Is Zillow Stealing my renter's Payments?

Question

If this has happened to you please let me know.

I have not been receiving payments from Zillow that renters at least claim the are making. This happened over a year ago and appears to be happening again. In both cases the renters have provided me bank information showing they made the payment and it was not returned. Since I cannot find a way to talk to someone over the phone on Zillow I contacted them about this via email, where every response takes a very long time. Still awaiting a response from the current situation but the previous one, Zillow indicated to me they thought the documents had been doctored by the tenant and they never received payment.

I was very surprised this tenant would be trying to pull a fast one like this. Having done this over 10 years a good Christian family with both parents employed whom had just bought a house and was always extremely kind and courteous did not strike me as the ones to do this. The current one provided a phone picture she took of the bank statements and she's 20. I highly doubt she would be be able to doctor this to make it look as legit as it does.

For the longest time I thought there was some type of “hack” people were using to make it appear payments were being made only to later be never received. I’m not sure that’s the case anymore. I am going to try to have the current tenant this is occurring to take me to their bank so I can get the bank statements directly and be sure I am not being played again. However, I feel like this is on Zillow and the money in some account of theirs. Of course if I did something like this, I’d be in jail. Zillow also never responded when I asked them to send me the evidence or information they had that has lead them to thinking this is a fraud.

Has anyone else heard of something like this happening through Zillow? I tried searching for this but couldn't find anything.

In the next post I will post some of what Zillow told me.

Stephanie Chiaradia · Answer

I’m going through a very similar situation with Zillow claiming they didn’t get a rent payment however the charge was in the tenants account and the bank denied their money back after an investigation at the bank.Do you have any information on what you found out in your situation?

John Tokarz · Answer

Here are some of the responses I received over a year ago from Zillow: First response: “I appreciate your patience while I investigate the location of these funds. As the screenshot the renter provided only has three months accounted for and is edited (due to the rent being grouped together), I am going to be reaching out directly to M******* to gather more information through complete bank statements and her insight on what occurred with the funds. We've still never heard back from M***** but I will be more than happy to reach back out for further investigation. Just to be clear, did M******** ever pay you outside of Zillow or did she mark the rent as "Paid Offline" without you receiving any funds through any method? I sincerely apologize that you are encountering this and I hope to get to the bottom of it quickly and thoroughly. “ Then I received this: “After reviewing the documents provided by M*****, the document appears to be false and has been tampered with. If M***** has initiated any form of payments through our platform, we would see such transactions in our system. The last transaction we can confirm was on Oct 1st, 2021 which we have proof of through our payment processor. If they claim to have made a payment after Oct 1st, I can assure you that it was not through our system. I do apologize that this has been going on for as long as it has. To reiterate, Zillow does not have the funds that you are seeking, and this matter should be resolved between you and your previous tenant M*******. “ Several weeks later after I asked for additional information as this did not appear to be the case I received this: “Thank you for following up on this issue, I apologize for any stress this situation has caused and for the delayed response as we work through higher than average volumes. We've investigated M******'s account and the documents that have been sent in by M******. Our security protocols have flagged these items for fraudulent activity. I can confirm definitively that the last transaction from your previous tenant was made on Oct 1st, 2021, and that she submitted no other transaction afterward through Zillow. I would highly recommend reaching out to your previous tenant regarding this fraudulent activity and if legal action needs to be taken, we recommend you use your lease as you seek local legal assistance to recoup these funds owed by M*******.” I then replied with the following and never got a response. ‘Can you send me this documentation you were provided. What " appears to be false and has been tampered with" ; or what and why”