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Worked for Us, but MANY Drawbacks
StarStarStarStarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 4/51

We were a bit worried after we listed a room in the house we were renting looking for a replacement roommate. A lot of the negativity comes from the recurring payment system as well as requiring Facebook. The former wasn't a problem for me as I knew how to disable the recurring payments from happening, neither was the latter although I can see where it can become an issue for those who prefer to stay off-the-grid.

But despite the constant negative press covfefe the service did the job for us. We were two college students and managed to find a third roommate to take the vacant room in our house that's tolerant of our lifestyles and overall super chill. Just as the service advertised, it landed us a good roommate and him a good living situation.

THE BAD: It wasn't a smooth climb to get there. In order to see people responding to your listing, you have to pay a fee. Really, to use any feature you'd WANT to use. LISTING is free, however. And they are good about making it so you can't cheat the system, the fact that it syncs with your Facebook keeps them from showing up if you do a search.

The second issue was the people responding to our listing. Aside from the guy we ended up with and a couple who was beat to it by him, most of the people replying to our listing were the exact type you'd expect to use this type of service: the ones who are already having trouble finding someone who'd want to live with them.

E.g.: people with criminal history, younger single women with small babies, people with pets, potential sex offenders, or generally the type that you KNOW you wouldn't want to live with. While Roomster is super flexible with adding descriptions and criteria, DO NOT expect people responding to your listing to actually read it.

So really, it all depends on who's using the service, what you're using it for, but also expect to invest some money to really make it work. The guy we decided on did not show up quick, at least a month after the listing was posted did he find us and we had to pay pretty often to read a bunch of messages from people we cared not a bit about til we landed on him.

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SCAM ALERT
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

BEWARE OF THIS SCAM. You'll waste hours of your time, give out your personal information (especially if you link from Facebook, they want ALL your information), and if you're really desperate, probably also pay money to be scammed.

There are literally hundreds of reviews now on the web about Roomster. This is how it works: they put up ads on Craigslist advertising rooms with gorgeous pictures, good roommates, low price, etc. Basically whatever possible to get you to give your contact number.

When you do, you'll get an autotext along the lines of "Room still available" or "I am the owner" and a link to get you to sign up for Roomster, with instructions that they will contact you after you sign up.

Once you sign up and give away all your personal information via Facebook, you get alerts that people have messaged you. But wait! You have to pay to view your messages. Now at this point there should be huge red flags waving around you if you haven't noticed that a) you're getting multiple text messages with the exact same Roomster signup b) you're needlessly agreeing to give away tons of your information and c) why would ANYONE pay for a service that obviously is free on many other websites?

But no, the desperate will sign up fro the 3 day $5 trial and then find out that it autorenews for 3-5x the price before they probably think to Google and find review after review telling you about this exact same scam.

It is beyond comprehension why companies like this can even still exist. I've found descriptions of the Roomster scam from 2011. It's 2016 now and they appear to be hitting the LA craigslist hard, after having gone through NY, Chicago, Denver, and other cities. Just take a look at all the reviews.

They also paid someone to leave fake 5 star reviews on some sites, in order to try to bury the massive numbers of 1 star reviews they got.

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Beware of charges
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Agreed to help my son find a roommate. While researching on Craigslist the information for a roommate popped up. I clicked for more information and had to sign up with Roomsters in order to contact this person. There was a reasonable $5.95 charge for 3 days. I read the contract agreement and if I didn't cancel after the 3rd day I would be charged $45.95 for 30 days service. I signed up and Roomsters did send me (by email) roommate notifications and said there was messages waiting to be read by possible roommate matches.

My son notified me that he found a roommate through another source and I no longer needed to continue my search.

On the 3rd day....I cancelled with Roomsters on their site. They even asked me questions about my cancellation and wanted to know if the site helped me find a roommate. This was confirmation for me that I properly cancelled the listing. I did continue to receive emails notifying me that there were messages waiting for me to read. I knew I had cancelled and believed this was just Roomsters way of luring ppl back to the site and then would charge if I tried to open and read the messages. I never went back to the site aft I cancelled.

A few days later I was checking my credit card statement and noticed this Roomsters company did charge me the $5.95 for the 3 days I agreed to....
BUT....they ALSO charged me for the 30 days at a ridiculous amount of $45.95. How can they charge me for something I cancelled within the proper time frame? I tried calling the phone number Roomsters has listed and it is NO GOOD. Their email address is NO GOOD. The phone number they have listed with my credit card company is NO GOOD.
So....I had to cancel my credit card to keep from being billed in the future. I am sending letters to my credit card dispute department and to ROOMSTERS (if their mailing address is not fake too). Also, contacting the Better Business Bureau. When a person can not reach a business by email or phone number...something is not right!

Don't let this company deceive you.

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Room/Apartment Search
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

Beyond angry with this company. I signed up for a 3 day trial for $5.95 to be able to read messages it'd been sent. After the three day trial I was able to still see my messages which I thought was strange because I never got a message or email (as they send a million times a day every time you get a message on the site) I was charged in addition to my trial period. I never knew it'd be extra automatic charges.

I was furious and still am beyond point. I've message their "customer service" many times never getting a reply back. From the get-go it was unable to fulfill my needs as to finding a place to live or to find a roommate. They got my birthday wrong and never bothered to check it which showed a significant difference in age that I was not comfortable with.

Other reviews I've read one standing out. This person did research and found two people connected with this site, both being from New York, New York. There are a few reviews on this review site that are all from New York, New York giving 5 stars and another from Los Angeles, the ONLY reviews with 5 stars all others are 1-0 (zero) stars.

Also to point of when they tell you you'll be charged after its in the terms of service. Being charged is not a term of the service you're providing. It should be in a different category of consent. There is something fishy about this site and I hope that someone figures it out. I'm EXTREMELY upset with this site, I will never use it again and will definitely tell everyone I know to never use it and report it.

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Very questionable business practices
By -

NEW YORK -- Canceling a membership and thus eliminating an obligation to pay them money by following the instructions on Roomster's web site is like eating newspaper to cure a blood disease--it may work but don't be surprised if it does not. I signed up for a 2 week membership--$14.95--on February 12. Actually I did not sign up so much as I had to upgrade my membership to gain access to some responses that my first posting had generated. Up to February 12, there was no charge and I had been affiliated with the website for several months. Frankly, I did not want to incur any cost but went along with the $14.95 as I intended to terminate within two weeks.

On February 19, I contacted somebody via a "Contact Us" button on the web site. I stated that I wanted to cancel my membership. The response was cheerful and breezy and easy to follow. In essence, I was shown how to "disable" my account. I disabled my account. So--no more charges, right? WRONG.

I used PayPal to start the two week membership. Once established, PayPal will continue to charge you unless you cancel the account on PayPal's Website. However, do you think Roomster made any mention of that on their instructions? Well, no they didn't. To make matters worse, the bank account which PayPal debits if there is no balance on PayPal's books was in overdraft status and I incurred an overdraft fee of $27.12.

I complained to PayPal but my claim was turned down, apparently because the account had not been canceled before payment was made by PayPal to Roomster. On top of that, the email correspondence from Roomster had a link to the instructions I was to follow to cancel my membership. After I complained to Paypal, the information on that link was wiped clean so verification of my claim that I followed their instructions would have been impossible, except for the hard copy of those instructions I printed.

Roomster shows up on the New York Secretary of State's web site if you type in the name. However, there is no Registered Agent listed. If you file a lawsuit, typically papers are served on a Corporation's Registered Agent. This omission may have been an oversight but it may also have been deliberate as it would certainly make it harder to sue Roomster. And even if one were to sue and win a judgment, collecting it would be a problem. Two names have surfaced in connection with Roomster-- **. Two office addresses exist--275 Central Park West, NY, NY 10024 and 445 Park Avenue, 10th Floor NY, NY 10022.

Here is a thought--If you have suffered a loss at the hands of this website, check into the How's and Why's of the small claims court in your jurisdiction. There may be a way to obtain service on Roomster or one of these two men. If so, sue them for your lost funds and sue them for an additional amount in punitive damages up to Small Claims Court limit.

A Punitive Damages award typically requires deliberate, willful behavior, or fraud, on the part of the Defendant. It would probably not take too much effort to convince a judge that the behavior of these people entitles you to a Punitive Damages Award. Once you have a judgment, register it in New York state and then find a collection agency to run these people down and collect your judgment. You may receive something, you may not but in any case you have tried to seek justice.

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Misleading. Not Impressed.
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

This app provides confusing instructions regarding the trial period and the automatic $45 charge that follows immediately after. They are intentionally confusing in their presentation of how to avoid the charge. They imply if you delete your account, you will not be required to pay said fee, BUT when you try to do this it says you are unable to delete account until membership has concluded. After the fact, I realized they outline these fine points in the small print, but it's their approach that is misleading, shady and bad business practice. I will go out of my way to deter my many college-aged and young professional friends from ever using this app or service.

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Roomster - It Is a Scam - Be Aware
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

Their system went down when I signed up and opted for the paid trial version. I was told to try later however after that I was charged twice for every single month of my service. I contacted customer support team but they do not want to return the extra payment, with an argument that the payment was authorized. I sign up only for one service though and all my bills with Roomster show only one payment - hence me not noticing immediately. Their customer support tries to give me robotic replies to read my receipt which includes only one payment.

They refuse to check that they received two payments, even though I provide them with exact information from PayPal that two payments were being received. I suspect they are trying to give me robotic answers for me to give up. But guys, for this service to pay 60 USD a month? Common! I did not find any single flatmate from it. I think they do this mistake on purpose to get your money and never return it back. I ended up with a bill of 180 USD as they charged me twice even after cancellation. This is the worst experience I ever had.

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Requires Facebook?
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

UNKNOWN, CALIFORNIA -- Roomster, why do you require a person have a Facebook account in order to register on your site? What if a person doesn't use Facebook? You should provide a way for people to register on your site the normal way. Also, I have been banned from your site three times, even though I obviously used Facebook accounts.

This makes no sense. Why do you require we register through Facebook, and then ban us for doing so? So, unless our Facebook page is swamped with endless photos and activity, you don't consider us a real person? You make no sense, and require too much! Obviously a bot cannot register with the kind of detail you require. Lastly, when I am informed I have been banned for a violation, no specifics are ever given. You people make no sense. I'm giving a low rating of your site right now.

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SCAM! Run Before You Give Your Credit Card!
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- I posted my room on this site for a trial for a few days and paid for these few days. Soon I found out I was charged for another month. I never agreed or notified of any auto renewal. I tried to contact their customer service. On their website and purchase email, there is already an intimidating message warning about customer chargeback that they will report to collection bureau and screw your credit score basically. It's very unpleasant and annoying to see this and you should know it's bad business. They are doing this because it has happened to a lot of customer.

Before you even try, run as fast as you can. Never give this site your credit card number! All those messages I received after posted my room is useless and fake. It's basically fake messages they distributed to everyone. I did not get any real contact from this site.

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The Main Person Running Roomster Is a Highly Unprofessional Lowlife.
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

NEW YORK -- I should have properly read the initial 2-week trial agreement for $14.95 that indicates that one must manually disenrolled, or incur a $29.95 renewal chg. When I inquired, requesting possible consideration (a refund) for my error, I was hit with a long, very rude, harsh response that let me know I subscribed to the service for x amount of dollars (duh - tell me something I don't know, pls).

And that if I dispute the auto-subscription chg of $29.00 with my bank, etc & etc would happen. I would be referred to a collection agency and to the credit bureaus. It was rude-iculous!!! I retorted and wrote re the unprofessionalism - only to receive a tirade 3 more unprofessional, emotional messages. Sick...

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Roomster Rating:
Star Half star Empty star Empty star Empty star
1.3 out of 5, based on 154 ratings and
161 reviews & complaints.
Contact Information:
Roomster
285 West Broadway, Suite 320
New York, NY 10013
646-862-2841 (ph)
www.roomster.com
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