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Wondering if this qualifies as a "bait and switch"....
We applied to rent a very nice house through a rental company. Asking price for rent was $1800/mo. Very popular house...apparantly, they received at least 10 applications.
Two weeks later, I get a call from the management company....the rent on the house is now $1995/mo., and am I still interested?
First, this is way over our budget, so no, we are not still interested.
Second, I want my application fee back because I never would have applied for a house where the rent was that price.
Possibly, but to continue the metaphor, this may have been a new rental, and they were just testing the waters to see what the interest level was in order to determine what the rent really should be. When they had a ton of interest, they realized they had priced it too low.
If they had not yet agreed to rent it to you, you hadn't paid anything besides an application fee, and hadn't signed a lease, and they give you the application fee back, I would guess they are fine.
Bait and switch implies an intent to defraud. That isn't necessarily what has happened here. Sounds more a change due to supply and demand.
If a place is advertised for rent at a certain price, I don't know if it's illegal but it sure isn't right, or ethical to arbitrarily up the ante just because you got 10 applications. I imagine the owner pressured them into this decision. I don't like it a bit personally. Definitely get your money back.
This is a dishonest rental company. They realized after the fact that they can get nearly 2 hundred dollars more per month by the number of applicants. Get your money back. Whats their company name & email address ?
This is a dishonest rental company. They realized after the fact that they can get nearly 2 hundred dollars more per month by the number of applicants. Get your money back. Whats their company name & email address ?
That's what I think, too.
They are not being responsive so far. Can I report them to the BBB and the board of realtors for our state?
They are not being responsive so far. Can I report them to the BBB and the board of realtors for our state?
You can report them to the BBB, but remember that the BBB is pretty much useless. The absolute worst they can do is issue them a "noncompliant" status or terminate their membership. The BBB is a voluntary commerce organization. Since they're not a law / government agency, they're basically powerless.
Your state's Attorney General, on the other hand, may be worthwhile. Most businesses would rather just send a refund check for an amount that small than deal with the AG, even if they've done nothing wrong or illegal.
I'm not advocating you "using the system" to "hassle" the LL -- I think the LL is being awfully unethical if they're unwilling to return your application fee under the circumstances you described. Just remember that it's not illegal to be unethical.
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