I've been using erentpayment to process rent. No problem until this month. But this month, they've collected the rent from the tenant and claim that their bank is not releasing funds (not just to me, but to many landlords).

They're now several days late. Their website and Facebook page say they're waiting for their bank to return their call. Anyone else experiencing this? Happy to hear recommendations for an alternative.

one of many reasons to do it the old fashioned way, they send you money... directly and you have proof

Thanks for the heads up. I just checked and nothing has cleared after 10/2. Thankfully I have enough of a cash reserve to cover payments, but I'll be surprised if they survive this public relations nightmare. It appears that their only means of communicating payments issues was via their FB page.

Yikes!

It's a disaster because of their lack of communication. They will lose their business because they can't communicate in a manner other than copying & pasting their FB posts as responses to direct questions via email.

I guess I've been lucky & cleared everything except for what should have drafted on the 12th & 13th. I've still got 2 transactions that are pending from initiating on the 5th & 6th. And I've got more than enough cushion to pay my owners while waiting for their bank to do their job.

They have been catastrophically uncommunicative. They post one update a day that says essentially that they're working on it, with promises for multiple updates later in the day. Those updates do not come.

They have an automated message now when you call that says they're not accepting incoming calls due to high call volume.

They have turned off the online chat feature on their website.

They have been catastrophically uncommunicative. They post one update a day that says essentially that they're working on it, with promises for multiple updates later in the day. Those updates do not come.

They have an automated message now when you call that says they're not accepting incoming calls due to high call volume.

They have turned off the online chat feature on their website.

I have been very impressed with their customer service in the past. I believe they'll sort this out. From what I've read, their new bank really sabotaged them and so they're switching away from them, but as we all know it takes time to move money from one place to another.

Many thanks to the heads up about erentpayment. I had wondered why my deposits had not reached my bank, both of which are due on the 15th of the month. This is indeed alarming and will undoubtedly put erentpayment out of business.

I like things the "old" way ... and it works. I see no reason to involve another party / layer into rent collection. I realize these type services work "most" times but why in the world would anyone involve a third party in rent collection?

Anyone affiliated with this company needs to go on Facebook on the E rent payment site. It's time to get out and shut down everything to do with this business. I too was very happy with the level of service and am absolutely dumbfounded by the information on the Facebook page ran by the company that was trusted with rent payments. Sadly that is the venue chosen to update individuals and it wasn't until recently that I even knew to look there. Save yourself the headache shut down your accounts now and protect any other possible withdrawals by making the balances zero.

Here's their statement on their website and FB:

"We regret to inform you that our payment processor, eCheckit, has informed us that it expects to file for bankruptcy protection shortly. We are told that it suffered losses due to a fraud and that its processor, Check Commerce, has held over $4 million of it's funds and will not release the funds to the intended recipients at this time. Please note that eRentPayment had nothing to due with the fraud eCheckit suffered. It was apparently caused by another client of eCheckit.

The transactions potentially affected were submitted after approximately 7:31:00 PM (Pacific time) on 10/03/2017 through approximately 7:01:33 PM (Pacific time) on 10/12/2017. Any transactions submitted after this time period should not be affected as they are being processed through eRentPayment’s new direct bank relationship. Similarly, any future transactions should not be affected as they will be run through the new direct processing relationship.

We do not know if or when Check Commerce will send the pending transactions to the recipients. Accordingly, you should consider your options including having the tenant contact his or her bank to request the transaction be reversed. Specifically, the tenant may initiate a return for an ”Incomplete Transaction.” We understand that the return code for this is “R10” and the bank will require a written statement from the tenant. Also, the tenant will have a limited time period to request the return from his bank, usually within 60 days from the date of the transaction.

We are contacting the Attorney General of Arizona, NACHA, and reviewing legal action against the relevant parties.

Certainly I'm odd man out for rent collection options but this is exactly what I asked about above ... why would you involve extra layers with your money? Folks who used this service, erentpayment, are also dealing with eCheckit and Check Commerce ... one of which has significant issues.

Did anyone really understand how many hands their funds pass through from the tenant to them? In my life, the money goes from their hand to mine. In this situation, tenant to erentpayment to checkit to checkcommerce to you. 3 extra parties having their greasy fingers touching MY money ...

Sorry ... cash or a personal check are good enough for me. yes, the other ways may save a few minutes each month by me not having to go to make a physical deposit but I have those extra 10 minutes or so.

what the tenant wants to do and how they expect to make payments? tough. I cannot imagine anyone walking away when they want a unit because they won't be permitted to have the money come out of their account automatically.

Nicole, I sure agree. I don't think any of erentpayment's customers knew that there were not just one, but two processors upstream from them. Until that notice yesterday, erentpayment had spoken only of "the bank", which seemed to make sense.

I gave eRentPayment folks the benefit of the doubt until now but it seems clear that the company is taking no responsibility for the issue. Also how do you not suspect Fraud when their transaction history clearly shows that the payments were made, processed and deposited.... Perhaps the fine print says somewhere that deposited means into their account not yours.... This is no OK!!!!!

I've read the ACH R10 recourse that they list this is only if the payment was not authorized... it clearly was... complete BS...

I'm switching and dealing with the tenant backlash, will use pricing as an incentive but not the final decision.

I guess at least when you're robbed this way you don't have to replace computer equipment, rebuild files, rebuild from back ups, fix property damage, etc. Been there, done that. I'm trying to look for the silver lining here.......

I haven't had a single issue with eRentpayment in 8 years of business. Like others I gave them the benefit of the doubt until last evening due to my past experiences with them. But loyalty only goes so far. Especially when they weren't out in front of this from the start. Was anyone aware there were 2 processors upstream on this??

Have already closed everything out & switched to a new vendor. Which was lot more involved than what was required with eRentpayment......hopefully an extra level of protection.

Now on to digging & seeing if there's a bond or insurance on the processors part that can be hit for this loss. Not holding my breath but one can hope.

It's naive to think that a check involves only a bank to bank transaction.

Erantpayment is in a difficult situation. They didn't have a backup processor, they didn't stay in front of the problem and their documentation for setup was light(making switching processors problematic).

Pros and cons to both...some low income tenants may not have a bank account, or live hand to mouth, so auto debit might not work for them. But checks can bounce, and mailing a check may be considered an annoyance and "old school" for millennials.

It seems like a problem with this particular company, not auto debit in general.

Payments with tenants are tricky. They make excuses (I heard everyone in the book). I am surprised to hear this news from your payment processor.

I have been using Hemlane for rent collection. After hearing this news about eRentPayments, I sent a message to Hemlane's support team to see if I was at risk. Here is what they said:

"We understand that there are concerns after this report from eRentPayments. Rest assured, Hemlane is built differently. Hemlane uses Stripe as a payment processor. Stripe is very reputable and trusted across all industries and does payments for Pinterest, Facebook, Shopify, and Lyft. It is a $9B company. Hemlane does not hold the money and has a direct transfer from the tenant to the owner once the funds have cleared. We have internal and external partners who help detect fraud and shut it down immediately."

Wow since only one payment was effected by this of my 8 tenants I did not notice the money did not reach the bank.

I cannot beleive that Erentpayment did not send ANY kind of notification bout it until yesterday. My teanants payment has been stuck since 10/5/17 there was no email, call, message inside of the erentpayment manager portal I pulled the report and noticed one payment was PENDING.

I was scrambling to figure out what happened and then the email came through 10/30/17 at 3:20 pm with the first notice that there was an issue.

I was shocked we have had a good history until yesterday but no notification that you are withholding $1350.00 until 25 days later is covering your ass and negligent to your client. The first thing that came to mind was to cancel all auto rent payments that are coming in tomorrow for November but I had to really think about it because it being so close I was scared the transaction might go through anyway.

I decided to cancel all payments and then clean up any issues with the tenants after, but I think they strategically waited so they could get one more process from landlords who had not checked there accounts yet.

I had no idea about this issue until today. Fortunately, I only had one bi-weekly payment affected, so I didn't notice the money missing. I loved using eRentPayment; their customer support was always amazing...until now.

This brings up two questions for me:

1) Is there a type of insurance coverage that would cover an issue like this (catastrophic coverage)? I don't mean having a money reserve either, but a way to get compensation for any payments that went missing. Next time the issue may be due to a bank getting hacked, etc.

2) Are there any large national banks that have their own ACH payment processing system that could be used instead? Right now it looks like you need at minimum three parties involved to move payments...the tenants bank, your bank, and the third party processor like eRentPayment (even though it sounds like eRentPayment had two more layers). I'd prefer to find a large national bank that offers the service, so I can have a two party transaction directly between the tenants bank and the large national bank doing the ACH.