Angry tenant calls out landlord for ‘infuriating’ convenience fee — just for being able to pay rent online

Shelling out for rent is already a drag — and now one tenant’s apartment complex is trying to make him pay a convenience fee on top of it.

In a recent Reddit post on the thread “mildlyinfuriating” by Caleb B. — a 31-year-old based in North Carolina who goes by the username @mangum95 and declined to provide his full last name — the peeved-off tenant screenshotted the new system his apartment is using for rent payments, which includes a $39.68 convenience fee on top of the $1,280 rent bill.

“They just updated the system,” the North Carolinian wrote on March 1. “The previous system allowed ACH payment but the new system does not. So infuriating. I think I can pay by check now but I have to get a checkbook or cashiers check which also have a fee.”

Caleb B. posted about his annoyance about being charged a convenience fee on top of rent on Reddit. Reddit

The post received 37K upvotes and sparked a discourse of 5.6K comments. 

“My apartment used to do this until (I’m guessing) they started getting 100+ handwritten checks and didn’t want to deal with cashing/logging them manually,” said one commenter.

“Only write them checks from now on. Say that it is inconvenient. And refuse to pay that fee because checks are so inconvenient!” added another.

Caleb later clarified he found a solution to the problem. Natnan – stock.adobe.com

Caleb later clarified the solution he found for the situation in a pinned comment.

“Update: the new service is on the Loft app. A number of people let me know that if you select the ‘echeck’ option, you can pay rent without a ‘convenience’ fee. It seems like that option is just ACH. It seems to be working so far.”