Tenant Payment Issues

[Brandon Hutslar]

Hi everyone! I currently have a tenant in Washington that was 13 days late on her rent payment. We have her paying through RentRedi. We got a notice from RentRedi's underwriting team that they are holding the funds due to potential fraud. Here's the message from RentRedi: 

"During a routine review, our payment processor came across a transaction that they must do additional verification on.
There was a transaction (#20) under cardholder name XXXXXXX  (amount: XXXXXXX).
As this cardholder name doesn't match the tenant name (XXXXXXXXXXXX), further information is required about the cardholder:
- Lease agreement
- Cardholder name:
- Billing address:
- Cardholder phone number:
- How the cardholder is associated with the tenant:

Once this information is provided, I will relay this to the payment processor for review." 

When asking the tenant about this, she said its her family-friend. She claims she is unable to get a bank account due to "legal reasons" and needs to use her friend's bank account and said her friend doesn't even have a phone number. How do we approach this? Do we have enough to let her go? They won't release the rent payment to us until its resolved. 

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Brandon Hutslar:

My rule: if rent is late, it must be paid in certified funds. No ACH, no credit card. They hand me cash, money order, or cashier's check so I know the funds are good and immediately available.

She's trying to scam you. Make her pay in certified funds within 72 hours or move out.