All Forum Posts by: Matt A.

@Jerry Kisasonak - Being that your VERY late to the party on this one, Im also going to assume you had collected all your payments from last month (meaning you've got tenants that entered rent early, dont play with late or grace periods), and received all your payments outside the window of issue.

You're extremely lucky :)

That said, its been one heck of a ride with these guys. Communication from erent is horrible.... there was a recent posting in the Facebook page (erent discussion group) that broke down HOW the system works - its a fascinating read, much like "The creature from Jekyll Island", how the whole ACH system works and where it can fall apart. The post was a reply to the bankruptcy court from the bank that put a freeze on eCHECKits ability to initiate ACH transfers.

It does appear the eRENT has their back-end processes fixed as I received payment recently - albeit I still have ONE locked up in their system. While the explanation is plausible, Im MUCH more skeptical now and scrutinize our business partners WAY CLOSER.... and reading into the horrific English of eRENTS emails.... Im taking a pass on doing further business with them. Im willing to bet the company is a cloud-based couple of servers, and 2-3 people in a shared office suite. Looks like they were moving $4MM or so monthly, and that would generate a tidy little income around 10-12k monthly... not a bad gig for hosting a cloud app! At any rate, I just cant afford another crash like the last one.

Keep reading the threads, there are other services with varying levels of investment. For MY business its got to be rock-solid AND have the ability to enforce late fees, NO partial payments, reporting, and be friggin reliable! I also want to understand the ENTIRE back-end of whatever company we switch to.... shame on ME for not looking behind the curtain earlier.

@Natalie Schanne - THats a good one, haven't done anything like that (yet) myself. I tend to agree with @Steve Babiak that it would be an ejectment though... your probably need to engage an attorney as Common Pleas is NOT "DIY court"! In PA you can file the landlord disputes (lease related) at magisterial court, however Im just finishing up an a prolonged eviction that was appealed (literally yesterday we found the tenant had not paid in the 30 day window, so we were able to terminate the precipice and now we can have the sheriff proceed with removing this tenant from the property.

Its been a real learning experience however.  If you go the Common Pleas route and your property is in the Lehigh Valley feel free to PM me and I can give you a couple attorney names that are reasonable and efficient.

Good luck!

@Justine S. - people vote too (look what happened 9 years ago... they did it TWICE)! - what I mean is folks don't always seem to have their best interests in mind with their actions.

Burn me ONCE shame on you (and I also learn NOT to put my hand in the fire), but twice... going back to the SAME company that just hosed us all?  Like history - this scenario will repeat itself if one doesn't study it.

Ive mentioned it before - especially on the Facebook group, but really, shame on ALL of us that have monies in limbo with erentpayment. Its clear that our due-diligence fell apart and we were lured by "low fees" and the promise of swift and easy transactions.... but not one of us that are seeking reimbursement would have EVER entered into any financial arrangement with a company like this if we had actually looked behind the curtain.

Who builds a business that processes millions - and Im going to guess that its run in a basement or garage. I sure would seem that way with the response were getting. No email communication, a phone that's not being answered, updates that are suspect at best (and posted to Facebook of all places.... what about their own Website?)

In hindsight the posts that were actually made to the public on the support pages should have been an immediate tip-off to run, poor grammar and confusing drivel.... While I've never fallen for the nigerian scammer, this appears to be pretty close. There is an old saying - you get what you pay for, and in this instance it couldn't hold truer.

Im hopeful that my affected tenant received his money through the R10 process, however this one squarely lies on my shoulders, the owner / landlord / manager. This operator @Rick S. (and even more interesting - doesn't share his full name with the community) has served as a warning and paved the way for some really intense scrutiny of his competition in coming months. Only time will tell as well as the money trail in this one, but for me its been one hell of a wakeup call in evaluating all of our partner relationships.

All the posts are interesting however Im not "feeling it" as to any real criteria in finding a potential new vendor. The cozy founder (cant recall his name at the moment) outlines a decent scenario of how their system works, although in hindsight I personally need a more forensic understanding of how erent fell over (its getting clearer daily - essentially 3rd parties that caused the system to crash). To me it sounds like there are still multiple 3rd parties, just BIGGER (remember too big to fail a few years back? "The Creature from Jekyll Island" is also a good read to understand it a tad more).

If Im getting all of this input correctly Cozy, Intuit, Retalutions.... all of the value-add vendors (that offer some type of extensible service in addition to ACH) are relying on Stripe - and that's part of Wells Fargo? (for what its worth - Wells aint no Poster Boy of clean living either... they have sure had their issues lately).

We are actively looking for a solution to the mess that erent has caused - albeit rather fortunately we didnt get banged up too badly - just one tenant. All in all, Im not looking for the CHEAPEST service, rather a BEST (that offers security, reputation, transparency, and ultimately some assurances that Ill ultimately get paid! In all honestly Im leaning heavily towards our banking relationships as they all seem to have some flavor of ACH in their portals, I would have one heck of an argument to get something like an erentpayment failure reversed, although they overall lack the integration with our accounting packages or the automation to apply late payments (for example) automatically. 

Overall all the automation (while a great thing) has caused many of us to take our eye off the ball and miss some fundamentals. I know I didnt looks deeply to understand erentpayments overall structure - and being that my "day job" is in the tech industry I would have seen the house of cards immediately had I done better due-diligence, just too many 3rd parties and potential breakdowns in the code. Guess as this point Ill chalk the loss up to tuition... we all pay it sometime, fortunately we can also all write this loss of on our 2017 taxes and recoup a few pennies.

Im surprised that anyone has actually received anything from them. I have attempted to contact them several times - just an automated message that "we will reply soon as possible" or similar. Ive received no other communication from erentpayment... nothing, period!

There is NO WAY I will use them in the future, nor any company that @Rick S. is associated with. I get the fact that he has some big problems at the moment and people are pissed - however the lack of communication only lets one assume the worst. The saying "In God we trust, all others pay cash" is starting to bear more meaning at this juncture.

While I didnt get banged up badly in this (only 1 of our tenants), its still enough to necessitate re-architecting the strategy of using a company like erentpayment. Yes, its super convenient and made things incredibly easy... Im not however willing to pay the price in the event another processor melts down like this one has. Ive already told our tenants its back to checks and money orders... and be DARN SURE the postmark is not later than the due date for now. Ill probably change the leases to say like a credit card company does, In our posession by 5pm ON THE DUE DATE. (but that's a different topic).

@Dima Kassim , I use a couple of smaller local banks for our properties - Have also gotten some lights-out financing from them as well (i.e. commercial paper, 20% down 30 yr amortization & 15 year terms... at interest rates that are nearly non-commercial)... here in the Lehigh Valley Embassy and American Bank.

My tenant that was affected is with BB&T. I dont know much about them, but di agree to meet with the branch manager in the next couple weeks to discuss their offerings as they operate in 15 states, and we are looking to expand massively in larger multi-family outside of this area (for a number of reasons, like taxes, affordability, scalability, Im thinking of retiring in the next couple years - before Im 55!).

Im guessing the R10 is a branch thing. Like I mentioned, I went into the branch with my tenant, explained it for him and within 60 seconds the manager was keying in the dispute / reversal on his system. If you havent already, attending WITH your tenant might be worth a shot... after all, your showing a bit of empathy for their situation and helping your situation as well. I do hope that I can get the reversal accomplished, however its not the end of the world for me. One tenant & one moths rent isnt goign to sink the ship - its the folks that have 10's of thousands out that I really feel for.

If anything, the lesson I can take is to be FAR more careful in selecting financial partners. Im thinking that it might be wise to get setup directly with a bank in the future for ACH clearing.  In the interim I only accepting checks or money orders.

Have to concur wiht the Facebook group on advice. I have been using them for over a year without a glitch... till l discovered that one tenant (who was late and put in the ERP system their rent and late fee on the 12th. ERP portal showed rent and a separate late fee as pending as of today. I took him to his bank and they were extremely quick and helpful filling out the paperwork for my tenant. Interestingly they (ERP) only had debited my tenants account for rent and not the late fee, so that was all they could attempt to stop. The branch manager that we dealt with knew right away what the R10 code was... and soon as that was finished proceeded to inquire and sell me on their banks financing - especially once he learned that we are actively acquiring buildings!

We shall see if this one gets reversed, fortunately only ONE of our residents got caught in this mess.

Glad I hobbled across this thread - Ive had funds in "pending" for almost 10 days now (one tenant was late, I knew it and would normally accept a check from them.... but told them to use eRent anyway.

I was completely unaware of this 'change' they are making till my emails went unanswered and found the phones shutoff. I think their communication is horrible and personally will undoubtedly move to a vendor that is responsive. I too have used eRent for over a year without a hiccup, but the complete lack of communication is unacceptable to me. Probably a really small 2-3 man shop and the wheels have completely fallen off with this debacle. Im all about paying for SERVICE, and 12+ months ago the service (and ability to answer calls/emails) appeared to be there for this company.... not so much now.

Anyone have any great alternatives? Ive heard about www.rentalutions.com and www.rezedent.com but Im not familiar with their backend or business model. Any others?

I only use a vacancy rate for figuring out the financials and if things really make sense. What I mean is running numbers on a triplex that brings in 3k per month - at a 10% vacancy rate is roughly 300 monthly, or 3600 in annual vacancy. This tells me I can be down one unit for up to three months (round numbers here) in lost rental income. The other gotchya that I dont hear anyone talking about is the cost to turn a unit.... paint, cleaning, advertising.... heck - even the customary realtor charges should you go that route.

That 10% vacancy rate can quickly turn into ONE unit being down for essentially ONE month - depending on how your doing your accounting as the costs to re-let quickly add up.

Im in the middle (actually light at the end of the tunnel) of an eviction and unfortunately its an inherited AND professional tenant. This guy has also caused another tenant (lived directly next door) to pull a "midnight move" and essentially disappear. So my triplex is only bringing in ONE units rent and the expenses to re-let quickly pile up (paint - clean - and put a management company on leasing a downed unit)... I haven't factored in legal and lost rent on the eviction yet. While this is really an extreme case you MUST plan for the worst and keep reserves! The saving grace to this whole debacle is I invest for cash-flow, and even after paying all the acquisition costs to this building THIS YEAR, Im still (barely) turning a profit on a net cash basis (before depreciation as well). Its been one hell of an education - then again it is preparing me for the larger stuff and "managing the managers"

Not to hijack the thread, but I would suggest a minimum of 10% vacancy when running your analysis - prepare for the worst and you'll probably be pleasantly surprised in the end.