I use PayLease and CashPay and I LOVE that service… however… I just got a chargeback from a tenant’s credit card company for his last month’s lot fee and late fees. He actually stayed into half of the next month free and caused a lot of trouble and left his lot a mess. This tenant CLEARLY had zero rights to his money back and yet I still incurred a chargeback and now have to go after him myself for my money. Just a heads up… I am now getting every tenant to sign a credit card authorization form for ANY form of electronic payments or payments made through cashpay… to have in their file … JUST IN CASE.
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I dont use this service but before online payments were very mainstream i used a company that a guy was paying by credit card and filed chargebacks. Turned out he used his uncles credit card. Then I have also had an online store i partnered with someone on and got crushed royally to the tune of 5-10k on fraud all through credit cards and we traced it down to the source and the scammer was just a front man for the source.
To summarize it … all that left a really bad taste in my mouth so CC is not something i personally offer though it is available in Buildium. I dont care to learn if this is still a thing or not but sounds like it is.
Thanks for sharing.
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I’ve had this happen with PayLease, but typically I know if I’m getting a charge back in 3 or 4 days. They send you an email letting you know very quickly. To me it’s no different than a NSF check. The only sure fire way to avoid this and still use PayLease is to only allow CashPay.
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I can understand your policy of only using CashPay. I might have to adopt that for myself.
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I would say then it doesn’t like a big deal if its 3 or 4 days just like a bad EFT or bad check. I was concerned that people are getting hit like 60 days later. Its probably somewhere in the terms and conditions but credit cards i think you can file chargebacks for a very long time. So the risk would be if its possible that someone can charge back months of rent.
I got notified a little over a month later. His payment went into my account on Jan 18th … 18 days late for January’s rent payment … and I was notified of the chargeback request on February 26th. I am seriously considering only accepting cashpay if this ever happens again. I like the idea of offering both because it helps them build credit if they opt into that… however… the deal here is …I GET PAID…lol
This would not concern me. We have 100s of tenants, and if we got a chargeback every few months, we would process it like any other non-payment. It is a small cost to the bottom line. We have fewer (actually none) chargebacks than bad checks.
If there is a crack in the system then eventually you will get exploited for it. Getting 6-8 months for the price of 4 is a pretty good gimmick. Until you’re evicted, then you can go and do it again.
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And the word spreads and it gets to be a popular tactic. I now have a blanket electronic payment authorization form in my lease packets.
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