If this company was a person, in my opinion and experience, it would have malignant narcissistic…read morepersonality disorder.
I'm still in shock over our experience.
At 42 years old, I have rented multiple homes in Los Angeles and Atlanta. My husband has rented multiple places all over GA AND has owned and sold houses, land, etc. He has also owned his own very successful business for 25 years, paying high rent for his business in the heart of Atlanta. Not once have we ever missed ANY payments. Not once have we been evicted, filed bankruptcy, etc.
We are ideal tenets. We are mature, responsible, clean, reliable, and because my husband gets up so early for work, we rarely make a peep of noise. We take very good care of any place we live and have had amazing relationships with past landlords (some of whom we are still in touch with years after leaving their property).
We found the cutest little house in Marietta. We have lived in midtown for 8 years and decided that we wanted to relocated to the suburbs. This house was absolutely perfect for us. So, we contacted the rental company. This company.
When we started the application process, we immediately knew that something was not right. They wanted every single account we have, including different savings accounts. This has NEVER been asked of us before. Normally, companies want ONE account and your SSN for a background check. NOT ONCE from LA to Atlanta have we been asked for this much information. It made us very uncomfortable. It felt like a HUGE invasion of privacy. At that point, we decided to take a look at some of the reviews. I was gobsmacked at the amount of negative reviews this company has, with a lot of the complaints saying some of the same things we were experiencing in real time.
At that point, we contacted three separate attorneys in Atlanta to have them look at the application. All three attorneys gave us the same advice. First, this company was stretching the law in GA and in their opinions what was happening could be shut down and investigated if turned into the authorities. Second, all three attorneys told us to only give them ONE account. We were told that it is common for shady companies to try to spy on all your accounts in order to see where they can add on fees. Under no circumstances were we to give them more than one account. Under GA Law, you're only required to give one.
We were told if we really wanted the house, we had to be very careful this company and keep our cards close.
I sent an email expressing my concerns. I was very nice in the email but what I got in return was pretty nasty- a messages confirming that they did in fact need access to a checking account we use only for groceries, on top of all our savings account, and on top of the account we mainly use to pay rent, bills, etc. Oh, and they also needed credit card information.
So, I called them. I explained that I wanted to talk to them human to human. After all, they're in a human based industry. When you're dealing with someone's home, you're dealing with vulnerability. You're finding someone a place that is their security and safety from the world. It needs to be handled with care. I thought surely if I speak to them, they will be understand where they're crossing some line legally and see it's an invasion of privacy to ask for ALL your information.
When I got on the phone, I immediately said that I wanted to express my concerns with some of the yahoo and yelp reviews that I was seeing. Before I was able to get out the content in the reviews I was told that none of them are true, these people were slandering them, and the company was going to be suing the people writing the reviews for slander. First of all, you cant sue someone for slander if what the person is saying is true. Second of all, if you're trying to censor someone for telling their honest experience with your company, that's HUGE problem and truly speaks to YOUR dishonesty. If you don't want bad reviews getting out of hand, then don't do shady things to people that prompt them to take time out their day to warn others about their experience. And thirdly, I was being told that none of these reviews were true WHILE what these people were complaining about was actively happening to us in real time. This, dear reader, is the actual definition of gaslighting.
Needless to say, we know they called our landlord to check out our history with them, they took our $150 application fee, but we have not heard anything for a week. My boyfriend emailed them, called them, text them, and we still have not gotten any communication on if we're approved or not. They are not doing the job they have been paid to do.
Shame. BE CAREFUL. I wish we could just rent this house from the owner directly. Please do not give these people access to your private information. Protect yourself.
