NoFeeRentDirect

There is a reason why there are so many people saying such horrible things about this site and company. Do NOT be fooled they post listings that they do not have. All the low price listings do NOT exist they are come ons. They just want your membership money. I have asked numerous times for the lsitings they say they have on the site as ads – no response. Second they also post them to Craigs List and there too they are scams. If fact you would do better on CL alone or with an agent over these guys. Just STAY away!!!

UPDATE: I just received a voicemail from the president Larry who offered a sincere apology and said he’ll issue a complete refund, as well as keeping my account open. It is a nice gesture and the professional thing to do, so it is much appreciated, though I still won’t use the site.
This company preys on people in an increasingly difficult to navigate NY rental market. Every negative review of this company is justified in my opinion due to the similarity in reports of their business practices.
I had the displeasure of dealing with Michelle, who was seemingly sweet and professional prior to accepting my credit card information. After a day of using their site and being dissatisfied with the listings available (and having better luck searching on Craig’s List), I decided to seek a refund.
When I first signed up, I remember reading their refund policy within their agreement. However, it isn’t listed anywhere on the website so I emailed Michelle and customer service for the refund information. Michelle made the mistake of hitting reply instead of forward on my email, as you’ll see below her response:
«This cretin who made me crazy with back and forth phone calls, bad budget, argumentative behavior, and finally taking a discount Wednesday night, sent this email at 1120 last night.
Hope you don’t indulge him. «
As I drafted my reply, she saw her mistake and wrote a lame excuse back about how that was meant for «another» person who drove her crazy. So even if it wasn’t about me, as she says, how is that any way to speak about a customer? She continued on about her iOS update making her phone go «haywire» so she sent the wrong email, blaming technology for her mistake.
She went on to say she’s an «honest person,» (does that really need to be said if it were true?) who told me my price wasn’t good for what I wanted; yet I was still able to find what I wanted within my budget, on my own. She was right however, in that her site’s listings didn’t have what I wanted — which is why I sought a refund.
Every person’s experience could be different so I’ll let you make up your own mind about the company, though I’ll point to the consistency of reviews and complaints listed here.

Waste. Of. Money.
Talk about annoying. What a crock. Thank you for basically just stealing my money.

I did not encounter a single listing with a broker on this site and that’s the main reason why I spent the 100 bucks. Cruising around craigslist, streeteasy, etc is ok and there are deals to be found, ibut sometimes that ‘no fee’ apartment listing you see on those sites has a broker attached to it. I will use rdny anytime I want to move in nyc.

Dear Laurence,
Clearly my response from your «usually sweet Sarah» was not that sweet or else I wouldn’t have felt the need to write such a review.
Whether or not my personal information is «generic» to you and your «professionals» is really none of my concern. It is personal to me and when an agent demands to know the full name of my boyfriend even though I politely decline, wondering why in the world she would need to know that, I’m not sure how or why I would want to continue that discussion.
When I said I didn’t want to include any personal information at this moment as I had only wanted to know more about the service, she became incredibly rude.
hence, I hung up, since I rarely feel like paying to be bitched at.
So thanks Laurence for your follow up but to clarify, my review is a review of your customer service which is of no service to your customers at all.

SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM
DO NOT use this service. It is a scam. You can find the listings they email to you, on your own. They charged me $ 162.22 and I looked at 44 of their listings that only about five of them were what I was actually looking for, that I never physically went to see. I Joined on the 18^th of the month and cancelled on the 24^th. Seven days of service for nothing. I did not indicate my intent to cancel I DID cancel. I asked for my 100% refund and they said,
«Rent Smart. Rent Direct. Starting The Refund Process…
Hello Sharai,
You have indicated your intent to cancel your
service.
I have reviewed your account and I see the following:
1. You signed up for service on 9÷18÷12.
2. You cancelled service on 9÷24÷12.
3. You had use of our service for 7 days.
4. The Terms of Service you agreed to says you are entitled to a prorated refund during the first 9 days of service.
5. Therefore, you are entitled to a prorated refund for 2 unused days @ $ 15 per day, for a total of $ 30.00 plus sales tax of $ 2.51 for a total refund of $ 32.51.
— We see that you have viewed detailed information on 44 of the listings we have provided.»
So they were going to give me a $ 32.51 refund for being WITHIN their seven day rule. Which goes against their agreement. Because I was having absolutely NO progress through RDNY, i hired a broker. Within four days, I had the best apartment I could have ever dreamed of.
I am actually considering complaining to the better business bureau. I didn’t even bother trying to get my refund because the process they make you go through to get the refund is ridiculous for $ 32.00.
What I find incredible are the multiple star reviews of this company all sound the same. There are patterns in language that repeat themselves and these reviews show that. Each one sounds almost exactly the same. I’m so glad I didn’t have a phone at the time I signed up, from what some of you have said here about harassing phone calls. WOW! It’s a wonder why the law isn’t shutting these criminals down.
SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD
I am adding this to the end of my review in response to the response from the RDNY guy, to this review. the system isn’t allowing me to comment on his comment.
Why are you guys so defensive? Because you are scammers. You take advantage of innocent people who need homes. And then when people call you on it, you get mad and have temper tantrums.
You know, it’s usually the ones who are protesting the most who did the crime, when there has been an accusation. «But but but, I didn’t do it!!!»
I didn’t bother getting you the paper work for the $ 32.00 refund you were going to give me. When you promise a one hundred percent guarantee. It would have probably cost me another $ 32.00 to keep dealing with you. No thanks.
I absolutely will NOT be contacting you for any reason whatsoever. After reading numerous accounts of harassment received by your company, absolutely NOT.
I have a beautiful, perfect apartment that I’ve been living in for the past five months, if you didn’t notice that part of my review. I will be staying here until I return back to Canada. And when I come back here, I will not be conacting you or your fraudulent company.
Maybe if you had better business practices, people wouldn’t have such scathing things to say about your fraudulent company.
Keep being defensive. You only make yourselves look worse.

Just checked back and saw that the owner has written a response. How is it that you think calling a customer belligerent and immature is the right course of action here? You have negative reviews all over the place, it’s not the customers, IT’S YOU. I didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t be chastised on the phone or the internet for just being friendly and talking how I talk. I’m the customer, you service me. And because your sales person took me asking them to «bug me» the wrong way, you didn’t get my business!

Out of curiosity, and started exploring their website. I signed up for a guest account, and before I knew it I started getting flooded with emails and calls from an agent named Sarah. I politely let her know that the reviews on Unilocal were less than impressive, which led to my reluctance to pay a fee she very clearly wanted. She scoffed and Unilocal and said a former employee wrote all the bad reviews. After more research, I found out that their business had an F on the BBB. When she called (again) later, I let her know that this was the final factor in my decision in not to use their service, where she hung up mid conversation.
I can’t give a complete review on their services since I never ended up subscribing. But if their apparent despair to make money is a reflection of their service, along with the rudeness that follows the realization they wont get it, I would stay away.
However, the representative was very sweet until she found out she wasn’t going to make the sale. One extra star for that. I guess.

Complete waste of money. So much so it has driven me to finally write my first Unilocal review. A business model where they charge you money before you find what you’re looking for should always raise red flags. Unfortunately I was desperate and forked over the cash I don’t have for this service.
If you have money just get a broker (you can usually negotiate their fee down anyway). And if you don’t have the money just spend the extra time on Craigslist or a site like
.

In resonse to the owner:
wow I almost forgot that you had accused me of «turning off» landlords with saying the wrong thing. I’m sorry but how can «Hi, I saw your property on Rent Direct and was interested in coming by to view it» be a turn off? HMMM maybe it’s because I mentioned RENT DIRECT!!! The company that has terrible reviews all over Unilocal.
The owner clearly sits on Unilocal all day in order to respond to all these negative reviews and trying to place all the blame back on the customer. Unilocalers, please beware. don’t let our nightmare become your nightmare.
owner, you and your employees are the common denominator. You are rated F with the better business bureau for a reason.
stop trying to speak badly of your customers on Unilocal.I haven’t seen one response from you where you apologize for the poor service and take responsibility for the actions of your employees.
the only reason you are still in business is because you are an internet service so people haven’t known better than to sign up.
the premise of your business is great but since you have false ads for apartments that aren’t available for rent at the advertised prices, minimal ads in reasonable price ranges, and the attitudes of divas… you will fail.
Possibly the worst company I ever tried to do business with.
A few months ago, i was in search of a new apartment and a friend of mine suggested I use rent direct. Perhaps this was a better service for those in her budget range, but in my budget range (which is not an unreasonable budget), they had very very few apartments. However, I saw one near my job in Brooklyn that I was familiar with. I had visited the building but been told that their apartments were higher than my price range. however, on RDNY they were listed for about $ 300 less. I signed up for RDNY thinking this was a special price for RDNY customers and then called the landlords. The landlord immediately told me this was an error and they would never offer an apartment for that cheap. i was crushed that the whole reason I signed up wasn’t even available. The landlord then wanted me to send them screen shots of the advertisements, to which I politely replied, that unless they were going to offer me the apartment at that price, it really wouldn’t benefit me in any way to take the time to figure out how to send them links and pictures of that ad. I instead provided them with the phone number and recommended they call to get it removed.
I then called the other very few apartments that met my needs in hopes that I hadn’t just wasted my money but would absolutely NEVER get a call back from the landlord. They also repeatedly emailed me apartments multiple times a day way above my price range.
i was extremely frustrated and contacted rent direct about this. i also let them know that it was unfair that the few they had listed were also on craigslist so i really didn’t need to pay to use their services if this were the case.
The stated that I should try calling the landlords again and for every voicemessage I left to make it very very clear I was a rent direct customer. I did this and still NEVER got a call back.
I called rent direct again and this time demanded a refund as I had secured an apartment on my own, via craigslist, without their services. They basically accused me of trying to cheat them and were only willing to give me a partial refund. The manager was extremely rude and had terrible customer service skills. I would never speak to a customer the way he spoke to me. I would not stand for that since I received no benefit at all from their services and they had my money. After tons of arguing, I agreed to fax them over the original rent ad I saw on craigslist for my new apartment so they could indeed verify that I had no seen it on their site.
I finally received my refund but would suggest you to steer very clear of this place and their shady business. It would be a great service if the landlords actually called back or they actually had apartments that were less than $ 1800 per month. I also find it super super shady that on their website, it has a link to «what Unilocal says», which consists of probably the only 2 positive reviews this company has ever gotten. Hope everyone else knows to actually come to the web to see the REAL Unilocal reviews.

It took alot of my own work, but this website led me to a great NYC apt in a great location without a broker fee (other than the $ 139 I paid to rent-​direct for the service). The only negative is that brokers have the ability to find condos, while rent-​direct points you in the direction of mainly leasing apartments.
My recommendation is to have 3 days, and get an unlimited train pass. Then use rent-​direct and be your own broker. It really was amazing to find a great apartment basically on my own!

This is yet another review of RDNY agent Amy and the bizarre, aggressive behavior of what SEEMED like a decent apartment search engine.
After I signed up for RDNY’s free apartment search, Amy left messages several days in a row urging me to call her back. When I finally called her this afternoon, she said, «Oh my God! I am totally glad you got back to me!» suggesting that we had an established relationship – which, of course, we do not.
I admitted that I was surprised to learn that RDNY was not soley a web-​based apartment search, to which Amy weirdly countered, «I am a human as are the other agents.» She quickly asked where I wanted to search for apartments, and when I told her, she said that my husband and my choices for neighborhoods were «unusual.» She mentioned no less than 4 times on our 5 minute call that they were not scammers.
Having lived in New York close to a decade, I’ve got Spidey-​sense. So, I told her I was uninterested in paying for their service. She got very snippy and quipped, «Well, good luck with your Craigslist search.» I hung up.
A little advice: there’s no such thing as a no-​fee apartment.

I used Rent Direct to find a new apartment last March. I was happy with the service and with what I found.
Finding an apartment is a lot of work, so I like the idea of a broker who will help you find the right apartment for you. Unfortunately, the market in New York means that the brokers work for the landlords, not you.
Craigslist is swamped with bait-​and-​switch ads by brokers who make posts in the «no fee» section in order to get your contact information, then they will try to show you whatever apartments they are trying to unload that week. Craigslist’s community moderation can’t filter for that sort of thing, so you’re kind of on your own.
Rent Direct is a compromise between paying a broker fee or spending hours wading through junk craigslist posts. I think it’s a pretty good deal: you can see all of their listings for free, without addresses. If you want the addresses, you pay a fixed amount (currently $ 105 or $ 135 depending on your price range) and then you can go apartment hunting, knowing that the listings you have are real apartments and there really will be no fee. (And if they’re not, you can report them to Rent Direct.)
Rent Direct does not have exclusive agreements with landlords — they can list other places, too — so it is risky for Rent Direct to allow you to see any of their listings for free. With a little time, you could probably guess the addresses and contact the landlord directly, without paying Rent Direct at all.
That’s why they ask for your contact info before you can search for free, and that’s why they call you and encourage you to subscribe. I think this is preferable though, because you can find out if they have any listings in the range/​location you want BEFORE you pay. And if they don’t, you don’t have to pay. That is great.
When I used Rent Direct, the woman who called me was very helpful and not nearly as pushy as the «Amy» mentioned in other reviews. (Honestly, if you didn’t like the salesperson and did not sign up for the service, you should make it clear at the top of your review that you are not really reviewing the full service.) If you happen to get a rude salesperson on the phone, just hang up. You’re not a customer yet, why are you still on the line?
In my experience, Rent Direct is an honest business operating in a crummy market. If you can find an apartment through a friend-​of-​a-​friend, do it, it’s much easier. And if you have the time to spend on craigslist, go for it, there are more apartments there (and more junk listings too).
But if you don’t have a lot of time to waste, I wholeheartedly recommend Rent Direct.

This is a review of the RDNY agent Amy, as well as the overall services that RDNY offers.
After I did a free search on RDNY (& several other websites), I was contacted (multiple times via phone & email) by Amy, who was initially very sweet but became EXTREMELY pushy once she realized I wasn’t ready to give up my credit card information right off the bat.
I explained to her my situation: I’m out of New York for the summer and hope to secure an apartment before I return to NY in late August. Amy excitedly told me that many, many clients rent from across the country & internationally «months & months» in advance through RDNY, as RDNY gets countless listings wayy ahead of time. By signing up, I would get access to full listing information, including exact locations, interior photos, & contact info for landlords.
When I told her I needed some time to check with my roommate, she became frustrated with me & told me that I’m wasting time and losing out on apartments. She continued to call me, leaving voice messages and giving me «deadlines» to sign up. Finally, I gave in on July 7, & have pretty much regretted it since. Except for the fact that giving her my credit card info immediately got her to stop harassing me on the phone.
When I logged into my account, I discovered that I couldn’t filter my listings according to neighborhood, & that I instead had to choose «areas». (Brooklyn’s divided into only THREE areas! Are you kidding me? It makes no sense that Boerum Hill & Park Slope be grouped into the same «area» as Coney Island & Bergen Beach. Not that there’s anything wrong with these neighborhoods, but obviously someone looking to live in the first two n’hoods isn’t interested in the latter two.) Also, most of the interior photos for listings (at least the ones in the n’hoods I was interested in) were STOCK PHOTOS, with a disclaimer that states «Actual interior may be different». So basically, what my $ 162.22 (including tax) gave me was:
— No broker fees or craigslist sketchballs. (This was a definite plus.)
— VERY FEW apts that fit my criteria. (Of the many results that came back on my search, only about 3 – 5 were in my desired n’hood, & only 1 was not for rent ASAP. Since I’m not ready to move in ’til late August, I can’t really look at «ASAP» apts unless they’re the crappy ones that sit around unrented for months.)
— EXPENSIVE apts. (Similar apts in the same n’hoods were listed on other websites for $ 200-​$ 300/​month less. If you think about it, I could pay a broker’s fee up front for more service & more options, & within a year the savings on rent would have the broker’s fee covered.)
In essence, I thought I was paying for:
— the convenience & peace of mind of having my living situation settled at least a month or two before I arrived in NY.
— reducing the need for contacting countless listings via phone/​email just to get photos of the interior.
In the end, I had almost NO options to choose from in my RDNY search results (even after paying the fee), & had to contact these for photos because no REAL photos were on those listings. I could’ve done all of this through craigslist & other sites, free.
I contacted Amy last night, & spoke with her this morning when she returned my call. She was pleasant for the few minutes before I told her I didn’t feel RDNY was for me. She then became very frustrated with me, telling me that, as she recalls, I’m «too picky» & that I need to be willing to look in other neighborhoods. I told her that I had spent 20 days on RDNY, that not very many listings fit the criteria that I had disclosed to her before I signed up, & that I honestly felt I had been misled. She made a very unprofessional & immature speech about how she is a good person & lives her life with honesty, & doesn’t appreciate people calling her a liar. She said «I haven’t even gone into the office yet, and I don’t need people like you to start off my morning». (Mind you, it was 6:30am in CA for me & 9:30am in NY for her). Then she told me to call Lawrence.
Lawrence is at least more professional than Amy. After he explained the refund policy to me (which Amy neglected to do), he finally offered me a $ 50 refund. Not exactly what I was hoping for, given that I had been clearly misled (even TRICKED) into signing up, but it’s better than nothing.
I think RDNY could work for some people, as it does provide information & contact with landlords. However, it wasn’t the service I needed, & the reason for my 1-​star review is that I was LED to believe I would get what I needed, when in fact they couldn’t provide those services. They should’ve been honest instead of misleading possible customers to believe RDNY is for them when it isn’t. Additionally, Amy was pushy, rude, unprofessional & immature. If I ran a business (& wanted my business to do well), I would not hire someone like Amy to represent my company. From the looks of the other Unilocal reviews here, it seems like pushy & rude are just typical characteristics of RDNY.

I just wanted to say thank you for your incredible service. My husband and I signed up at the beginning of May with your site, to get an idea of what was out there. We soon came across an apartment we loved (perfect price, location, and lease started when we needed it to) and a week later, we had a home! We’re in Ireland, so being able to sort out our apartment from abroad, and to do it so easily, was amazing! Knowing that when we move to New York we’ll have a home immediately, it’s a huge relief! This service is the best $ 179 dollars I’ve ever spent. Thank you so very much again. You are a lifesaver!
Melissa
Spanish Harlem

Soooo…
RDNY contacted me and said my original review was unfair. They offered to gimme a free upgrade to take it down. Which is gracious but also a little disingenuous. Their email was also slightly less than professional (I get it, I wrote something that ticked you off, some of it was unfair, but you’re a business, act like one).
Yes, my review was (slightly) unfair (never write when you’re angry). So to be fair, here’s your new and (slightly) improved review, RDNY!
Broker fees suck. Avoiding them is good. And RDNY promises that and on that front they deliver. No apartment I looked at through them had a broker fee. But that doesn’t make them a place I’d like to do business with again.
First, you sign up to look at their apartment listings for free. They’re free because there’s no addresses. That’s what you pay $ 140 to them for, to find out where the places are and who to contact.
And they really want your $ 140 to the point of annoyance. After signing up for free, I received a barrage of phone calls and emails asking for my credit card. The phone agent I got was pretty pushy and annoying. But I finally gave in because there was one listing I really liked based on the pictures of it along with a few others that looked okay.
Unfortunately, a picture is only worth a thousand words when it shows the real thing. The «dream» apartment was nothing like it was advertised and the others were all subpar.
Now can RDNY check out every place? Obviously not. But they’re the gatekeepers. They make money by charging you money to access these listings. And I paid assuming I would get what I paid for, which I did not.
To their credit, RDNY was quick to respond to my complaints and professional in our first email exchange. However, it was tough to weed out the response because I receive so much junk from them. If you sign up, that’s another thing to be prepared: getting a lot of email about moving quotes and boxes you probably don’t care about.
As I was rewriting this, I heard back about a place I found through craigslist which I will be signing a lease on. You’re honestly better using your time there or trying to go through friends if you wanna find a place to live. I’ve lived in New York before and know how tough it is to find a place. I signed up for RDNY in the hopes of making it easier. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

To Amy in phone sales: I am in sales, and if my boss heard me talk to someone the way you talked to me, whether it was a client or not, I’d be FIRED.
I signed up for this website for maybe an hour and half. Although I was reluctant to enter my phone number in to sign up, I thought it might be worth it if I could find a place in the end. The homepage has no indication that this is a pay site, but it didn’t matter as I found nothing I was looking for in my price range anyway. There is also no way to delete your «profile,» so I opted to just stop receiving emails. I then looked at the Unilocal reviews and immediately regretted entering my information in at all.
At around 7pm, I get a phone call from an unknown 212 number and knew I was done for. This is how the conversation went:
Amy: Hi is this Cara?
Cara: Yes it is.
A: Hi Cara this is Amy from Rent Direct…
C: Let me just stop you right here. Please put me on the do not call list, I don’t want to hear from your company or use your services. Please put me on the do not call list.
A: (seemingly shocked) Why is there something wrong?
C: No, I just don’t want to use your services. I tried to delete my profile but it wouldn’t let me. Please don’t argue me, just please take me off the do not call list.
A: You have a big problem, young lady.
*click*
What? WHAT? For someone who’s trying to get money from me, your customer service skills could use some work. Pray I don’t ever hear from this place ever again.

I was desperate to find an apartment and RDNY came along at the right time. As soon as they received payment I stopped hearing from my «personal contact» and stopped receiving apartment notifications. Instead my e-​mailbox was flooded with emails offering moving quotes. I filled out a few things online, next thing I knew I was getting phone calls (even though I asked them NOT to call) and emails from moving companies over and over again. Borderline harassing.
It’s possible that what I wanted in an apartment simply didn’t exist — can’t get everything you want in NYC/​BK unless you’re willing to pay $$$$ for it. However, they did not live up to their promises.
I wish I never signed up for RDNY. Money down the drain.

Laurence — As you are aware, everything I’ve said is exactly my experience with your company, and the information you provide. You simply can’t make this stuff up. For the record — I have no issue with speaking with a tenant as long as the tenant is aware that they will be getting calls, and are cordial. Which was not the case in 2 instances of the 6 or 7 I contacted or tried to contact.
Treating these reviews and your customers in the derogatory manner in which you do only makes your company look bad. Clearly you do not have the people skills to maintain a business that relies on customer service. Perhaps you would be better served by taking the criticism and reevaluating and improving your business model? In today’s world the best, and some of the most successful companies, understand how to use social media to improve their business — not alienate their customers.

So I recently replied to a Unilocal thread in which someone was planning a move to New York. I mentioned that I had used Rent Direct (in April of 2009) and been very happy with the experience, and it was brought to my attention that I never reviewed the site. So here I am. I have to admit, I was very surprised to read some of the other reviews here, as I was very happy with my experience with the site.
I was going to just paste my comments from the talk thread that Rent Direct came up in, but from what I read here, I feel like I should maybe address why my experiences might have been different than the other reviews here.
First, I am a real person. (If you don’t believe me, you can certainly go back and look that the plethora of reviews, comments, etc. that I have made since moving to Manhattan in April of 2009. That would be a lot of prep work just to write a fake review. Also, I attended a Unilocal event once. So other Unilocalers can verify my existence.) I feel the need to mention this because someone referenced fake positive reviews.
Second, it seems like a lot of the dissatisfaction that I’m seeing is related to how refunds are /​are not granted. I found an apartment. So I didn’t need a refund. As a result, I really can’t comment on whether they pay refunds to people who don’t find apartments.
Third, it seemed like one of the comments here was from someone who used the site before you pay the $ 200. To me, that’s kind of like watching the Pay-​Per-​View preview channel, not paying for the movie, and then complaining that they never showed you the movie.
Fourth, someone mentioned not being able to search by neighborhood in Brooklyn. I was only looking at places in Manhattan. So I don’t know about Brooklyn, but I was certainly able to search by neighborhood. Also, since I hadn’t spent much time in New York, and didn’t really know too much about the neighborhoods, I actually made a number of calls to my contact, who helped me out a lot with customizing the search. (The Rent Direct employees can build and save a search under your log-​in for you, or at least they could back in April of 2009 when I used the site to find the apartment that I am happily living in right now.)
Anyway, now that I just wrote an essay as an introduction to a paragraph, here is the comment that I had posted in the talk thread:
«I know that someone mentioned
above, but said that they had never used it. If it helps, I used it. I think that it was a little more than the $ 100 referenced above, but whatever the cost was they told you pretty clearly. You can actually browse the listings without paying the money, but the phone numbers and addresses aren’t real. When you pay the money, it gives you the real information for the listings. Overall, I would say that my rdny experience was very positive, and the service person that they assigned to me was very helpful. The only negative that I recall was that at least one of the landlords tried to claim that he didn’t post the ad on rdny (because the ad referenced 1 month free). That’s really just the first step in the negotiation, though.»