Description

I applied for this person's rental house listing on Apartments.com. With my co-signer he put me through several phone calls and screening process. After applying, then he let us come tour the property. We wanted to move forward with it and then he made us fill out new applications via pdf because he claimed he wanted the personal info that was redacted in the online application (which is to protect us). I thought it was weird but did the applications all over again. After this he wanted color copies of our social security cards. As this is unorthodox and a risk, we said we were uncomfortable with this. I offered to show my passport along with my driver's license but he claimed "these show who you are, but not where you are." This mildly threatening line concerned me, but I agreed to meet up and show our SS cards in person but not give him any copies. However I found out I didn't have mine with me as it was left with my father, so the landlord told me to go get a new copy the next morning at the SS office. I waited in line for hours and finally got it sorted but they told me it would be mailed in 2 weeks. I asked him if showing him in person a photo of the SS card from my father would be enough, but he declined this. So I had my father overnight the card to me. When we finally met up to show him the cards, he wrote the numbers down on the back of a receipt which seems extremely unprofessional, risky, and invasive!! If he lost the receipt, anyone could find the number on there. He told us verbally in person we were approved and asked when we wanted to sign the lease. He did not approve the digital applications online. We said we wanted to move in as soon as possible. He said he would write up the agreements that night. Then he texted me later demanding that I needed a guarantor (which I had offered if needed at the beginning but he never responded about it and moved forward without it). I had to then get my father to sign a guarantor agreement which didn't even state my name as the tenant or the amount of rent (when asking him about this he told us to just write it in ourselves- sketchy?!). He required my father to get the agreement notarized which all took another 2 days. Once he had everything, he texted me the next day and asked if we could meet in an hour at Burger King to sign the lease. BK was only right down the street from the property and I also live in the same neighborhood so it didn't make any sense to meet elsewhere. We said for our security, we wanted to do a walkthrough before signing to ensure everything was in working condition and we weren't unwittingly agreeing to some sort of damage, as this is standard procedure. We also wanted to do everything at that same time and get the keys so we were able to move in on the same day we were being charged for rent. He said "your secuirty is in the employees at Burker King." I clarified that I meant my security in the house being in good condition, not my personal safety. He refused three times to do a walkthrough first, before finally agreeing after I said we couldn't sign otherwise. Then with 30 mins before the meeting, I wasn't even told what I needed to bring, or if rent would be for a full month or pro-rated. I asked about this, and he told me to bring 2 checks- 1 for rent and 1 for a deposit. He then told me the deposit was over 2x what it said on the listing. I went to check the listing, but the deposit info was suddenly missing. I didn't have any screenshots of the listing with the previous deposit amount, but I took a screenshot and video scrolling the entire listing showing no deposit info now. By the time I got on my computer to check if my digital application had the info, I saw he then added the new deposit amount to the listing. So I called him out and told him I saw him change it. He claimed he didn't and had nothing to hide- told me to call Apartments.com to ask them. Meanwhile, I had already emailed them to ask and heard back that they can't disclose this info. So this seemed to me that he knew this specifically and had probably done this before. I sent him the original video I had scrolling the listing and asked him to tell me where on the listing it showed the deposit amount he was claiming. I then recalled all the scare stories he told me throughout the screening process of previous tenants he had to evict because they "had a dog" or "caused damage," and I said after all his unorthodox behavior and trying to get more money out of me in a deposit that didn't state what it covered, I was concerned he would just find some reason to evict me and claim damage to keep the whole huge deposit of $5700. He didn't reply. Then in the middle of the night he went on and declined our applications online, then in the morning he texted me that I was declined for not providing my vehicle info (Which he had asked for before and I told him I don't have my own car yet, we only had 1 car and we put my co-signer's vehicle info). And he said I was declined for "unsubstantiated claims I feared for my safety." These 2 false claims were not a valid reason to decline me, but after all the red flags I was already going to tell him this wasn't a good fit for us. Also, I looked up who even owns the house to see if he was the real owner (though I never saw any form of ID from him), and it's owned by 2 names under a Trust- "Malcolm E. M. and E. Kennedy Kennedy". He communicated to me under the names Malcom Kennedy and also Kennedy Malcom. At one point he told me to refer to him as Kennedy as appeared as his first name on his phone contact info, but then his email showed the first name Malcolm and I had to switch to referring to him by that name. All things considered, I'm sure this is not professional and is some sort of scam or fraud. Every professional advised me he was not doing things correctly and it was all highly suspicious and risky for me to do business with him. Please be warned!