Roomster
Reviews and Complaints

The problem is that it will not stop there; they will continue withdrawing money from your credit card unless you declare your card lost or stolen as I did. Roomster says that in order to stop the payment you need to cancel the subscription from your roomster account but there is no tab on your personal account to do so. There is a section where you can disable your account but they will still take money from your account every month. So I suggest you to cancel your credit card so they will issue a new card number for you and roomster will not have authorization to withdraw money from your account anymore. I know it is a nuisance to do so but it is the only way to stop them. I really wish someone will take legal action against them soon or later. In the mean time one way to revenge is to open a new FREE account with roomster and to use their GIVE A SHOUT to the other member warning everyone about the danger of giving roomster their credit card number. I have done so and I have warned about 10.000 around the world about this scam, but finally romster banned me from accessing their web site. So I decided to find a way around it and I downloaded a software to hide my IP address (you can do the same by following this link http://www.hide-ip-soft.com/download.htm ). Now I can access roomster.com again to continue my warning campaign. I hope that many people will follow my suit so roomster will have no choice but to actually go and get a real job to make a living as many of us do instead of stealing from honest people

Even if you do attempt to unsubscribe, you can still end up with a situation like what I'm experiencing. In my case, when I go to cancel the subscription it either falsely tells me that is has succeeded [the charges suggest otherwise], or that the request cannot be processed. I've opened claims with BBB and PayPal so far, but PayPal already denied the movement. I sent in more information and am waiting to hear back from them again.

Also, there HelpDesk had this odd habit of not working at all until I sent a notification that I had filed a report with the BBB. Suddenly, it worked. And no one responds to their listed e-mail.

The problem is that it will not stop there; they will continue withdrawing money from your credit card unless you declare your card lost or stolen as I did. Roomster says that in order to stop the payment you need to cancel the subscription from your roomster account but there is no tab on your personal account to do so. There is a section where you can disable your account but they will still take money from your account every month. So I suggest you to cancel your credit card so they will issue a new card number for you and roomster will not have authorization to withdraw money from your account anymore. I know it is a nuisance to do so but it is the only way to stop them. I really wish someone will take legal action against them soon or later. In the mean time one way to revenge is to open a new FREE account with roomster and to use their GIVE A SHOUT to the other member warning everyone about the danger of giving roomster their credit card number. I have done so and I have warned about 10.000 around the world about this scam, but finally romster banned me from accessing their web site. So I decided to find a way around it and I downloaded a software to hide my IP address (you can do the same by following this link http://www.hide-ip-soft.com/download.htm ). Now I can access roomster.com again to continue my warning campaign. I hope that many people will follow my suit so roomster will have no choice but to actually go and get a real job to make a living as many of us do instead of stealing from honest people.

roomster is a scam. they give automated responses and take your money. they have put me in 50 dollars worth of debt to my bank. is there any way i can get a refund? have any of you gotten one other than carlin?

I agree to that this morning i checked my accont activity online and these people charged me 29.95 and I only signed up for a 7day trial for 5.95 I can't get in contact with them or anything but I am pissed what company doesn't have a phone number.

I'm having the same problem, except in my case, when I go to cancel the subscription it either falsely tells me that is has succeeded [the charges suggest otherwise], or that the request cannot be processed. I've opened claims with BBB and PayPal so far, but PayPal already denied the movement. I sent in more information and am waiting to hear back from them again.

Also, there HelpDesk had this odd habit of not working at all until I sent a notification that I had filed a report with the BBB. Suddenly, it worked.

I too recently joined Roomster back in January to find a place to live. I signed up for the 4 day trial at $5.95 and discovered I didn't like the site after logging in a few times. Yesterday, I noticed on my credit card statement that they have been charging me $29.95 for the months of January, February, and March. I went to the Better Business Bureau's website and found that there were 49 reports against this company as well as two listed phone numbers. I called one of them and it turned out to be some random guys cell phone, who was rude and told me not to call back again. I decided to e-mail them complaints over and over regarding the unauthorized charges made on my card. After over ten e-mails, they finally decided to credit back to my account the March service charge. I am still going to dispute the charges with my bank.

Roomster seems sketchy anyway. I was living across the street from one of the listings shown on the website. All of the information was completely false, if you knew the area, and the house at that address looked completely different from the photo online. The misleading Terms of Use is what they are banking on. STAY AWAY FROM ROOMSTER!

The same thing happened to me...I took a 3-day membership to check it out. On the 3rd day, I was charged $29.95, and there is NOWHERE on the site to cancel your membership. I honestly think their pictures, people searching, etc.. are scams, also...My "Matches" are too young, too old, looking in another city, or are complete opposites of my choices for a roommate. I am calling my bank this morning...they will investigate, and since no one will take calls, they will determine that this is a SCAM business, and my money will be refunded.

These are scam artists. Plain and simple.

This is the worst company ever. I to have had similar problems. This company is a scam and I will be reporting them to the BBB. I signed up for a 3 day trial unaware that they would automatically renew my account. Yes it may say it in the terms section but that is such fine print and I missed it. They do not even send you a notice saying they are going to renew. If they had good service and were a helpful company they wouldn't have to scam people and hide their terms. WORST company ever. Don't ever use them. I called and of course no one answers their phone. I also emailed the Help Desk and got no response. I posted on their Facebook and they took my post down within minutes. I will be contacting the BBB. Don't EVER use this company

I sent Roomster.com Helpdesk the following msg:
Instead of calling the # provided by my credit card company [protected]) I figured I would write the helpdesk to file my dispute and complaint. When I attempted to first sign-up for Roomster.com's service, I filled in all of the required forms and submitted. At the moment of submission, the page forwarded to an ERROR page. There was no confirmation of submission. I also did not receive an email. I reloaded the previous page and attempted a second time to submit for membership but I got the same error page again. Bottom line is that I never saw confirmation that my membership was paid for until I received and reviewed my credit card statements. I was under the assumption that one of two things happened. 1. That there was an internal error processing my application (naive) and that my card would not be charged. 2. That I was going to get charged (possibly more than once) even though I never saw a confirmation page indicating that I completed the transaction. Upon reviewing my statement I can see that Roomster.com not only charged me, but charged me AGAIN two weeks later for the amount of $29.95. I had very little use of the roomster.com service. I probably visited the site three times since I first saw it. I have had NO leads, no replies to my messages, no results. The service sucks! I am giving Roomster.com the opportunity to refund the amount of $29.95 instead of filing a dispute with my credit card company and negative review action with the BBB and other online rating services. I am requesting this on the grounds that the online subscription application was (is?) flawed and/or misleading. I will agree to the initial charge of $14.95 for fairness, but I expect all charges after January 29th, 2010 to be rescinded/refunded. my email address: *******@yahoo.com Visa CC# ending in **** If I do not get a reply on or before March 15th, I will submit a formal charge dispute which will make more work for you. PJ

I hope they make good on this so they can at least attempt to salvage their online reputation. Otherwise, I will be looking into class action against them for their shady business practices.

hey are rude just look at the scroonshot of a reply a Roomster CSR sent me.. and after my reply to the Roomster CSR reply they disabled my account

Screenshot of Roomster CSR chat - http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4205/roomster.png

Roomster.com is the least helpful roommate finding service I have ever used. Not only did I not find a roommate (roommates.com is way better), when I decided that I not longer wanted to use there service (before my 14 day waiting period was completed), I disabled my account and I recieved a message stating my account was disabled. However, I was still charged for 2 more months because apparently disabled and cancelled are 2 different things (even though the service stopped with the disabled account). There was never an indication that a disabled account was not considered a cancelled account. When i discovered this, I logged a complaint, but only got policy words thrown back at me and eventhough I asked, I was never provided with an 800 number to talk to someone in person. I would not recommend this site to anyone. If you are going to use a site, I suggest roommates.com.

I am trying to get people who have been screwed by roomster.com to go on to the BBB website and file a complaint. This company is a joke. What respectable company doesn't have a phone number that you can reach them at? What respectable company doesn't let you know that your subscription was up and that you would be charged more money? Please if roomster.com has scamed you go to the BBB and report their butts.

These guys are scam artists, even if you cancel they hit you fro another charge...DON'T USE THEM!

this service sucks! i got the three day trial and discovered that none of the people e mailing me were in my price range. the service automaticly renewed at a rate of 29.95 and ok, it may have been in the terms of service, but if you have a really good service why would you have to fool people into renewing it. if it works so well would they really need it any longer than a few days? I have canceled my service as of a few moments ago and will tell the bank to reverse the charges for this month on monday. I would rathere see the bank get the $30 canceled check fee than have the ### at this sleazy service profit at all

I have a similar problem. Their service furthermore, is not even worth the $29.95 that they want to charge people. I recommend you use a free service like Craigslist, your local newspaper, or even pay for Roommates.com.

I also tried calling their listed number, and there was no live person to speak to. The recording asks you to press 1 for roomster.com, and press 2 for friendster.com. Regardless of which you choose, it'll tell you to go online to the respective site's "contact page." If you chose to stay on the line or press zero, it would just hang up on you. I strongly suggest EVERYONE STAY AWAY. Furthremore, their website looks like they are trying to copy off of facebook. I think that should've been

I was lead to Roomster in the Seattle area while searching for a room on Craigslist. The room was close by and a great bargain. The response in the Craiglist add for this room was to sign up with Roomster and the party renting would respond. I signed up but the room was no where to be found.( I am beginning to wonder if this is how Roomster finds some of its business) While on the sight I saw an add for a room in the Magnolia area of Seattle. I responded but found I could not get any answers as to availability unless I paid for it. I was given 3 options. One was for 3 days at $5.95, the second was for about $15.00 (can't remember exact price) and the 3rd was for $29.95 for one month. The 3rd option states you would be billed monthly at that rate. I opted for the first one since there is no commitment mentioned as a trial. The person I contacted on the Roomster sight sounded legit but it turned into a huge scam where someone hijacked someone else's add and tried to have me wire money to Norman, Oklahoma. I then discovered Roomster had charged me $29.95 without my authorization. I honored it because I noted the charge later.and contacted roomster who responded by telling me I was obligated now with some phantom contract. Also they did not give me the full 3 days before charging me $29.95. I immediately went into the sight after contacting Roomster and eliminated any further charges.(They claim it is easy to do)! While on the site for one month there was very little activity that fit my search and I ran into two more scammers. The Seattle rental market is very tight and expensive now and there is not much to rent out there. It is a scammers market and Roomster appears to be a hiding hot bed for some of these scammers. I have received alerts with the same message. I checked in with PayPal where Roomster received my payment and found they continued to charge me despite my cancellation and get this you sign up for 3 automatic withdrawls! I called my bank to stop payment and had Pay Pal cancel. It is best to contact the Attorney Generals office as well as BBB
Roomster is not any better than Craigslist and there add is misleading with the payments.

You can cancel before your time/trial is up. I just paid for 3 days trial on Paypal, I was notified by paypal that there was also a recurring subscription, which I promptly canceled (still retaining my 3 days). This process works with most trial subscriptions. If you sign up for almost any trial and they ask for your card, they WILL KEEP CHARGING YOU.

William Johnson is the ### of the earth! After complaining about the same issue as all of you, they treated me awfully on their help desk by being rude and snarky (even though they made about a million grammatical and spelling mistakes- seriously, you can't be snarky if you spell "companies" as "company's").

After giving me a refund only after I complained to the BBB, this is what they had to say: " It would seem that [I am] really enjoying wasting the BBB's and Roomster's time. In any event please find attached proof that we have issued a full refund. I have also attached her obnoxious comments from our helpdesk even after we advised her of her full refund. We consider this case closed and hope to never hear from her again.

Sincerely,
William N. Johnson [protected])"

This was after they did NOT send me the check in the time frame that they themselves stipulated!

My claim with the BBB won't be closed until they apologize!

This website is a fraud. I was being charged 29.95 a month and I just logged in for a 3 day trial. On top of that there is no contact number. Do NOT use this website they are a SCAM. I found an awesome roommate on craigslist and if was free. I prefer you go there.

This happened to me, too. I paid for 3-day access and, lo and behold, Roomster charged me another $29.99 about a week later. Okay, I admit, I never read the terms of service since they're usually pretty obvious ... don't post obscene content, no fraud, etc. But this is just ridiculous.
And even if I had seen the part about renewed subscriptions, based on other peoples' experiences, it wouldn't have made a difference! So what, now I have to cance3l my card?!
Where's the lawsuit? Cause I'm in like my foot up Mr. Schriber's [censor].

It's not surprising to hear of this kind of behavior from a company that runs an "affiliate program". They don't tell the affiliates to spam anyone -- wink wink, nudge nudge -- but their spam appears multiple times a day on the Craigslist room shares section (at least in Oregon).

Besides posting on sites like this one you can forward this and other sites to the FBI Internet Crimes website known as IC3. These guys have shut down well documented and numerously complained about sites. Thanks for giving mr the heads up.

Same scam still at it, just got me too. $29.95 for a $5 trial. Cost me $120.00. Had to cancel my credit card to stop them.

"Remember, those that rip off the public, their time will come Mr. Shriber. Your time will come."

This service is a RIP OFF. This John S. Shriber has a business that deceives, repeat deceives the general public. They advertise hundreds of ads for roommates when in fact the majority are out-of-date. They was only four that matched my criteria. Thus, where is the hundreds that they advertise. Also, my subscription was to be a one time, but now find out it is a recurring fee. Thus, if this is a LEGITIMATE business, they should give the customer a complete refund. However, this seems to be a fly by night operation run by scam artist like John S. Shriber. Let me just make you aware Mr. Shribe, I have your business address. Thus, the next time I visit NYC which will be real soon I am going to pay a visit to your office for a COMPLETE REFUND! In the meantime, I am going to communicate with the Attorney Generals Office of NY. Why, because you are a fraud! You are ripping the public off! This is not a legitimate business. YOU operate behind the computer feeling that you are not imune to legal prosecution. Remember, those that rip off the public, their time will come Mr. Shriber. Your time will come.

I was just scammed by roomster as well. I caught on after a 2 week trial period I paid for $15. I agreed to a 2 week trial and not an ongoing renewal subscription. Since I regularly check my credit cards and banking statements I noticed early on that there was a withdraw of a full month ($30) in addition to the $15 for the 2 week period...the $30 showed up when my trial period had ended. I messaged them on the site about the re-occurring charge and they replied stating it was in the terms of agreement and that I could only stop it by canceling my subscription and that they could not refund me and that i have access to the site for the remainder of the month...I never knew I had a subscription. So I canceled it immediately and demanded a return of the $30. They wont refund it so I am going through my financial institution to prevent further charges and to reverse the charge with an investigation. BBB should be notified of their unethical ways of charging people for unwanted, continued services.

Share share tell everybody
La times let people know out there roomster is a fraud fraud fraud if u looking for an apartment or room u go to craigslist it will automatically direct u to this roomster an they ask u to log in with ur social media account an if its not exactly who u r they tell u to go make an account an all your real information now why should I so they can steal my personal identity an why are they going by different names so they themselves aren't being honest now all my personal information is out there when the person I want to rent from contact me then I give my information how dare u tell me to give up my personal I formation when I didn't ask for their [censor] up fake service warn people about this roomster or olivia house. Us an three or four more names they go by so whos the fraud an u try to contact them they direct u to the same place the problem started soooooo fake fake do not give them ur money yes they want money an I tried to post on craigslist to warn people an they blocked me they are in on it together

These Roomster people are some damn crooks...they have no type of contact # to be reached at to explain the charges that people are receiving. I had to call my credit card company to dispute the charge and cancel my card. This is ridiculous ! This is the type of BS that makes people not want to do business online because companies have hidden clauses that people don't see and then find out once they have been charged and have to go thru so much red tape to get refunded...This has definitely been a lesson learned because I never benefited from their service at all...

Charged my credit card an amount I did not agree with.

Hi my name is pete and i need your company to stop sending me your emails on rooms for rent?
I have my ad on craigslist on wanted rooms and i'm getting no responces from anybody because you guys are redirecting all incoming rooms for rent messages that are being sent to me personaly
Take me off your site please. peterxmarshall@aol.com phone #[protected]

To bad someone can't glue this site as a link on their site. Bold and out loud. Make it so they couldn't take it off.
I found the deduction from my bank account this morning. I called the bank and they are blocking further transactions and filing for a dispute.I had canceled two weeks after joining. I had not gotten one hit on finding a place.
I am legally blind and was looking for a room to rent. I don't get much from my S.S. and I cannot afford to have their charges
taken out over and over again. It seems the world is getting inundated with bull *hit like this.

I have found those basters phone number. it's [protected]

This is roomster.com's actual information:

285 west broadway
New york, ny 10013 map
Phone: [protected]
Website: www.roomster.com
Email: roomster@roomster.com
John shriber, ceo, updated this company profile on 02/17/2011

The names of the owners are Roman Zaks https://www.facebook.com/rzaks?sk=photos and John S. Shriber https://www.facebook.com/shriber, I have been ###ed by them as well and am about to dispute the charges, there needs to be some sort of law created to prevent companies like this. Their make their profits soley on dodgy reoccurring charges, if they did not, they would not do this, or they would be upfront about it. Silly boys, dont know who they have messed with this time. By the time I am finished with them, they will not have a business.

Site is terrible. stay away. These people are akin to drug dealers and 2-bit street scammers. SHADY PEOPLE. Formalized coimplaints need to be made to the Attorney General in the state where they are registered. I am working towards that right now...

They scammed me too. This company does not plainly state that you will be renewed $29.95 until you cancel. Instead, they hide it in the middle of a long list of other terms. The customer service rep also called me a ###! Check out the screenshot

I canceled the service and they still charged us 29.99 after canceling and deleting the account

I typing in my phone to make an account because I desperately need to find a roommate and somewhere to live in Toronto in September when I start school but it is not working. It’s saying my phone number is invalid but I typed it in all the ways I possibly could and none worked.

I paid $11.99, I sent four messages on the same day...nobody answered.

I contacted customer services and they told me to resend the messages...nobody answered, and those properties are not available...

I had to contact my bank to make sure they don't charge for another 5 days...

I signed up for the site and I have been getting nothing but scammers this site is no good if you give my number it to the people!

I paid roomster 14.98$ for a background check but never received a conformation/ but they took that money out of my account right away/ I still don't know if the background check was done? patrick.allen42@yahoo.com

I've been looking for a room on craigslist. When contacting a few of the too-good-to-be-true listings, I get a reply from some fake looking email address. The reply is a generic short copy-paste message with a link to sign onto Roomster.com for more information. The original listing was obviously copied from a real local ad.

Roomster is a scam beware
After they charged my credit card account they cancelled my account and ad within 2 days instead of 30 days.
I contacted my Bank and BBB to report them
BEWARE THEY ARE FRAUDS

They falsely market a 3 day trial to you for $5.95 and then as soon as the 3 days are up they will charge you $29.95

The listings are very suspicious -when you reach out they don't answer. Stay away and just use Craigslist, its a waste of money

They seem to have infiltrated Craigslist housing ads with real-seeming ads that prompt you to join Roomster.com upon which they will send emails to you where you have to pay to read the emails. They should be shut down. Straight-up phishing scam - surprised they aren't headquartered in Nigeria.

Customer rep admitted to this app. Wing a scam.