If the landlord is willing to accept PayPal or Venmo, those will give your S the most flexibility and privacy in payment method. Be aware that the seller (in this case, landlord) will have the ability to charge your DS for the cost of his chosen payment method, such as if he chooses to pay by CC.
Zelle is the cheapest and most direct way to pay the landlord, but ensure that this landlord is trustworthy before setting this up, as funds transferred by Zelle cannot be recouped if the landlord turns out to be a fraud. There is a lot of fraud in rentals.
ETA: If the landlord prefers digital payment methods, I wonder if they would be open to using apartments.com? That is a platform that protects renters’ privacy with payment and ensures rental protections. The landlord can also enable that your son’s on-time rental payments are reported to the credit bureaus through this website. I don’t work for them but I use them for my own rentals. As a landlord, I prefer this method. It’s possible that your landlord doesn’t know about this option. It’s free to the user but they will have to set it up.
The most preferred way is credit card, if not, actual check if landlord has check deposit box in the lobby like in my mom’s apartment. Both Venmo and Zelle don’t offer any protection and often have fraudulent charges that are very difficult to fight. Between two I prefer Zelle
Venmo / Paypal fees are seen by the receiver in the form of getting slightly less money than the payer paid (similar to how credit cards charge the merchants the fees).
I’ve used all 3, no fees with Venmo if using a bank account (my friend stopped using it because she set it up with a credit card so there were fees), they make you indicate what the money is for so it would be pretty easy to show it was for rent). I use PayPal tied to a credit card and there are no fees. Contractors here are pretty old school, check, or cash to get the no tax rate. I’ve never paid any with a credit card.
Do any landlords deal accept autopays from bank account? This is how I’ve been paying our utilities (and mortgage, before payoff). It’s handy and seems safe. But these days I mostly hear about renters using Venmo etc as alternative to paper check.
Most banks will credit back a mistake while it is investigated (like they do with a debit card) but that is a risk you take. If you accidentally transfer $16000 rather than $1600, that could be an issue. If you transfer $160 rather than $1600, you could be late on your rent.
You do not have the same protections with any of these types of accounts that you do with a credit card (not debit cards). Banks can grant any types of protections they want to (many do with debit cards) but federal law doesn’t require those protections as it does with credit cards.
If there is a fraud on the account, the money is directly out of your account. My daughter bought some tickets off craigslist with venmo, and the guy got her purchase notice and basically said ‘ha ha, I scammed you’ She was lucky she contacted venmo right away and they caught it before the transfer. Otherwise, no protection. She learned her lesson and no venmo transfers to anyone she doesn’t know.
Who would ever do that? Well… me, years ago. Was reimbursing kid (pushing money from my account to hers) $1700 and accidentally added an extra zero. I often laugh that I’m lucky she didn’t look at that and skip town with it. Normally I would not have that much money in the checking account, but we were getting ready to pay some college bills.
So we need to pay $1600 today or tomorrow I believe (signing PW tonight) for deposit.
I suppose we will do Venmo (linked to credit card); bc, it’s finals week (of course) and seems only way for us to make the payment ASAP since S doesn’t have a bank account in DC.
(He’s been in dorms and I didn’t see need for one there…until now.)
We have done this twice now, and plan to do it again for another wedding this summer (all family). I trust the mail less and less these days. I send a separate wedding card, though, and note that I Zelled them such and such amount. I figured that makes it just a little easier for them to send a thank-you note.
D only venmos with people she knows & trusts. So far, she hadn’t had any isssus in the years she’s done it. She & her buddies find it a handy way to divvy up expenses when they go out as a group.
Bank accounts work across state lines. We lived in California and Florida and neither I or my kids had accounts there. We all still used our credit union account from Colorado (all still do). We made deposits and withdrawals at ATMs, wrote checks to the landlord and utility companies (or paid online).
