Woman baffled upon discovering she was sending her rent to the wrong person for 13 months

Paying rent to a homeowner through Venmo might sound like a common thing, but what if it goes to the wrong person and that keeps happening for over a year? That's exactly what happened to Kody Lynn who goes by @lizzywithaglizzy on TikTok. Lynn shared her ordeal on the platform. She began her video by saying, "Put a finger down if you've been Venmo-ing 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."

She continued, "You've actually never Venmo'd your landlord. Um, and that person never told you that you were Venmo-ing the wrong person and your landlord never realized that you weren't paying your rent." Lynn went on to share that she had paid $18,508 to a random financial advisor in Ohio and he claimed his heroin addict sister had spent all of the money. She said that her landlord was now insisting on getting all the money back right away. "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," she concluded.

The video garnered over three million views on TikTok and captioned, "I wish it was April 1st unfortunately it is now." People in the comments advised Lynn on what she could do. @hamber.111 commented, "Nah, get a lawyer. The fact that they didn't inform you for 12 months that they weren't receiving a payment from you in itself is wild. This sounds super sketchy. Landlord seems to be broke." @aminahfirdous wrote, "If you can go 13 months without noticing you're not receiving rent, maybe you don't need the money asap and can give the girl enough time to figure it out. I don't know, maybe even set up a payment plan." @jaylabank5 expressed, "This is making no sense! If you paid for the deposit and the first month of rent, why would they not say something upon not receiving it? Plus, they would have sent you an eviction notice if they weren't receiving it."

In a follow-up video, Lynn addresses the confusion, concerns and questions regarding what happened. She explained that the apartment was originally a house converted into apartments and there are different owners for different units. She shared that she had never met the house owner and it was the property manager whom she had referred to as the landlord in the last video. "The property manager showed me the unit, he told me you are going to Venmo your security deposit, you are going to Venmo your first month's rent payment and you are going to send it to the owner," she said. She then shared that her property manager had sent her the details of the Venmo account she was supposed to send the money to.

Lynn defended herself by saying that both the names were very similar and she had gotten one letter wrong. "I sent the security deposit and my first month's rent and I texted the property manager, 'Payment sent.'" Then, the property manager gave her the keys and she moved in. Following this, she continued to pay the wrong person for 13 months. It was only recently that the property manager contacted her and told her that her $7200 had bounced. She clarified that she never sent a cheque to them and the landlord apologized to her, saying it was somebody else. Meanwhile, Lynn sent him a screenshot of all the rent payments she had been making and he told her that she had been sending money to the wrong person.

In another follow-up, she shared that she went on Venmo immediately and texted the person she had been sending the money to. "Pray to God that this is some old man, someone grandpa, who has a Venmo randomly and he has never spent the money and he is going to see this money come through and he is going to send this money back," she expressed. However, that's not what happened. The individual immediately returned the last amount she had sent and told her he would call and sort this out.

She said the man told her that one of his relatives had passed away and he thought that the payment had to do with the death. "He then says that multiple people have access to this Venmo and he has asked people if they have taken out the money and they told him, 'No,'" she recounted. He then told her that his sister, a heroin addict, might have taken out the money and spent it. "The guy tells me this is how I can afford to pay you back and I tell him, 'I appreciate that,' but that is not going to work for me as my landlord wants the money now."

Later, Lynn told the property manager that she was ready to pay six months' rent and would continue to pay the rent for the coming months and return the money as the individual paid her back. He said that he would talk to the house owner and that he was a reasonable person. But unfortunately, the next day, she received an email from the house owner that she had to pay six months' rent now and had 60 days to pay the rest of it.

In the final video, she shared that she is a law student and has no money. She spoke to a lawyer about the situation and decided to move out of the house. Lynn shared that the moment she told the house owner that she was moving out, they emailed her saying that she could pay them six months' rent and they could figure out the rest. However, Lynn wasn't up for that, as she was not going to stay in the apartment. "My new offer is I will pay it to them as this man returns it to me. Of course, they were not happy with that," she said. She added that they could 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," she said. She ended the video by saying that the last she heard from the property manager was that they were not agreeing with the offer she sent and were moving forward with the lawsuit.

You can follow Kody Lynn (@kizzywithaglizzy) on TikTok for more content on her life.