Complaint Review: Mission Club Apartments - Orlando Florida

Mission Club Apartments are scam artists. They took my deposit in good faith and then raised the amount owed to move in after the fact. And after I declined to move in once they raised their un-communicated fees, they have refused to give back my original deposit paid.

I went to look at an apartment in late December 2016. I spoke to the on site representative - named Austin - and he showed me the apartment and grounds, and then went over all money needed to move in. I decided to move in and so I went online and paid the stated application fee and deposit. They said they would contact me within 24 hours max to give me a status of the application. After 24 hours came and went, I called and asked for a status. They told it may be another one to two days before they heard anything, which was contridictory to what Austin told me. 2 days later I called back because I was in the process of driving to Orlando to move, and needed info for electric, internet, etc. I still had not been able to have any services set up. Around 4:15 pm (their office closes at 5:00 pm so I was trying to figure out what was going on before they closed for the day, because I am supposed to move in the next morning) - I called again to see what the delay was and Austin told me to hold on the phone while they checked. He came back on the phone to say I was approved, and said he would send an email with the approval and who I could call to set up utilities.Since I was on the highway at the time, I did not open the email until I arrived in Orlando around 6:30 pm.

When I received the email, Austin wrote me that on top of the "sure deposit", I also would need to pay an additional $500 to be paid in a seperate money order in addition to the rent. I thought this was very strange and it made me uneasy for 2 reasons:

1. People generally either pay a Sure Deposit or a Security Deposit, but not both.

2. This extra deposit was never ever discussed with me in any way. I was under the impression that all deposits had been paid in advance.

After I read this, I immediately sent them an email back telling them that we never discussed this "extra" $500 and because of this, to take me off the list for the apartment, and to reimburse me for the $200 in fees that I paid in good faith before the extra expenses were made clear to me. The next day I received an email from Becky - the Sales Manager for Mission Club - telling me the extra $500 was added after my "credit screening" and there was nothing she could do and that the $200 in fees would not be reimbursed. Again, I was never told about any negative credit screening when the Austin spoke to me on the phone, or at anytime during the application process. Only until the night before my move-in did I learn of this. Paying a Sure Deposit and then being hit with an additional deposit out of the blue - literally the night before move-in - is not right. I just wanted my application fees back due to their lack of coming clean on the front side, and was told a resounding "No".

I have since sent the parent company - Alliance Residential Company - 2 emails asking for them to contact me regarding this issue and they have never responded.

All I was asking was for Mission Club refund me my initial deposits for failing to tell me the truth upfront of what I would be - or even would potentially be - paying to move in.  That is fraud in my book.

Since I never heard back from Mission Club or Alliance, I filed a report with the Better Business Bureau on January 16, 2017, and Mission Club never responded to the complaint, proving even further that they - and their parent company - are scam artists.

Do not ever rent from Mission Club, or from any property that is owned by Alliance Residential. They are thieves.