Feature
Affordable Rentals takes $250 from homeless couple
Listing agency or scam?
Salesmen at Affordable Rentals NW charged Darcie Day and Merlyn Parker $250 and sent them on a fruitless search for their new apartment.
Darcie Day was desperate for housing when she saw a listing for an apartment that she could afford: a $500-a-month one-bedroom in Seattle’s lower Queen Anne neighborhood.
A year and a half ago, the 42-year-old woman lost an apartment that she had shared with her boyfriend of 17 years. Since then, the two, who are both disabled and on Social Security, have been sleeping in the doorways of churches or empty buildings — anywhere they can stay together. Until the police chase them off.
That’s been happening a lot lately, says Day, an epileptic. So when she saw the Queen Anne unit on a list of low-cost rentals at a nonprofit office, she immediately called the phone number and made an appointment with a company called Affordable Rentals Northwest, which she thought was a leasing agency.
She found out the hard way that it’s not: On July 20, after months of saving up the money, Day paid the company a $250 “move-in fee” for an apartment. But all it bought her were some bogus apartment leads and the run-around, she says — and she’s not alone.
Since 2005, a total of 23 complaints have been filed with the state Attorney General’s Office against Affordable Rentals Northwest, which changed its name two years ago from Global Management One. The Better Business Bureau has received 38 complaints about the company in just three years and gives it an “F” rating.
The company’s owner, Rahel Schwartz, says she works to resolve every complaint, but you can’t please everybody. Affordable Rentals helps people find apartments, she says, by selling them listings. But it’s what the company’s salesmen say before and during the sale — that the listings are exclusive, that Affordable Rentals will “do the legwork” and that deposits and credit-check fees will be waived — that has people like Day calling the company a scam that preys on the poor.
When Day went to the office at 2300 Eastlake Ave. E., she says, an employee named Terrence Skylard told her that once she paid the $250, she and her boyfriend, Merlyn Parker, would be able to move in to any of the available apartments on a list that Skylard showed her. She signed what she thought was a lease and picked out a lower Queen Anne address where Skylard told her the property manager would be waiting to show her a unit.
A friend drove her to the building, the Queen Villa, where they waited half an hour for the property manager. Day says she then called Skylard and was told the property manager was on vacation — with no known return date. Two days later, she went back to the office and was given another Queen Anne address that she and her friend couldn’t find at all.
The next day, she demanded her money back, but was told she could only get $195 of it if she came to the office in person twice a week for 90 days to get fresh rental listings, which Day and others say they realized too late were available anywhere.
“They kept making me think, hey, yeah, I’m going to work for you,” Day says, but “when you asked a question, they ran around in circles.”
Affordable Rentals Northwest has no website of its own. It puts listings on Craigslist — 228 of them on July 31 alone — that look like leasing agency ads for individual units, such as “$650 Greenlake” or “$495 Tacoma.” They often state “Bad Credit OK” and always contain the phone number (206)322-2071 followed by the word “fee.”
That’s the only reference to what the company calls its $250 “retainer fee.” The fee is paid at an office appointment where employees ask for a pay stub and photo identification. In return, other customers say, they’ve gotten a stack of listings from all over the state that they had to sift through. Day says she never even got that.
Schwartz says none of her employees would have told Day the company’s fee was a deposit or called the contract a lease. And, “we don’t say these are exclusive properties,” she says. Some private landlords in their listings don’t advertise, she says, but it’s right in the contract that the listings are compiled from various sources.
Four Affordable Rentals salesmen contacted on the phone or in person by Real Change used the phrase “rental office” when referring to the company. “These properties aren’t seen anywhere else,” one said Aug. 2 on the phone. As to what the retainer is for, he said, “that’s paying for my service, me calling around and doing legwork to get you a place at the lowest cost possible” — with discounts such as move-in specials.
“I would say I save clients $700 to $800 in costs,” the salesman said. The retainer fee, he added, “does pay for itself very quickly.”
At the office on Aug. 3, Terrence Skylard, the salesman who signed up Day, repeated the pitch in person, saying that, in many cases, the company can get landlords to waive the first and last month’s rent and deposit for clients and will reimburse clients for the cost of any credit checks.
None of this is stated in a copy of the contract obtained at the office. And the contract itself, says Eric Dunn, an attorney who often argues housing rights cases for the Northwest Justice Project, “clearly has a high potential for abuse.”
Instead of being titled a Consultant’s Contract, it’s called a Rental Property Service Agreement — wording similar to tenant rental agreements. Dunn says the contract also does not obligate Affordable Rentals to provide fresh listings.
And once Affordable Rentals has your money, Day and others say, the salesmen turn surly. When asked on the phone by Real Change about the terms of the contract, a salesman offered up “chin nuts” as the answer, explaining, “That’s my dick in your mouth.”
It was also “awesome,” he said, that Affordable Rentals had taken money from a homeless couple. “If you have anybody else that needs assistance,” he said, “just send them our way.”
Jonathan Grant, a housing counselor with the nonprofit Solid Ground, says he’s hoping no one does. With the recession putting a financial squeeze on more people every day, house-hunting scams are on the rise, he says — and this one specifically targets people with credit problems or a previous eviction that makes it difficult to get housing.
“A lot of folks are accessing this company under the assumption that screening criteria are going to be waived,” Grant says. But “they’re going to get screened anyway” by the landlord. All they’re paying for, he says, is a list of properties they could get by going online or looking at a newspaper.
Schwartz says Affordable Rentals does help those with bad credit by working with landlords willing to give them a second chance. But she did not provide a referral to any landlord or renter who has actually used the company. Dan Sytman, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, says his office has gotten full or partial refunds for some of the 23 people who have complained, but says he is not at liberty to reveal whether it’s investigating Affordable Rentals Northwest.
“I’m a Christian woman. I don’t believe in tricking people and charging a fee for something that they don’t understand,” Schwartz says. But she declined to refund Day’s money.
Day, who’s now working with Solid Ground to get an apartment, wants the company shut down. “I don’t want nobody else to get used like we did,” she says. “We all deserve a place to live and people like that shouldn’t be in business.”
Comments
The refund policy is you have to pick up new listings at the office for 60 days to get your money back, if you live in Kent or Renton that’s $500 in gas over 2 months and alot of time. I hear even people that do this still don’t qualify, they mark off every time I went they said, and when you call in for refund they say oh you missed picking up some listings so you don’t qualify. That adds insult to all my driving for two months.
I have already found a place. They are making me drive to seattle 2x a week for my refund for 3 months straight. They should be shut down. THEY ARE CROOKS! Legal action needs to be taken. They should do some jail time. I have a witness that will testify they are frauding you. I am a very young with a family and in school, the last thing I needed was to be scammed. Some people in this world Disgust me,
“So when she saw the Queen Anne unit on a list of low-cost rentals at a nonprofit office”
You failed to mention what non-profit gave her the list and how many others have been given the same list and end up with similar results. A non-profit working to help homeless folks have a responsibility to check the sources they’re handing out and perhaps they should be the ones asking AG to actively investigate as this is scandalous.
I found out owner of company is Eithopian not American owned company, maybe she studied Legal rip off methods from her Nigerian friends. African people have a different way of doing business, NO REFUNDS EVER
I signed up with a lady named Dawn, one month ago. I was very skeptical at first, because of all the negative things that were said about their company. I was in a really desperate situation and had things from my past that were holding me back from any apartments! I had no other choice but to take a chance…..At the end Affordable rentals did place me within the deadline that I had, I was very pleased and stand behind their services 100 percent. Don’t believe everything you READ!
Affordable Rental Associates, LLC (ARA) is a new concept in providing services to rental property owners. testking 646-563 unlike conventional management where you give up control of both the property and the rents, testking 642-145, ARA acts as an extension of your business. Rents are collected in your name; you make the final testking 640-721 tenant selection as well as maintenance decisions.
I had the great displeasure of working for Affordable Rentals Northwest shortly before the big expose’s by local media.
It didn’t take me long to realize that the job I was hired into was not the job I thought it was going to be in my interview. I was excited to start in a position where I could help somebody!!! After the brief “training” period I realized this was little more than a tele-sales job.
I, as an employee was instructed to only get people to sign the contract and pay the up front fee. Everything else was a big “inconvenience” for the company to come through on the service it offered.
The “agents” at affordable rentals are widely regarded as the black sheep pariah in the community. I called a property to arrange a meeting for a “client” there only to have the voice on the end of the phone call me a “worthless piece of shit”. Truly the worst work experience I’ve ever had.
Furthermore, Mrs. Schwartz is not the manager, she is simply the owner. Also, she has absolutely no clue about the way the business is actually ran. Her husband is the office manager, he is a real pig. A hypocrite in every sense of the word.
Mr Schwartz sits on the internet stealing public rental listings to incorporate into the excel spreadsheet he calls his “service” When a new contract is signed he says “Mazeltov!!” to literally celebrate the fact that another person has “Jewed”(scammed).
I walked past the eastlake office recently only to see that there was no one inside. I certainly hope the Attorney General fined them out of business.
I found out owner of company is Eithopian not American owned company, maybe she studied Legal rip off methods from her Nigerian friends. African people have a different way of doing business, NO REFUNDS EVER social security locations
I just called and the person above is wrong the piece of sxxt place is still open our favorite Dawn, happily answered the phone “Rental Rip Office can I help you, they have moved probably and even tried another name change. If you talk to any Rental Agency company in Seattle that charges between $295 and $350 it is Affordable Rentals reborn to scam on and on. The refund policy they will close you on means you have to drive to the office two times week, have the staff sign off you came in and hope no forgets to note you picked u a new list. I picked up all mine and they forgot to note 4 times. Dawn said I had to bring in all my listings 17 in total proving I came in or I don’t “qualify” for refund. They never told me I had to save all my listings and it is not in the worthless Guarantee. Decisive and legal scam been going on for years. The owners you go see never gave these guys permission to list their property. I wasted a month before I found my own from Craigslist. I started to notice the “list” was just a Wholesale duplication of the Craigslist ads, 99% of the stuff I went to see was already on Craigslist anyway. All they do is compile property available from Craigslist in all areas to make a big list, they sold me on we have over 200 pages of properties in the Puget Sound area. Yeah if I was to compile all the available property on Craigslist and sell it I would have a gigantic list too. So if you want to save $300 bucks plus another $200 in gas and 17 trips to Seattle 2 times a week for 2 months go to Craigslist and find you own property, by the time they schedule a appointment for you, you will be homeless and out of $500 plus.
Yeah I had to deal with, Terrance, Chad the short man Fag, and Dawn. Also the low life assistant manager (forgot his name). All these people that work here have no empathy for people and are the epitome of scum in this world.
Luckily, I did a charge back on my credit card and received my money back after 4 months of hard work. I provided all my evidence, and did the whole 90 day visiting and pick-up for twice a week. I filed a BBB complaint and threatened to bring them to small claims court. The money was not the issue here, it was the fact that they provided no services and lied to my face countless times.
Each one of these people deserve to go to jail. They do not belong in our society.
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so i just signed up with affordable remntals about a week or so ago and so far they have been very unprofessional. and not straight to the point chad SUCKS he gets you in by telling this lame ass story about the owner going bankrupt and being a christian i think its all bullshit. anyways most of the places on the 250.00 list are really run down! now i havent been very pickey but these places are REALLY bad! alot of the adresses were incorrect. the really nice places on the list i could have found myself. overall so far it has been a little frustrating but hopefully at the end of the day i’‘ll find a place with or without there help. honest if your situation is REALLY bad you’ll get a place it will look like shit but you’ll get a place i think if this company just kept it real with everyone they would be alot better off instead they tell EVERYONE they can find them a place. what they sould really say is we can get you off the street.
I got signed up with Affordable Rentals over a year ago. My husband and I were going to move into a place with his brother and girlfriend. They said since there was four of us that we had to pay the $250 for each couple even though we were all looking for one place. Then they handed us the list and sent us on our way. We looked for places and when we found some that we liked. We went to drive to the place. Over half of them could not be found and when we called about the locations it always ended in “already being rented.” That was the outcome of five different houses. Finally we found an apartment complex through the list and called. They told us that they talked to the apt. management and set up an appointment. We drove out there and come to find out that they never heard of Affordable Rentals and that no one had called. So we told them about the scam and they were upset because they dont advertise everywhere so AR was listing them illegally. I was very upset about the service there and really wish that I could have gotten my money back.
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