Tenant Venmoes Wrong Person Rent for a Whole Year, Now Her Landlord Wants It All Right Away

A law student found herself in a precarious situation after she discovered she was sending her rental payments to the wrong Venmo account, and her landlord purportedly didn't realize for 13 months.

Kody Lynn ( @lizzywithaglizzy ) detailed the horror story in a viral TikTok that sparked a litany of responses from folks on the platform who thought there was something fishy going on.

"Put a finger down if you've been Venmoing your landlord for the last year for your rent, your security deposit, all that, and you just found out that you've Venmoed the wrong person for the last 13 months, you've actually never Venmoed your landlord, and that person never told you that you were Venmoing the wrong person," she says, smiling into the camera.

She continued with her harrowing tale of mistaken payments: "And your landlord never realized that you weren't paying your rent and so now you've paid $18,508 to a random financial adviser in Ohio who claims that his heroin addict sister has spent all the money."

The TikToker went on to share even more of her horrifying tale: "And your landlord wants the money right now so you have to move out of your apartment within a week so you don't get evicted and now they're gonna file a lawsuit against you for $18,508," she then puts a finger down and holds her camera up, showing more of her apartment, including boxes that have been packed/stowed away.

She remarks at the end of the clip that she's indeed "packing" to leave the apartment.

Several folks responded to her stating that she should get a lawyer involved and that they found it suspicious the landlord didn't check to ensure she gave her deposit and first month's rent from the get-go.

One person remarked: "This is making no sense. If u paid [the] deposit and first month of rent why would they not say something upon not receiving it? Plus they would have sent u an eviction notice if they weren’t receiving."

Another remarked that they would never feel comfortable using a service such as Venmo in order to send rent to someone: "I would never Venmo rent. No Zelle or Cash App or whatever money transfer you can think of. If it’s not a money order, check, or directly on the rental site portal, it would seem shady to ask for Venmo."

Another just couldn't get over the fact that the landlord wasn't receiving rent for an entire year before realizing they had never received payment before: "Nah, get a lawyer. The fact that they didn’t inform you for 12 months that they weren’t receiving a payment from you in itself is wild. This sounds super sketch. Landlord seems to be broke."

There were all sorts of speculative comments, too, about how the landlord could've been finagling money, like this one person who thought that the account was someone related to the landlord who was collecting the cash on the sneak tip, leaving the landlord to try and "double dip" with their tenants.

"The wrong person might be a relative of his!" one person wrote. "Get a lawyer. No landlord would not realize that they did not collect rent from a tenant. It seem shady. Wait for the eviction if you did not find a place."

Kody posted several story time videos further explaining the situation, but it seemed like the folks who watched the saga unfold still thought that there was something fishy about the way the landlord handled the situation as it still didn't seem to answer the question of why she was able to get keys and access to the apartment if there wasn't confirmation of her payments clearing.

She did, in fact, receive one of the rental payments back for around $1,300, as she detailed in the second part of her video from the financial adviser, and she managed to communicate with the individual who said that multiple people have access to his Venmo and he thinks his "heroin addicted sister" is the one who spent the money.

As several users noted, she was "lucky" that he even replied to her, and furthermore, he stated that he was more than willing to set up a payment plan to get her her money back as there was a clear transaction history with her address listed in the Venmo messages.

She said that she spoke with the leasing agent regarding the money and that she planned on getting them half of the money and that the rest of it was going to be put on a payment plan in addition to the rent she was paying each month.

According to Kody, the landlord wasn't down with all of that and she was expected to pay half of the back rent she owed up front and then she had another 60 days to get the other amount to the landlord.

She provided further details in the third part of her story time video.

She said that while she understood where the landlord was coming from, it was ultimately their "disorganization" and "mismanagement" that ultimately led to this situation spiraling as out of control as it did.

Kody says she decided to move out of the apartment and that the landlord was going to move ahead with the lawsuit. This is an outcome she's fine with as her father is an attorney who will be representing her in court.