Has anyone ever heard of a realty company accepting credit cards to pay security deposit on a rental home?
The monthly rent is not a problem. We are scheduled to move on Dec 2nd. We had a house to move into already and it fell through on the other end, so now we have to find a new house at the last minute. The security deposit wasn’t in our budget.
At my property, we accept Visa, MC and Discover for anything, including a deposit. It’s quick, easy, and we’re notified instantly when we run it if it’s gone through or not. My company uses an online credit card merchant to run credit cards on – we type in the number and it processes instantly.
There’s no disputing or cancelling it once it’s been run – I’ve never run into that problem in the 3 years we’ve been accepting credit cards as deposits. We even have a way for residents to sign up with a credit card or checking account to have the monthly rent and utilities to be automatically deducted once a month.
The only credit card we don’t accept is American Express, due to the extremely high merchange fees for processing it.
February 24th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
If you have to charge the security deposit, are you going to be able to pay the monthly rent?
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February 24th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
I’m not doing it yet, but am strongly considering doing so. Seems these days that folks are more attuned to living on credit than they are checking accounts or cash, so I may as well join the trend.
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February 24th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Not to my knowledge. Plus they will have your card on file so if there are problems when you move out they could just charge you. I would find the cash. Cash advance the credit card if you have to.
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February 24th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Credit card charges can be disputed and reversed.
Any landlord would have to be insane to accept credit cards for rent or security deposit payments.
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February 24th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
At my property, we accept Visa, MC and Discover for anything, including a deposit. It’s quick, easy, and we’re notified instantly when we run it if it’s gone through or not. My company uses an online credit card merchant to run credit cards on – we type in the number and it processes instantly.
There’s no disputing or cancelling it once it’s been run – I’ve never run into that problem in the 3 years we’ve been accepting credit cards as deposits. We even have a way for residents to sign up with a credit card or checking account to have the monthly rent and utilities to be automatically deducted once a month.
The only credit card we don’t accept is American Express, due to the extremely high merchange fees for processing it.
References :
See my profile