Read about Parkoff Management's unethical business practices

[Parkoff Tenant]

Billing Harassment, Psychological Harassment

I have been living in my Bronx apartment on Wallace Ave for over 10 years now. I have lived under three different owners or managers. I have never had any problems until Parkoff Management took over. At least with me, they are using ruthless, unethical business tactics to either extract money from me or possibly force me to move out. I am living in a rent-stabilized apartment and if I move out I suppose the landlord will be able to increase the rent.  

It all began with inaccurate, inconsistent and confusing accounting. In addition to the rent, they started billing me for "arrears,"  including double MCI charges (charging for MCI when the MCI is already included in the rent), illegal late fees for payments that were not late (have the cancelled checks to prove it), and runaway compounding late fees for "balances I choose to ignore" as they put it. In sum, Parkoff Management has tried to make my life miserable through the billing statements. And not only do I receive these statements on a monthly basis but they also drop payment due notices by my door. This is pure psychological harassment, unethically using financial pressure and court threats to produce fear and psychological discomfort in an effort to collect money or possibly force me out. I am wondering if other people might just pay what they want so they can get some relief from the pressure... If this is happening to you, this is criminal and I'd love to hear from you so we can do something about it.

I am 52 years old and I have an excellent credit record. I have a decent job, no debt, pay all my bills on time and don't have financial problems with anybody except Parkoff Management. I have been at war with Parkoff Management because I refuse to pay for incorrect charges, which is my right and anyone's right. However, I have always paid the amount stipulated on the lease and I am not late or in default with my rent payments. 

When they first claimed I owed them "arrears" for back-rent, I sent them a certified letter including copies of one year worth of cancelled rent checks proving I was current on the rent, and challenged them to explain the charges. Did they bother to reply? Not at all. Instead, they took me to court still claiming that I owed them back-rent.

I had never been to court in my entire life for any reason, so I felt apprehensive and somewhat anxious about it. I decided to consult with an attorney so I could have some idea of what to expect. This was a costly mistake. The attorney was very competent but he really didn't tell me anything I hadn't already learned through my own research or assessed on my own and it amounted to an unnecessary expense.  

In court they approached me on the side asking me if I wanted to settle. I showed them an additional two or three years worth of cancelled rent checks and again challenged them to explain the charges. Taking advantage of my ignorance, they adjourned the case and made me return to court two additional times. Going to court to explain myself to them when they should be the ones explaining themselves to me was unreasonable and also caused unnecessary costs, such as lost vacation time and lost wages for my wife who accompanied me there. Costs which Parkoff Management simply does not take into consideration or care about. They are bullies! 

Having no prepared justification for the charges, David Friedman called the office and asked one of their accountants to mail me a letter explaining the charges. They sent me a copy of their ledger and a summary page explaining that I owed them so much for this and that, and the other. Unpaid MCI charges, a number of $50 late fees for late payments (my lease says $25 for late payments and as previously mentioned, I was not late), other bogus charges. Out of curiosity I grabbed a calculator and just as I had suspected, the sum of all stated charges did not add up to the total claimed. Ridiculous! So, I when I pointed that out to them in Court they had no alternative but to drop the case. 

When I went home, I thought the issue was settled. That's not what happened, it got progressively worse. Now they are again billing me for the same "arrears" that they couldn't explain in their previous letter and adding court fees, legal fees and runaway compounding late fees for "balances I chose to ignore" as they put it. 

Apparently Parkoff Management inherited a ledger from the previous owner that was seriously flawed. But this is no way to resolve the issue - to make me suffer through harassment, incoveniences, and unnecessary costs for accounting mistakes that I am not responsible for. This ledger is so flawed that it is inconsistent with the billing statements that I received. Here are two sets of documents produced by the same people for the same purpose and yet they don't match. 

Nearly every letter that I have sent Parkoff Management has been ignored. They don't send me a copy of the signed lease agreement when I ask for it, they don't reply when I complain about the fact that I feel harassed by the billing statements, they have simply continued to push their own rude agenda: Routine notices at the door claiming due payments, court threats, that kind of thing. 

At some point I got tired of this and began invoicing them for my costs. After all they had already cost me more money in terms of lost vacation time than the amount of their bogus claim. This was an effort on my part to make them understand that they were being unreasonable. Of course they ignored it. So then I came to the conclusion that the only way I was going to get their attention was if I started speaking their language (money) in real terms. I started charging them a fee for harassment and collecting it from the rent. They refused to cash the diminished rent check, but at least I got their attention and they finally began to labor on their flawed ledger trying to identify the errors and attempt to explain the legitimacy of their claim. They were not able to produce an acceptable result and once again tried to offer me a deal. Their offer involved giving me partial credits for errors and if I paid them the resulting total they would forgive me for "some" of the court fees and would consider waving a "portion" of the late fees. Great deal, right? I think only David Friedman would be smart enough to accept it.

Needless to say, we ended up in court again because I was withholding rent money from them. Their attorney was willing to accept my offer which was to pay them all the rent that I was holding, plus $250 (roughly half the amount of their claim) and in turn they would reset the balance on my account to zero by a set date, or the next billing statement. All "arrears" and other previous charges would be settled and the case could not be revived in any other venue. I was happy enough with that, and so I thought it was settled.

The first thing they did that same day was to collect their money by ACH debit. Two weeks later when I received my billing statement nothing had changed. They are still charging me bogus "arrears," court fees, late fees, etc. These people are truly provocative and abusive. They don't even respect a court ordered stipulation, they just do what they want. 

When I sent them the last rent check I wrote them a letter asking them to correct the billing statement in accordance with the stipulation of settlement and told them that I no longer wanted them to execute ACH debits on my checking account. I explained that I did not remember ever giving them permission to do that but if I had, implicitly, electronically, or otherwise, it was now revoked. I informed them that I had sent a notice to my bank to that effect. They completely ignored my request and executed an ACH debit on that check using an account number that was different from the one they had previously used. In other words, they slipped it through. But my bank figured it out somehow and reversed it, crediting my checking account for the amount of the rent. Note that there was no stop payment made on the check, they can still cash it by conventional methods. So technically, my rent is paid, they only have to go cash the check. 

Apparently they don't want to do that, they prefer to harass me some more. I am now getting more renewed court threats from them and demands for the rent as well as the routine "arrears." Do you believe these people? This is incredible... they are like piranhas. You can slap them, kick them, they just keep coming back at you. Here is a multi-billion dollar corporation giving a decent person a hard time for no valid reason. What is really going on here? Is anyone else experiencing this? 

I've posted my story on the web because people need to know about Parkoff Managements unethical business practices. There are many negative reviews on the Internet about Parkoff Management, but I haven't found a medium that allows people to come together and start communicating with each other. I'd like to see if there is significant interest in this because we can do a whole lot more than just post stories on the web. If you have a difficult problem with Parkoff Management, or a serious complaint, please send me a message. 

If you can share your story and let others read it or discuss it here, that counts as BIG help. Please keep it truthful and have no fear of speaking out.