Skip to content
×
Pro Members Get
Full Access!
Get off the sidelines and take action in real estate investing with BiggerPockets Pro. Our comprehensive suite of tools and resources minimize mistakes, support informed decisions, and propel you to success.
Advanced networking features
Market and Deal Finder tools
Property analysis calculators
Landlord Command Center
ANNUAL Save 54%
$32.50 /mo
$390 billed annualy
MONTHLY
$69 /mo
billed monthly
7 day free trial. Cancel anytime
Pick markets, find deals, analyze and manage properties. Try BiggerPockets PRO.
x
All Forum Categories
All Forum Categories
Followed Discussions
Followed Categories
Followed People
Followed Locations
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies
Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal
Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback

All Forum Posts by: Gino Zahnd

Gino Zahnd has started 0 posts and replied 38 times.

Post: BEWARE of fraud by erentpayment.com

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

Disclosure: I am the CEO and Founder at Cozy

Thanks Patrick. In addition to what you have already posted, I can also shed some light on the timing of payments, which we've also addressed in other posts on BP over the years.

We initiate an ACH debit from a tenant’s account, and then wait for their bank to confirm the funds are in fact available and the payment will be successful — this generally takes 3 business days. Then, we initiate a deposit of those funds to the landlord's bank. I'll restate that we never take custody of the funds, but rather wait for them to clear your tenant’s account before we initiate a deposit. This is a conservative, risk averse way to process ACH payments for both landlord and renter.

Post: Having trouble with the site eRentpayment

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

Disclosure - I am the Founder/CEO at Cozy

This has been a tough few days for many landlords, and we understand your fears, concerns, and frustrations. Thank you to those of you asking about our methods. Let me share why we believe landlords and renters using Cozy will not experience a similar result to the recent event.

First, and perhaps most importantly, we work with Stripe for payment processing. Stripe operates in 25 countries, and they’re a company clearly set up for the long term. Stripe is a $9 Billion company and is widely regarded as a trusted payment processor. Stripe handles payments for tons of awesome companies, including, coincidentally, BiggerPockets.

While we have many internal safeguards that I’ll talk about in a second, understand that Cozy never takes custody of your funds during a payment transaction. Our processing partner Stripe is a licensed money transmitter, and moves your money on our behalf. Funds travel from renters’ bank accounts and credit cards and are deposited in landlords’ bank accounts via the ACH system. Cozy has no access to your money while it’s in transit.

eRentPayment in a recent statement said the following:

“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.”

We believe it to be extremely unlikely that Stripe will experience an issue like this. Their underpinnings are built with Wells Fargo, which is the fourth largest bank in the United States.

Of course, this is not the only issue that may affect your security when processing rent payments, so we have additional buffers in place to add additional security:

1) Our Trust & Safety team ensures that every single Cozy payment goes through several layers of fraud detection. These include internal proprietary software, external partners such as Sift Science, and humans at Cozy.

2) We employ a rigorous software development process. Every code change is backed with automated tests and reviewed by at least two engineers. Cozy has to work reliably. We understand how costly bugs can be, like when Knight Capital lost $441 million in 45 minutes.

3) We keep our infrastructure up to date, which ensures that we receive security updates as soon as possible. The recent Equifax breach was a result of a security update that took months to apply. Similar updates to Cozy’s environment are applied in days, or even the same day, for critical vulnerabilities.

4) We actively and voluntarily pursue data security. Cozy is voluntarily compliant with PCI DSS, even though we do not store your credit card information. (It’s in Stripe, so why also store it on Cozy?) PCI DSS is one of the most stringent organizational security standards in financial technology. We hire third-party security specialists to perform yearly audits. For example, the leak of credit card information at Home Depot in 2014 was due to insufficient PCI DSS compliance.

Post: How to find a new, RELIABLE online payment service?

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

Disclosure: I am the Founder/CEO of Cozy.

This was a tough day for many landlords, and we understand your fears, concerns, and frustrations. Thank you for asking about our methods. Let me share why we believe landlords and renters using Cozy will not experience a similar result to the recent event.

First, and perhaps most importantly, we work with Stripe for payment processing. Stripe operates in 25 countries, and they’re a company clearly set up for the long term. Stripe is a $9 Billion company and is widely regarded as a trusted payment processor. Stripe handles payments for tons of awesome companies, including, coincidentally, BiggerPockets.

While we have many internal safeguards that I’ll talk about in a second, understand that Cozy never takes custody of your funds during a payment transaction. Our processing partner Stripe is a licensed money transmitter, and moves your money on our behalf. Funds travel from renters’ bank accounts and credit cards and are deposited in landlords’ bank accounts via the ACH system. Cozy has no access to your money while it’s in transit.

eRentPayment in a recent statement said the following:

“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.”

We believe it to be extremely unlikely that Stripe will experience an issue like this. Their underpinnings sit on Wells Fargo, which is the fourth largest bank in the United States.

Of course, this is not the only issue that may affect your security when processing rent payments, so we have additional buffers in place to add additional security:

1) Our Trust & Safety team ensures that every single Cozy payment goes through several layers of fraud detection. These include internal proprietary software, external partners such as Sift Science, and humans at Cozy.

2) We employ an extremely rigorous software development process. Every code change is backed with automated tests and reviewed by at least two engineers. Cozy has to work reliably. We understand how costly bugs can be, like when Knight Capital lost $441 million in 45 minutes.

3) We keep our infrastructure up to date, which ensures that we receive security updates as soon as possible. The recent Equifax breach was a result of a security update that took months to apply. Similar updates to Cozy’s environment are applied in days, or even the same day, for critical vulnerabilities.

4) We actively and voluntarily pursue data security. Cozy is voluntarily compliant with PCI DSS, even though we do not store your credit card information. (It’s in Stripe, so why also store it on Cozy?) PCI DSS is one of the most stringent organizational security standards in financial technology. We hire third-party security specialists to perform yearly audits. For example, the leak of credit card information at Home Depot in 2014 was due to insufficient PCI DSS compliance.

Post: ONLINE RENT COLLECTION by COZY - good? bad?

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for taking time to give us input. I'll pass it along to the team. We have thought about this a ton. There's a lot of complexity that isn't immediately apparent.

Best,

Gino

Post: Cozy???

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

Ah! I'll pass that along to the team. Thanks!

Post: Cozy???

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

@Jennifer L. You can do that. When you're setting up a property, uncheck the box(es) that require credit and/or background check reports. Then, after folks apply, you can request them on an ad hoc basis. Here's more info: http://helpdocs.cozy.co/article/166-how-do-i-request-a-credit-report-or-background-check

Post: Cozy???

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

@Kirsten Ostby and @Charles Frankenhoff Cozy has four revenue streams today: credit reports, background checks, a 2.75% fee for any payments with cards, and Express Payout subscriptions for landlords, which are $2.99/mo per unit. That's why we're able to offer the core tools for free.

Regarding your question around tracking payments, there's a transaction number in Cozy that will match your bank ledger. It's more accurate than a tenant name. We wrote this handy guide (with videos) about collecting rent with Cozy that you might find useful: http://helpdocs.cozy.co/article/263-guide-to-onlin...

For the sake of clarity around Charles' issue, I personally provided proof to him that he was requiring his applicants to provide screening reports. Since he was requiring those reports, his potential tenants paid and provided those reports to him via Cozy. We refunded the tenants' money in good faith, and are happy to have them as customers.

Post: Cozy???

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

@Charles Frankenhoff I'm the CEO and founder at Cozy. I just sent you a personal email regarding your case.

Post: Favorite rental payment method?

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

@Daniel Chang I just want to point out a couple of things regarding your assessment of Cozy.

"Too new. Untested in terms of security. Business plan (free) may be not be sustainable, just like Williampaid (ACH payment service that went out of service)."

1) We've been around since March 2012, and launched publicly in June 2013. We've been building Cozy for over four years, and are building the company for the long haul.

2) We adhere to rigorous security measures, like any of the banks you mention. We process hundreds of millions of dollars, and security is our #1 priority. 

3) We have four revenue streams: background checks, credit reports, debit and credit card payments, and Express ACH payout subscriptions. These are how we're able to provide such high value to landlords by offering our core tools for free. We'll be rolling out new products and revenue streams in the coming months as well.

Thanks for mentioning us; I just want folks to have accurate information.

Post: Cozy.co reviews

Gino ZahndPosted
  • Founder/CEO
  • Portland, OR
  • Posts 45
  • Votes 93

Hi @George P. -

We post select upcoming features on our Features & Pricing page: https://cozy.co/features-pricing

I'd also like to thank @Allen Matsumoto for that payment times exercise. I can also confirm he does not work for Cozy in any capacity. Appreciate your business, though! :-)

Best,

Gino

CEO & Founder at Cozy