BEWARE of fraud by erentpayment.com
Karen HigginsPro Member
Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2017 · 83 posts · 89 votesWe are currently in the middle of a scam by erentpayment.com. They have taken money deposited by our tenants and have refused to pay us. They have been very limiting with information and turned their phones off and are not replying to emails. Cancel all automated payments if you currently use their system. We are starting the legal process to take action. I'm guessing they have taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from people. Help spread the word so others are not hurt by this.
My wife found this company on bigger pockets. She most definitely is in the right, and boarder line obligated to inform the public that a company that used to accept payments from tenants, and disburse the funds to landlords is no longer longer disbursing the funds to landlords. Furthermore, they have shutoff their phones and customer service department, not updated their customers as to the status of their funds, and refused to name their banking institutions or legal representation that they are using.
This is most certainly a fraud, and a large one. If not, they should be updating their customer base as to where their money is at, and when they will get it. This rent collection and payment scheme is the perfect Ponzi scheme. They take a clients money and can move it from bank to bank like it's their own money. (Matt, thats apparently what you think happened). Thus, proving the lack of oversight involved in this kind of business/industry. As long as they can grow their customer base the scheme continues. The creator doesn't even have to put himself out there as the frontman of the scheme, and can hide behind an LLC. Interestingly, Rick S is a "pro" member, claims to be the manager or owner, and has 397 post on bigger pockets. I encourage him to comment, or better yet send me my 13,000$. At this point I doubt either will happen.
I hope I'm wrong, but when the company shuts off the phone and fails to deliver on the "updates" they promise. You have to fear the worse. This company is still accepting "new" money and the public needs to know. I don't want to come across as confrontational, but the public needs to be made aware of the problem/fraud.
Missing a rent payment made on 10/4 with a deposit date of 10/12 and never got the funds. Rent payments a few days prior got posted.
Massive communication failure by ERP that will certainly cost them many customers. No choice but to bail soon with November rents coming up and no answers.
Adding insult they still debited accounts the $3 transaction fee on payments that have yet to ever be credited.
I'm having the same problem, my tenants made payments on the 3rd and 4th. erentpayment site state they sent my payment on October 12th (longer then than usually) be I still haven't received payment in my account. I received an email communication Monday saying they are having issues with their bank releasing funds after I sent an email inquiry on Friday. I'm very concerned as I haven't heard anything else and now seeing this is a much bigger issue.
I would definitely advise to stop using this company! This is unacceptable and has cause a hardship on many businesses weather its actually fraud or not!
From erentpayment.com Facebook...
We regret to inform you that our payment processor, eCheckit, has informed us that it expects to file for bankruptcy protection shortly. We are told that it suffered losses due to a fraud and that its processor, Check Commerce, has held over $4 million of it's funds and will not release the funds to the intended recipients at this time. Please note that eRentPayment had nothing to due with the fraud eCheckit suffered. It was apparently caused by another client of eCheckit.
The transactions potentially affected were submitted after approximately 7:31:00 PM (Pacific time) on 10/03/2017 through approximately 7:01:33 PM (Pacific time) on 10/12/2017. Any transactions submitted after this time period should not be affected as they are being processed through eRentPayment’s new direct bank relationship. Similarly, any future transactions should not be affected as they will be run through the new direct processing relationship.
We do not know if or when Check Commerce will send the pending transactions to the recipients. Accordingly, you should consider your options including having the tenant contact his or her bank to request the transaction be reversed. Specifically, the tenant may initiate a return for an ”Incomplete Transaction.” We understand that the return code for this is “R10” and the bank will require a written statement from the tenant. Also, the tenant will have a limited time period to request the return from his bank, usually within 60 days from the date of the transaction.
We are contacting the Attorney General of Arizona, NACHA, and reviewing legal action against the relevant parties.
When we have more information, we will let you know.
..............
Unfortunately, were were right... We've been taken!
Oh for crying out loud. I'm not associated with them, but have been watching this play out. They changed banks. When someone opens a new bank account and makes substantial deposits suddenly, the bank holds the money (as they legally can) for a certain period of weeks to protect themselves from fraud until a relationship is established. That's what I believe is going on - the new bank is holding the funds in their account, so there are no funds to forward to yours.
Bad/novice business planning, yes. Fraud, hardly. Put out the torches and let the folks spend time getting their affairs in order to resolve this problem vs. handling the mob reaction.
So what do you call it now?
Just read the update myself. I guess this is a wake up call to using these type of online vendors. If what they are saying is true, wouldn't they have insurance to cover themselves. If by switching to someone else like Cozy, could something like this happen with them as well?
Seems the only way to safeguard against something like this happening with another provider would be to avoid online transactions completely, and go back to collecting cash at the doorstep.
I used to use erentpayment but this month changed everything. They took $1600 of my money, which is small compared to people who have now lost tens of thousands of dollars. Right now, I'm letting all my tenants know to deposit Rents directly into my Chase business account. I'm texting them with a picture of a filled out deposit slip so that they can refer to it just in case. I'm also going to tell the two tenants to try and get the transactions reversed as suggested by erentpayment.
I don't think I'll be doing another rent collection service, as it just adds more variables to the equation. While I can understand that erentpayment isn't totally to blame, their response to the situation (and still charging $3 for a failed transaction) is all the proof I need to know these guys don't do business right. When they face adversity, they close off communication and ignore calls. That's how to truly judge a business. Had they handled this better I may have actually stayed with these people, but it makes no business sense to stay in a business relationship where soneone is allowed to steal from me and the middle man can't be held accountable.
Good luck to my fellow victims who got taken... hopefully you can get your money back.
Everything this Rick S said was a lie. "The bank had our money on hold and would release it soon", "There will be a 3-5 day delay in processing October payments because of a change in banks", "I will update you all later on in the day", "We just left a meeting and they are saying funds will be released Wednesday or Thursday".....lies lies lies.
This is posted on their website
"Our servers reside in an access-controlled data center monitored by video surveillance and roving security guards 24/7.
We have application level monitoring of logins and transaction activity.
We are fully insured for Technology Risk, Professional Liability, Fraudulent Activity, and Privacy Breach."
However, he won't list his insurance company or who our legal reps. are to file a claim. Someone said, (I haven't confirmed) -they called the dept of commerce to see who the registered owner of the company he is blaming the fraud on and the owner came back as erentpayment LLC.
Like I said all along. This is fraud. Now Rick is admitting its a fraud. Everyone who urged caution and allowed this person to perpetuate this scam longer, when he clearly knew people were out their money, and did not warn them should feel some responsibility for the losses customers incurred. This gentleman used this platform to promote and grow his scam. Then members of this platform urged caution and accused people who had thousands of dollars stolen from them of rushing to judgment. Sad day. I feel even worse for the people that didn't have the money to lose.
FYI - if you are a victim of this fraud, there is a private Facebook group “erentpayment discussion group” you should join. People are discussing ideas in regards to legal action that needs to take place.
Back to paper checks and money orders going forward. Fortunately only had one last minute paying tenant that I will probably never see the money on. Warning to all....
Up until now, I did not have problems with erentpayments; although, there were times when the clearing time seemed to be longer than the usual 2-5 days at most banks. I am moving back to my old way of having my tenants use my bank. I only have one PITA tenant that pays late and had paid on the 5th, total amount $1,850, that erentpayments owes me.
@Matthew Olszak if this is not fraud, what is it?
Fortunately, eCheckIt and Check Commerce do not have as much of my money as others; nevertheless, ERENTPAYMENTS MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. They took our money. Their processor, eCheckIt, filing bankruptcy is not my problem. Erentpayments should have held enough reserves to cover issues like this, just like I do with my rentals. I cannot tell my mortgage company, "Oh, erentpayment did not process my rent, so I cannot pay you." With as many landlords that have been defrauded in this scheme, if there is no recourse to our money, all these crooks will be joining Bernie Madoff.
@ Karen Higgins I am joining the private Facebook group.
Wow I can’t believe there were folks just saying, “Awe minor mistake, just let em have a few days to handle it...blah...blah.”. No! Companies like eRP have one job. Debit tenants’ account via EFT or accept payment some other way and forward the money to the payee. Period. And charge a (high) fee for doing, on time, EVERY TIME. Of you don’t have the wherewithal and banking relationships to do that you don’t belong in the business. I’m a small time LL, and my leases specify pay by check at my mailbox on the date due. For tenant that bounces one it becomes cashiers check. I offer deposit slips if tenants want to make a deposit at a branch to my business account, but it needs to be there on the due date. If I want to accept electronic checks, I’ll set up an ACH service with my BANK. And of course they’ll require me to post reserves, hold deposits, and indemnify for fraud. But they’re a BANK, so I doubt they’ll cut off their number empty the vaults and flee to the Caymans... Sheesh.
Also do not for a second believe working with your tenants to go through the R10 written process with the banks will be quick and easy. eRent is basically stating they have done all they can so go try to explain this to your tenants. Then have them go to their bank to get the money returned so they can pay the landlord again. At best it makes the landlord appear disorganized, at worst it give the impression the landlord is attempting to pull a fast one.
While I believe the issues may be resolved now with the new bank there is no way we using eRent going forward.
| US ACH Code | Reason | Description |
| R10 | Customer advises not authorized | Member advises not authorized, notice not provided, improper source document, or amount of entry not accurately obtained from source document |
Thank goodness I don't use online rent collection like ERP. I tried it and it was not working so well because tenants didn't always have all of the money when Cozy would pull it and it would cause delays in whether rent payments failed or not. I wouldn't know until the 6th or so if rent was actually paid.
I decided to open a rent collection bank act locally and have all of my tenants deposit rent on their time. It has been working much better and now I spend less time chasing tenants and more time growing my business.
@Matthew Olszak i was hoping this to be the case however they just changed their story from switching banks to now ..
Delayed October PaymentsWe regret to inform you that our payment processor, eCheckit, has informed us that it expects to file for bankruptcy protection shortly. We are told that it suffered losses due to a fraud and that its processor, Check Commerce, has held over $4 million of it's funds and will not release the funds to the intended recipients at this time. Please note that eRentPayment had nothing to due with the fraud eCheckit suffered. It was apparently caused by another client of eCheckit.
The transactions potentially affected were submitted after approximately 7:31:00 PM (Pacific time) on 10/03/2017 through approximately 7:01:33 PM (Pacific time) on 10/12/2017. Any transactions submitted after this time period should not be affected as they are being processed through eRentPayment’s new direct bank relationship. Similarly, any future transactions should not be affected as they will be run through the new direct processing relationship.
We do not know if or when Check Commerce will send the pending transactions to the recipients. Accordingly, you should consider your options including having the tenant contact his or her bank to request the transaction be reversed. Specifically, the tenant may initiate a return for an ”Incomplete Transaction.” We understand that the return code for this is “R10” and the bank will require a written statement from the tenant. Also, the tenant will have a limited time period to request the return from his bank, usually within 60 days from the date of the transaction.
Thank goodness I don't use online rent collection like ERP. I tried it and it was not working so well because tenants didn't always have all of the money when Cozy would pull it and it would cause delays in whether rent payments failed or not. I wouldn't know until the 6th or so if rent was actually paid.
I decided to open a rent collection bank act locally and have all of my tenants deposit rent on their time. It has been working much better and now I spend less time chasing tenants and more time growing my business.
That is what I am transitioning to. I am closing on Friday on 5 units and I set up a business account last week for them. They do not need an account number, just my business name is all they need to make the deposit. I do wonder, how do you differentiate payments when the rent is the same? I have not gotten around to checking with my bank but can they write a 'memo' stating their name, that way I know to whom to credit the rent? Have you had this problem and figured out a solution?
@Matt Higgins i heard the same thing about echeckit however i just searched online Kentucky registry and im not seeing that erentpayment is the owner. all im seeing is christopher mccarthy.
https://app.sos.ky.gov/corpscans/32/0662432-06-99999-20160720-RAC-6612898-PU.pdf
They fill out a deposit slip with their name and address. I can view an image of the slip online. All of my rentals have different rental amounts but if some were the same, that's how I'd tell them apart. I tell my tenants to send a text when they made the deposit too. Some do, and some don't.
I am having the same issue with Erentpayment and I just received this email from them:
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"Here is the latest update regarding the deposits and information on reversing the funds:
We regret to inform you that our payment processor, eCheckit, has informed us that it expects to file for bankruptcy protection shortly. We are told that it suffered losses due to a fraud and that its processor, Check Commerce, has held over $4 million of its funds and will not release the funds to the intended recipients at this time. Please note that eRentPayment had nothing to do with the fraud eCheckit suffered. It was apparently caused by another client of eCheckit.
The transactions potentially affected were submitted after approximately 7:31:00 PM (Pacific time) on 10/03/2017 through approximately 7:01:33 PM (Pacific time) on 10/12/2017. Any transactions submitted after this time period should not be affected as they are being processed through eRentPayment’s new direct bank relationship. Similarly, any future transactions should not be affected as they will be run through the new direct processing relationship.
We do not know if or when Check Commerce will send the pending transactions to the recipients. Accordingly, you should consider your options including having the tenant contact his or her bank to request the transaction be reversed. Specifically, the tenant may initiate a return for an ”Incomplete Transaction.” We understand that the return code for this is “R10” and the bank will require a written statement from the tenant. Also, the tenant will have a limited time period to request the return from his bank, usually within 60 days from the date of the transaction.
We are contacting the Attorney General of Arizona, NACHA, and reviewing legal action against the relevant parties.
When we have more information, we will let you know at https://support.erentpayment.com/news/root.aspx "
They fill out a deposit slip with their name and address. I can view an image of the slip online. All of my rentals have different rental amounts but if some were the same, that's how I'd tell them apart. I tell my tenants to send a text when they made the deposit too. Some do, and some don't.
Great, thanks!
We learned this evening that the processing company holding the monies for Erentpayment is filling for bankruptcy protection, which means anyone waiting on a payment will likely not receive it. We are furious right now!