Apartments.com - Rent cleared ?

[TaRa Mehta]

Hello all,

I have a new tenant moving in and she has set up her payment using apartments.com. She verified her bank, and the payment now says it's "In Progress", and that the estimated arrival is April 11th. I did receive an email from apartments.com regarding 'Payment activity' stating that money was sent on April 4th, and Balance due is nothing. I called apartments.com to confirm if it means that the money has been deducted from her account, and that it just takes that long to arrive in my bank. Customer service said that until the 11th, they cannot guarantee that. 

I'm yet to handover the keys to her for move in. How can I be sure that the money has been deducted from her account? Has anyone had a payment activity email like this from apartments.com, only to be followed by another email saying that the payment didn't go through successfully ? 

Please let me know, and thank you so much in advance ! 

[Andrew B.]

Your mistake here was letting the tenant use apartments.com to pay first month's rent. You should always get certified funds for the first month's rent and security deposit. Electronic payments can be reversed at anytime for many months after receiving it. 

It is too late to change now. I can say it is normal for it to take a long time for the money to hit your account when you use apartments.com. If apartments.com shows no amount due, that means they have received the money from the tenant or are in the process of receiving it. In a few days, they will send the money to you. This is normal. The worker cannot guarantee it, because the tenant can reverse the payment if they claim fraud. The relative risk of that depends on who the tenant is. Did you see any red flags? Is this a low income area where you expect scammers to be more common? If not, I wouldn't worry.