Thursday, August 20, 2020

Girl Tries To Blackmail Tenant, Ends Up Paying Thousands


Man, we're not even sure who is worse in this equation: Wendy or the scumbag property management company. They let that place devolve into a complete mess of a housing situation. At least Wendy learned her lesson in the value of playing nice with everyone, and not doing something terrible like trying to scam a tenant out of thousands of dollars. 

1.

Text - r/ProRevenge u/Infinite_Number • 1d + Join 1 1 1 1 Try to scam me out of rent money? Have fun paying back six times the amount, losing all your friends, and getting exposed for your lies!:) Obligatory "not sure if this qualifies as pro," but it is definitely a step above petty. The ultimate result did give me immense satisfaction to see this girl try to scam me, fail terribly, and have to face financial, social, and legal consequences. tl;dr at the end, since this is a long one. This happ

2.

Text - On my university facebook page, I found a posting for a sublease offer by a girl named "Wendy". She was transferring out of the university and needed her room rented out. It was an individual lease so I wouldn't have to worry about damages in the shared space, I had my own deadbolt and keyfob for my door, and the shared bathroom was huge, so I didn't even care if it stayed messy. I met the other roommates, we hit it off, and within a week I had signed the sublease.

3.

Text - I learned my lesson from my previous renting situations and made sure to only sign a semester sublease with Wendy. I explained to her that I didn't want to be stuck in another lease and waiting for it to expire if my new roommates and I were not compatible. I also didn't want a lease during the summer when I didn't have plans to live on campus. She was fine with this, as no one else was willing to pay her the full amount of monthly rent. A semester went by, and my roommates were nice, so

4.

Text - Since I signed my lease extension, I had noticed that the quality of living in my complex had tanked to new lows. If you've never lived in a student apartment complex, they're pretty much run like dorms, though they are marginally cheaper and have more privacy with individual rooms. The past few months I noticed that none of the public toilets in the gym or study floors were being cleaned, the security guard would let random drunk people use the facilities inside, none of the lights on a

5.

Text - So in December, I paid $5500, plus fees for rent/ utilities/service for December-May. Note, I paid for the upcoming semester along with my last month's rent before my initial lease expired. Not smart, but I had cleaned out my entire savings to do this so I didn't have to worry about late payments, e-Check fees, or scrambling to pay rent at the end of each month. I worked a minimum wage tip-based job and there were so many stupid fees just for paying rent that were eating up my paychecks,

6.

Text - May rolls around and I double-check with Wendy that I am moving back home right after finals (May 4th) and the new tenant can move in starting June 1st since I paid until the end of May. I told her that if anyone wants to move in earlier than June 1st, to contact me because I didn't want to return my keys yet and it would be nice to get some money back for the empty apartment l'm paying for. She agreed to this. All my things were moved out except for sheets and a single pillow, just in ca

7.

Text - Wendy calls me the day after I move and cries and cries about how she cannot find anyone to take over the rest of the lease and if I could extend into the summer. She has another apartment signed at her new school and can not afford the rent for both. I tell her l'm in the same situation with my new apartment, so I can't afford to rent an empty room either. At the end of the day, her name is on the lease and not mine. She does not take this well.

8.

Text - May 15th, I get a $1000 charge on my account from the rental company for June rent, and for "losing" my keys and a noise complaint violation fee. I call management right away because no one was supposed to be home and realize it is not the lady who has been working there for the past 9 months, but someone completely different. Turns out older management knew they were being replaced since a national rental company bought the building, so they completely gave up on any upkeep during the mo

9.

Text - On top of the old management's fuck up, Wendy knew about the lack of proper sublease contract and used it to her advantage. She offered a new sublease "discounted" rent to move in for the full summer. Wendy essentially charged 2 months' rent for 4 months of living but was only able to do so since I had paid for the "free" month she was offering to her subleaser, and my damage deposit covered the last month's rent. She was actually gaining an extra $700 out of the deal, on top of having he

10.

Text - This meant that from the very next day I moved out, someone had been living in my room which I paid for, without my knowledge, or the knowledge of any of my other roommates who had gone on summer vacation. I was livid, but I still tried to patch things up between us. I offered to schedule an appointment at our local tenant's union for mediation and I even offered to just have her family talk to mine in case there were other personal issues that prevented Wendy from paying.

11.

Text - She wrote me back a nasty email from "her lawyer" saying she had a saved Snapchat of my roommates (her friends since highschool) smoking pot and drinking during my birthday party in the apartment and she wouldn't hesitate to send it to my boss, academic advisor, and the building manager. Pot is legal, I was 22, I had just passed a drug test for my internship, and I was not even present in the picture she had, so l'm not sure what she would have accomplished through this other than ratting

12.

Text - I contacted the university's free legal services and had them explain the process and required papers and documents I would need to get her in civil court. Since she was no longer a student, I was able to receive help without any conflict of interest under their "student tenant issues" advisor. The legal counselor suggested I try to pursue a court operated mediation for the issue and follow with a civil suit if the mediation didn't work. They referred me to a local lawyer who does this so

13.

Text - Then, I took her nasty email and forwarded it to every person included in the picture that she was trying to hold over me. I simply believed they deserved to know that their friend didn't care about any possible fall out they might experience and was using their post/image to blackmail someone. Finally, I spoke to the new management about the "missing" contract I had paid extra money to file. New Manager admitted she was too overwhelmed by the massive pile of garbage the building had beco

14.

Text - I had New Manager send me the new tenants' contract and forwarded the overlapping leases and the utility overage receipts since January to the accounting/fraud department of the management company AND New Manager's boss, who was in charge of making sure the transition between management was smooth. I made sure to hammer in the fact that had anything gone wrong since December, I could've been evicted for illegal subletting after the company had accepted payment, just because Wendy didn't f

15.

Text - Within a day, I had not only received the $700 refund meant for May, but over seven times more. The company wanted to wash its hands of any liability in this mess they inadvertently helped orchestrate, so they just reverted the direct deposit which included the overlapping month in question. But that payment had been made in December, so I got back six months of rent, utilities, deposit, and fees. I essentially got back a semester's worth of rent, plus December. As the original lessor to

16.

Text - I waited for a while after my payout to really make her sweat from the pressure of the court requesting her presence, and the building manager requesting $6K in unpaid rent. I knew the building manager was leaving her and her parents voicemails daily about needed to call her back to fix this situation before it got worse, but they were all avoiding calls at this point. Eventually, her family had to hire a REAL lawyer to get back to me about revisiting an out-of-court mediation. Finally, I

17.

Text - I think her family was too embarrassed to even ask for rent from December to May and couldn't deny their daughter had been lying this whole time, especially since they had to pay for a lawyer on top of everything else to clean up her mess. They never requested that I pay them back at all, and I have not heard or seen her since. None of her friends from my school are friendly with her anymore and their families are not on cordial terms since the email I forwarded to her friends spread like

18.

Text - tl;dr: Original tenant tried to blackmail me (subleaser) out of my rent and deposit, thinking l'd never know she subleased my room to someone behind my back, but ended up owing the leasing company $6000 in rent and utilities, having to hire a lawyer to represent her, and lost many friendships in the collateral since I discovered her lease was invalid and exposed her. 2.2k 55 1 Share

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