If you’re right and this tenant would have passed their screening.

One bit of advice where you can be ahead of the curve is to write down your screening criteria for possible tenants and commit to following it.

So, the first question they usually ask a PMC is about fees - instead of asking about services and HOW those services are executed.EXAMPLE: PMC states they will handle tenant screening – what does that specifically mean?

Go to BUILD YOUR TEAM at the top of the screen and look for local investors or meetups in your area.

I know this is what screening a tenant is for, but still can be a bit sketchy.

Haha, no I wasn't that slack in my screening. 

I know I'll have to do major screening but seems to be very successful/passive as someone who at one time had 200 section 8 SFR rentals.. there is a lot of miss information about the program..

We embrace S8 applicants, but screen them just like any other applicant.Many have an entitlement mentality and try to leverage their S8 voucher by pretending to be helpless:1) A percentage won't apply because they expect a landlord to waive application fees for them.2) Many cry broke and expect a landlord NOT to charge them a security deposit.3) Many of those same S8 tenants trying to avoid paying a security deposit, won't make an effort to call the list of nonprofits we send them that will pay their security deposit if they apply.4) A lot of them try to avoid paying for utilities.

And given that, in a major city, there are hundreds of houses put on the market weekly, you need a method to efficiently screen properties to make sure they won't bleed money before you spend time analyzing, touring them ect. 

If you don’t want to hire a PM to manage your property I would at least hire one to do the screening.