Markets 
Shelling out for rent is already a drag — and now one tenant’s apartment complex is trying to make him pay a convenience fee on top of it.
In a recent Reddit post on the thread “mildlyinfuriating” by Caleb B. — a 31-year-old based in North Carolina who goes by the username @mangum95 and declined to provide his full last name — the peeved-off tenant screenshotted the new system his apartment is using for rent payments, which includes a $39.68 convenience fee on top of the $1,280 rent bill.
“They just updated the system,” the North Carolinian wrote on March 1. “The previous system allowed ACH payment but the new system does not. So infuriating. I think I can pay by check now but I have to get a checkbook or cashiers check which also have a fee.”
The post received 37K upvotes and sparked a discourse of 5.6K comments.
“My apartment used to do this until (I’m guessing) they started getting 100+ handwritten checks and didn’t want to deal with cashing/logging them manually,” said one commenter.
“Only write them checks from now on. Say that it is inconvenient. And refuse to pay that fee because checks are so inconvenient!” added another.
Caleb later clarified the solution he found for the situation in a pinned comment.
“Update: the new service is on the Loft app. A number of people let me know that if you select the ‘echeck’ option, you can pay rent without a ‘convenience’ fee. It seems like that option is just ACH. It seems to be working so far.”
Caleb told The Post that he believes the change occurred because his complex recently came under new ownership.
“Hidden at the bottom of payment options is (an) ‘e-check’ that functions as an ACH option but is not clearly visible,” Caleb told The Post. “It also seems like that option does not allow you to receive ‘gold coins’ as a reward option that lets you receive gift cards in exchange for the coins.”
He added that mathematically, the gold coins are not worth it as payment only gets the tenant 500 coins equivalent to about $5, when the fee is about 3% or $39.68.
“Once I was made aware of the E-Check Option I was able to quickly set that up and get my rent paid without the fee but I also only get 100 gold coins in rewards,” Caleb continued. “ Not that that bothers me much because it’s only like a dollar reward. But it does seem like a very scam tactic to utilize that to trick people into paying their convenience fee thinking they’re actually getting something good.
Lastly, he added that he doesn’t blame the staff at his apartment complex for the change.
“The decision to switch this app was definitely one they did not make. It was most likely the new owners.”
Read the full article here
