Looks like someone's landlord is going to be paid in 1 cent coins unless THEY pay a "convenience fee"
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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Housing Bubble 2: Return of the Ugly
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Looks like they are charging the cost of credit card processing fees.
Yeah, but a lot of corporate landlords only let you pay online now.
That cannot be legal. Of course they will get away with it anyway.
To be fair I think they still allow you to pay online with a check, but having an online portal heavily implies you should pay with a credit card.
I have heard some landlords don't accept check, only debit card, but I don't have proof.
My landlord would charge a convenience fee for an eCheck. The only way not to pay a convenience fee was to use auto pay.
I refused to do that because I didn't want to get them authorization to take whatever they wanted from my bank account. Yes, I know technically they can only charge the amount of my rent but I didn't want to deal with any "mistakes" on their part... Especially considering the piss poor job they did fixing any other problem I encountered with their property.
Yeah I’m surprised they allow the em to pay rent via credit card. Since that reduces the amount the landlord gets, it seems fair that it would charge a fee to cover that difference.
I wonder if the fee goes away if a checking account is used.
I used to live in a condo and the management company charged a fee if I used ACH from a checking account but nothing if I mailed in a check. My bank would mail checks for free so I did that. It seemed much less convenient for them to have to open and cash all those checks but that wasn't my problem.
I do this for our water company, it’s like $3 to pay it online via any method, but free for my bank to print a check and mail it to their office. I’m sure it costs more than that $3 to open the check, deposit it, and credit my account for it.
I still do this for places that charge fees for credit cards. My credit union calls it "Bill Pay". It is free so long as I do some small number of transactions per month -- I think four.
Now that’s some bullshit! A few for ACH should be illegal!
My man, the amount the landlord is charging rent is entirely arbitrary outside of being 'as high as they can get away with'. Don't make excuses for a landlord swindling you out of your money by making that amount seem more palatable by shuffling bits of it behind "fees."
Almost $1700 a month in base rent, the landlord can pay the damn fee for their own convenience in not having to cash a check.
While I agree on rent being too damn high, I think I draw the line as follows.
If you agreed to pay X and there are mandatory fees on top of that, that’s bullshit that should be illegal.
If you agreed to pay X and you want to use a method of payment that will make the other party receive less than X… that’s on you.
It feels a lot like… if someone agrees to pay me X and decides to pay me less than X… that’s some bullshit.
There should be a way to pay through your banks bill pay system. You may have to dig for it. Ask you landlord for the info if you really can’t find it online.
If you pay through your bank’s website it will not charge you a convenience fee.
There should be a way to pay through your banks bill pay system.
This is what I did. For extra amusement points, my bank was literally across the street from the management office of my complex. So they were printing the checks and mailing them... Across the street.
You want a payment in pennies? This is how you get a payment in pennies...
Oh but there is no physical location to drop the payment in your state and if they don't get it within 24 hours its a late fee. You can have it auto debited from your bank account every month but otherwise its a fee or setup that there is no way you can get it to them on time. At least that is what im seeing with everything.