Avoiding Surprise Charges in Intellirent: What Members Need to Know

Many of our members use Intellirent for tenant applications and screening. Recently, one of our members experienced unexpected charges on her credit card, despite having deleted her payment information. This article explains why it happened and provides guidance on how to avoid a similar situation.

What Happened

Intellirent allows landlords to choose whether the applicant or the landlord pays the application fee.

The critical detail to understand is that your account settings at the time you send the application invite decide who will be charged.

• If your account is set to “landlord pays” when you send an invite, the fee for that application will be charged to the card on file.

• Changing your settings later will not affect invitations that have already been sent.

• Deleting your card after invitations have been sent out will not prevent those applications from being billed to it.

Every invitation you send follows the setting that was active at that moment.

Why This Matters

It is easy to assume that removing a card will prevent future charges. In reality, deleting your card does not matter if the invitation was sent while the “landlord pays” option was enabled. The toggle setting is more important than whether a card is on file.

Best Practices for BPOA Members

To avoid unexpected charges when using Intellirent:

• Always toggle to “applicant pays” before sending invitations. This is the most important safeguard.

• Check your settings for each applicant. The system applies the active setting to all invitations until you change it again.

• Delete your card only as a secondary precaution. Card removal does not affect applications that were already invited under “landlord pays.”

• Review your billing history regularly to confirm charges are being applied correctly.

• Watch for updates. Intellirent has acknowledged this issue and is working on a fix. We will notify members as soon as the change is in place.

The Bottom Line

Always check your settings to confirm that you have toggled the 'applicant pays' vs. 'landlord pays' option correctly. If “landlord pays” is active at the time you send an invitation, your card will be billed even if you later delete it. To avoid surprise charges, make sure “applicant pays” is selected before sending application links.