One mistake and a major oversight led to this tenant being 13 months behind on rent. Kody Lynn’s (@lizzywithaglizzy) story went viral, amassing over 2.1 million views in just two days. The four-part saga kicks off in the first video with Lynn delivering a humorous summary of the events in true TikTok form.
“Put a finger down if you’ve been Venmoing your landlord for the last year for rent, your security deposit, all of that, and you just found out that you’ve Venmo’d the wrong person for the past 13 months,” Lynn said.
“You’ve actually never Venmo’d your landlord. Um, and that person never told you that you were Venmoing the wrong person and your landlord never realized that you weren’t paying your rent,” she continued.
“And so now you’ve paid $18,508 to a random financial advisor in Ohio who claims his heroin addict sister has spent all of the money 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 going to file a lawsuit against you for $18,508.”
Lynn lowers one finger and then raises the camera to show the state of her apartment behind her.
“We’re packing,” she said, as the video comes to an end.
There had to be more to this story, and Lynn didn’t hesitate to share the details with her audience. The next three videos detailed a cautionary tale.
How can a one-letter difference cost almost $19,000?
The second video opens with Lynn addressing the confusion, concerns, and questions about her situation.
“I wish it was a joke. Unfortunately, this real life,”
Lynn explains that the apartment was originally a house converted into apartments owned by several people. She had never met or spoken to the owner and only interacted with the property manager, whom she refers to as the landlord in the story. It was the landlord who instructed her to send her security deposit and rent payments via Venmo directly to the owner of the apartment unit.
She admits to unknowingly misspelling the Venmo username but points out that, to her defense, the similarity in the usernames and the absence of a profile or public transactions added to her confusion between the two.
“One letter is all it takes,” she quipped.
Lynn sent her security deposit and first month’s rent to what she believed was the owner’s Venmo and followed up with the landlord to confirm she had sent the payment. The landlord then arranges with Lynn to deliver the keys and she moves into the apartment.
“Had we figured out right then and there that I had sent my security deposit and first month’s rent to the wrong person, I’d just have to eat it, like OK, I had lost that money. I’m going to have to repay it. Like I’m going to have to pay the actual owner now. Hey, we move on now. Like, continue through the lease, whatever,” Lynn continued.
But no one caught the mistake. Neither the landlord, nor the owner, nor Lynn herself realized it, and Lynn continued to send her $1,350 rent payment to the wrong person for the next 13 months until now.
After 13 months, the official lease has now expired, and Lynn assumes she is on a month-to-month basis. Back in April, the property manager reached out to inquire whether Lynn would be renewing the lease since it would expire in early July, and she confirmed that she would be staying for another year. However, when she didn’t immediately hear back from the property manager, it didn’t raise any concerns for her.
“So basically, last Thursday, I [got] a text message from my landlord and he says ‘Hey, your check for $7,200 bounced.’ Hold up, I have never [written] a check for $7,200. He’s talking about my rent like my rent check bounced,” Lynn recounted.
In this part of the video, a screenshot of a portion of the conversation between Lynn and her landlord appears on the screen.
“I never wrote a check for $7,200… Venmo my payments every single month… Sent him a screenshot of my last year,” she rebutted.
Lynn is relieved when the landlord responds that the owner may have confused her with someone else. However, her relief is short-lived. The next text message she receives from the property manager is the worst-case scenario.
“[The landlord] texts me back ‘Here’s the issue. You’ve been Venmoing the wrong person.’ I’m like I have not been Venmoing the wrong person.”
The property manager sends her a screenshot of the owner’s Venmo, and at first glance, it appears to be the same name as the person Lynn has been sending her payments to. She responds to the property manager that the names are the same.
“He’s like ‘No, you spelled it this way. It’s spelled this way.’ And that’s finally when I realized I’ve been paying the wrong person,” she said.
Once she realizes this, she doesn’t even respond to the landlord. She immediately heads to Venmo.
The plot thickens
Lynn begins the third video by detailing her attempt to contact the person she had been sending her rent payments for the past 13 months. She opens the Venmo app and requests $18,508, the total amount of the rent payments. In her note, she writes: ‘I’ve been paying you my rent for the last year. You’re the wrong person. Please pay me back.’
“Pray to God that this is some old man, somebody’s grandpa that just has a Venmo randomly. He’s never spent the money—didn’t even realize [it was] there. He’s going to see this payment request come through and he’s going to send me all [of] my money back. That’s what I’m praying for at this point. That’s not what happened.”
Instead, Lynn receives a payment of $1,350, equivalent to one month’s rent, labeled “repayment” with a comment requesting her phone number. She sends her number and receives a message with a promise to call her at 4pm.
Anticipating the worst, she decides to record the phone call after confirming that both her home state and the state where the mystery Venmo person lives are one-party consent states, where only one party needs to give consent to record a phone call or conversation.
“They had relatives who passed away and they thought these payments had something to do with their relative that passed away. Keep in mind, every single one of my payments that I sent said the apartment’s address that I lived in and then rent. So there’s no misconstruing that payment is anything other than a rent payment,” Lynn recounted his story.
“He then says that multiple people have access to his Venmo and he’s asked all the people if they’ve taken the money out and they say no. He thinks that his heroin addict sister [who] has access to the Venmo account took the money out and spent it. Maybe that’s true. Very unfortunate if it is true.”
“I don’t know how much heroin costs. I would be flabbergasted that someone could spend almost $19,000 on heroin,” she commented in disbelief.
Regardless of whether that part of the story is true or not, Lynn realizes the money is gone. After a discussion on how to go about repayment, Lynn and the mystery person settle on a payment arrangement. She concludes the call and immediately gets on the phone with her landlord.
“I tell him, ‘Hey, this is the story that I got. This is what’s happening. This dude is going to pay me back. At that point I offered, I said, ‘I’ll pay six months’ worth of the rent that should have already been paid, continue paying my rent to stay in the apartment, and then as this dude pays me back, I’ll forward that money onto the owner.’ […]He’s like ‘Gotcha. Such a horrible circumstance, Kody. The owner’s really reasonable. Let me talk to him and let’s get this worked out.’”
Crisis averted, right?
“Wrong. I get an email the next day and it’s from the landlord. He cc’d my dad, and he cc’d the owner, and it pretty much says, you have 60 days.”
A screenshot of the email is shown as Lynn continues with the story.
“We have half of the rent today, right now, and then you have 60 days to get us the other half of the rent. So essentially I had 60 days to get them the $19,000,” she concludes.
‘We’ll fight this out in court’
“I understand he wants his money. He should have been receiving his money for the last year. At this point, it’s their mismanagement of funds and their disorganization that has resulted in us now going 13 months without anybody receiving payment and me paying the wrong person,” Lynn states at the opening of the fourth video.
“So that offer like 60 days was like threw it in my face like this is all your fault. Sixty days to pay us $19,000. Figure it out. We’re going to evict you.”
Lynn decides to contact a lawyer who specializes in landlord/tenant and real estate law to explore her options. After consulting with the lawyer, she responds to the email to reject the offer and informs the landlord and owner that she will be vacating the apartment. They were not happy with her response.
“They [emailed] me back and they were like […] ‘Well, you offered to pay six months’ worth of the rent so why don’t you pay the 6 months’ worth of the rent, and then we’ll figure out the rest?’ And I’m like ‘No. I offered to pay the 6 months’ worth of rent that way I can continue to stay in the apartment. I’m not staying in the apartment anymore. My new offer is I will pay you the money as this man returns it to me. That’s my new offer,’” she explained.
While she would rather avoid a lawsuit, Lynn states that they are welcome to sue her.
“That’s fine. I’m in law school. A lawsuit doesn’t scare me. Sue me. We’ll fight this out in court. It’s not going to end well for either of us.”
As of now, the last time she heard from them was a rejection of her most recent settlement offer. Instead, they are proceeding with the lawsuit. Lynn now has legal representation, an attorney who just so happens to be her dad.
The Daily Dot reached out to Lynn via TikTok direct message, but she declined to comment on the story. A Venmo spokesperson had this to say when the Daily Dot reached out about the viral story.
“There are a lot of people on Venmo, so it’s important to make sure you’re paying the right person because the moment you send a payment on Venmo, we send a request to your bank/card company to debit the funds and make them available to the recipient. Users can find the right recipient by scanning their personal QR code or searching for their name, username, email, or phone number. Venmo also gives you the option to confirm the phone number of the person you’re sending money to if you’ve never sent them money before. If you accidentally send a payment to someone you don’t know or you receive a payment from someone you don’t know, please contact our support team as soon as possible and we’ll do our best to help.”
@lizzywithaglizzy I wish it was April 1st, unfortunatley for menit is now (:
♬ original sound – Kody Lynn
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