Was on the fence about trying out Tellus; made the wrong decision. Read on and decide for yourself.
SECURITY LEAK - Tellus had data leak resulting in all investor, landlord, and tenant information being released. Google to find the article on CyberNews. When asked about this, response was they were aware but had no intention of hiring an outside firm to verify security improved.
FAKE REVIEWS - 5-star ratings are farmed in the app with messages from support requesting reviews. Check Google and LinkedIn and you'll find nearly all come from employees of the company.
UNINSURED ACCOUNTS - Investing and savings accounts within the app are not FDIC- or SIPC-insured; you're risking your entire balance to make less than you would with a real bank like Ally, Amex, Marcus, etc.
SLOW RENT PAYMENTS - Rent payments take up to 10 business days to clear. They say this is how processing works but it's actually Tellus holding funds on their end for up to a week. Processing with any other online payments like Cozy, Apartments.com, Rentec Direct, etc. should take 3-5 days, max. This impacts cash flow and creates unnecessary uncertainty between landlord, tenant, and Tellus on when funds will actually disburse. Multiple times I had to reach out because a week went by after funds should have posted to my account and didn't; the issue is an internal payments team that often overlooks manual disbursement. Each time I would request a payment receipt and found that the payments were forgotten and made after I inquired.
BROKERN SOFTWARE - Software constantly force quits and freezes, requiring you to restart. What precedent is being set with tenants paying thousands in rent if your collection system as a landlord can't even launch properly?
UNACCESSIBLE SUPPORT - Support is only available in the app itself, which constantly crashes. This is fine for small issues or tech support, but not when you have an actual problem (read on, below) and no recourse or option to speak with someone by phone.
THEFT - The software had an error where a tenant setup autopay and Tellus pulled two rent payments for the same month one day apart, leading to an overdraft for the tenant. Tenant's bank rejected both payments because they never experienced this type of issue. Tellus knew about this but did not notify me until three weeks later.
I was told it would be withheld from a separate property's pending rent payment (impacting cash flow and accounting). Support and I agreed this would not be an appropriate resolution and would wait until I could collect the rent from the tenant directly to disburse to them. The following month, all of my pending rent payments were delayed beyond the in-app pending period and I contacted support. I was told that the payment team lead, Jim Yu (incidentally, same that left a 5-star review above), choose to renege on the agreed course of action and that they were going to withhold the payment from a separate unit on a separate property.
It is worth noting that this payment issue came about entirely due to Tellus' software; had I continued accepting payment by check, my tenant would not have accidentally written me two... I expressed this to Tellus and was told that it's still my fault, despite multiple times being told that landlord intervention is something they discourage. The process was riddled with mixed messages confusing me and my tenant, ultimately to have Tellus go against what they originally agreed to do.
