as a true middleman is assigning the deal to another person or company like us Mission Va LLC with a fee $(most often a very chunky fee! $$$)
They have zero risk if they are not intending to buy it. They have zero $$$ to lose. There is a good chance that after 30-45 days your right back where you started.
A good wholesaler is transparent. A shady one is not. Ask them if they are intending to buy the house directly themselves if they can not “assign it” to a buyer. Then ask them if they actually have the funds to be able to do that !