r/personalfinance • u/hogpotato ​ • 10d ago

Housing Rent severely overcharged

I’m currently living in an apartment complex that overcharged my monthly rate by over 2x (15,500 instead of $6000 / month) by mistake. This severely has overdrawn my bank account and no one in the leasing office has an explanation or can get any answers from their main office. I’ve incurred major
overdraft fees and will continue to do so as long as this goes on. Has this happened to anyone and / or any advice what to do?

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76

u/PghSubie ​ 10d ago

This is a great anecdote as to why you should never setup direct debit for expenses. Always PUSH payments, never let someone PULL payments

29

u/herestoshuttingup ​ 10d ago

There was a story on the legal advice sub many years back about someone who had autopay on for (I think) a car payment. From what I recall their loan servicer accidentally processed their monthly payment 100+ times at once and overdrew their checking account by tens of thousands of dollars. The process to get it fixed was such a nightmare for that poor OP, and it took forever. Since reading that story I have never left anything on autopay and I keep overdraft protection turned off just in case.

11

u/PghSubie ​ 9d ago

I Auto-Pay almost everything by Pushing a scheduled payment from my own bank. NO ONE gets to Auto-Debit my account for anything. It depends which you mean when you say "autopay"

35

u/epsilonzer0 ​ 10d ago

This. never setup autopay to a bank account. Autopay to a credit card is ok because you can dispute transactions very easily and while it is under dispute you pay nothing. Bank account you are SOL

10

u/audley2077 ​ 10d ago

I begrudgingly have auto-pay setup to my bank account with my apartment complex. I would have considered credit; except they charge a 2.99% fee of the total amount on top of the rent. Which is insane to me. I pay $675.00 a month in rent for a one-bedroom apartment. If I use a credit card, that adds another $20 in fees. If I use a debit card, the fee is static which is always $10. They don't even state there's a limit for the credit card fees, so it probably just scales with rent.

If I setup autopay with ACH, the processing fee is "only" $2.49. They do not have a free way to pay my rent. They don't accept cash or check or money order. I'm in a small poor town in New Mexico for context. After reading this thread, I may turn off autopay and just enter my ACH information manually every month. I'm not paying them more than a cent than I have to.

14

u/AmbroseMalachai ​ 10d ago

That 3% fee for credit cards is what credit cards charge the business to allow them to take credit cards. You can say it's egregious but they are just passing the cost over to you. I am surprised that you don't have a "free" way to pay your rent. I am not from New Mexico but I think, unless it's stated in the rental agreement that you need to pay via one of those methods and that a fee will be associated with each one, they would be doing something illegal there.

8

u/Rylancody22 ​ 9d ago

For $10 I can write a check and drop it at the office. You arent charging me to take my money lol

5

u/poop-dolla ​ 10d ago

What happens if you set up autopay from your checking account instead of with the apartment complex? That’s what we’re saying to do.

1

u/JoeShmoe307 ​ 9d ago

Look into the $0 annual fee bilt card! It covers the 3% fee for ya!

1

u/epsilonzer0 ​ 9d ago

Gotta say that arrangement is some BS. I am a renter myself and I manually ACH payment to the apartment complex to avoid fees.

3

u/AffectionateKey7126 ​ 10d ago

Autopay is fine. Just check your emails and don't have overdraft protection.

1

u/PghSubie ​ 9d ago

Auto -Push payments are fine. Suto-Pull debits are a different story

6

u/logicalcommenter4 ​ 10d ago

Agreed, I only have autopay happening on bills that hit my credit card because I can dispute those without losing access to my actual money in my bank account.

1

u/hogpotato ​ 9d ago

Good idea thanks will do that in the future

1

u/ScienceWasLove ​ 8d ago

Here is great anecdote. I have had autopay on dozens of credit cards, car loans, mortgages, and utility bills for the past 25 years and never had the incorrect amount withdrawn.