About rentsta

[Jennifer T.]

I recently put up a CL ad for my rental unit.  Very first e-mail response I get says the following:

I am very interested in your place. I'm comparing a few units in New Orleans and wanted to get a little more info. I'm wondering if you have an account on (rentsta web address)? I want to see how well your place matches my preferences.

Thanks, and let me know

(Signed with supposedly her name)

So, I'm curious.  I go to the website and figure I will list my place there if it is free.  Of course, it is not.  Plus they are out of Canada, which makes me more suspicious.  No offense to Canada, I'm just a long way from that ballpark.  I've never heard of them, so I doubt most NOLA tenants would have either.

They charge $1 per lead with a minimum of 10 leads.  No guarantees and...even more crazy...although they ask a TON of questions about my rental unit, they ask NOTHING about the type of tenant I want.

So I pretend to be a tenant.  Free for tenants.  Again, bunches of questions about what I am looking for...but not even a "have you ever been evicted" question.  And, oh look.  Not a single property in my area and (probably) all of New Orleans is listed.

That skeevy scammer almost got me!  I almost paid $10, just in case she might have been a good applicant or I could have gotten another good applicant that way.  But obviously she wasn't an applicant at all!

Not a great way to start my new tenant search, lol!

I did a search on BP for rentsta, but nothing came up.  I'm curious if anyone has actually had any experience with this company.

[Kyle J.]

Never heard of a website called "rentsta".  Maybe not a scam, but more likely a ploy by the operators of whatever website it is to get people to sign up for paid memberships.  In any event, you shouldn't have to pay for "leads".  Especially on a site with no other properties listed in your area.  If other local landlords aren't using it, potential renters probably aren't either.