Holdup “application fee”? Fuck this late stage Capitalism shit really
Oh it’s vile.
Lots of people list a property, take loads of applications, each with a nonrefundable application fee (often $100+), then close the listing and pretend it was leased out. They wait a bit and repeat the play. They can rake in thousands of dollars for literally making a posting on a website, and repeat this often. And it’s often desperate people victimized too: not only are these people renting so they’re already in a vulnerable situation, the people willing to pay high application fees typically are desperate to get a lease.
I’ve also seen places that make you pay an application fee, and as part of the screening process they run a credit check; if they aren’t satisfied with your credit score, they’ll deny you and of course keep the application fee. What’s more nefarious about this though is that they don’t give you a score cutoff; you don’t know if your score meets their criteria until after you’ve paid a nonrefundable fee.
To be entirely fair the score isn’t the only determining factor. My credit is around 690 with perfect payment history except for one delinquent student loan account from 6.5 years ago and I still get rejected for things that “should” only require a score of > 640.
Not surprising unfortunately. There’s no accountability or transparency; they can deny any application they want for any reason, and don’t have to tell you why. As long as they don’t come out and say it’s due to being a member of a protected class (which they can act on indirectly, just can’t say it out loud), they can get away with any reasoning.
I think application fees can have some use given that a person needs to spend their time reviewing it. Also without a fee someone could apply to hundreds of listings without even looking at them. But with ai, the former example doesn’t work nearly as much. $100 is too steep for the latter
Isn’t it enough to post on one instance?
I was wondering about this. What is the right etiquette? It’s not the same as multiple channels on the same server. But at the same time - supply side? Or consumption side?
Should clients filter them out? Do we need a way to “merge” on a per post basis?(or link or relate or…)
It is an interesting concept to ask. I don’t have a good answer.