Imagine, you are browsing online for an item you like and, there it is, exactly what you were looking for sold at a completely reasonable price. But once you add it to cart and go to check out, you see the price rise, sometimes even double.
That is because you forgot that on top of the price of the item you will also be charged for the service, the booking, the processing, the delivery, and maybe even get a sneaky tip added on top of it all. That is, of course, the ever-enraging additional fees.
These days they are everywhere. You get them with your food delivery, your hotel, and even at your hairdresser’s. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that additional fees can also be charged with your rent, which is exactly what happened in the story below. Read on to see how they were added and how the tenant maliciously complied to avoid them.
Additional fees are everywhere these days. According to this story, they can even be added to such a basic essential as rent
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
Fortunately, the author of this story found a clever way to not only avoid the extra charges but also make their rent payments more of a burden for the property manager
Image credits: August de Richelieu (not the actual photo)
Image source: AccumulatedStress
While a little roundabout, this seems like the least expensive way to do it
At first glance, it might seem that charging ten bucks for an online payment is completely counterproductive for the landlord. After all, the checks all turn into online transactions eventually, you just add an annoying additional step in between.
Yet, of course, it is all done so people would opt for the automated deduction from their accounts. It’s less of a hassle for both sides and guarantees on-time payments for the landlord. But, just like the author mentioned, it is not necessarily so beneficial for the tenant, who might want to keep track of what’s coming in and out of their account.
Additional fees in this situation seem to be a deliberate a choice made by the property manager
Automated Clearing House or ACH is a bank-to-bank money transferring network. It is a very convenient way to pay and receive any sort of payment, reoccurring ones being especially popular. You might not even know you are using it as you might be receiving your paycheck or be making your retirement deposits through ACH. The transfers are quick, convenient, and, often, free.
However, sometimes fees do apply. They can be payments for single transactions as well as setup, annual, monthly, minimum, gateway, chargeback, and other fees. Companies might choose to cover them themselves or insist on the person who’s sending the money to pay the additional costs. Those go from 0.20 to 1.50 dollars or 0.5% to 1.5% of the payment.
From that, one can judge that the property manager in this situation is simply doing their best to pressure people to set up automatic payments. Good thing somebody is ready to make them work for it.
The author offered more details on the story in the comment section
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