Roomster
Reviews and Complaints

I am Maxwell.I don't think ever that room can be rented from website.I search to google for renting room then I see roomster.com.I submit my location and budget and I get my preferable room.So I tell everyone to use roomster.com.Its customer service was great. Thanks roomster.com

Roomster is a well documented fraudulent company and I fell for their scam. Like all the other complaints and scams I have seen logged against them online, my biggest complaint is that they keep charging my credit card with ever asking me. They did it for 3 months until I finally realized it on my bank statements. When I requested they refund my money, I got no answers and no replies. I tried calling the company but it exists in the cloud and they do not have a phone which some picks up. The worst part was that when I was on the site I kept getting emails from scammers trying to get me to send them money. Classic scam site. Do not use this company and spread the word about how bad they are. The ceo of roomster is John Shriber and it seems like he has a lot of people online that think he is a bad person. I wont judge a man before I meet him, but the writting is already on the wall (internet) and if he the one doing these scams he should go to prison. I found a photo of him that I attached to this report.

Roomster is a total scam. I was charged illegally on my credit card and when i tried to reach someone online, by phone, or customer service I got standard pre-loaded replies. I think this site is set up to take peoples money. I googled the company after I got scammed and of course there like 5000 complaints about this site calling them scammers and outlining the exact same thing I got ripped off for. I also found this great facebook page that has a 4000+ likes that is called "Roomster is a Scam". Wish I had seen all this public information about them before i signed up. I think John Shriber is the CEO. Someone should have him looked into because its clear that this guy runs a shaddy operation. Stay away from this company if you can. Its bad news and bad business.

I paid for a 2 week subscription for $14.95 and yesterday I was charged $29.9 for renewing which I NEVER authorized. Apparently, they say you renew when they send you a message saying you have new messages you and you open it by returning to their site. They refused to refund me so I filed a BBB complaint and plan on continuing to blast them on the NET. Thankfully, Roommates. com is a better site and I had found a roommate on there.

My experience was identical to all the others, I signed up for the 3 day sample at 5.95, and10 minutes later filed a complaint with paypal. then canceled my membership 48 hrs later and they charged me an additional $29.95. Clearly they bait, "marks" with a short term membership then charge everyone for an additional higher term membership, regardless of them canceling in time or not. I PLAN TO FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND FTC AND ANY OTHER AGENCY WITH JURISDICTION. IS IT TIME TO GO FOR A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT HERE? WHO' WITH ME? [protected]@gmail.com

You need to pay 5 bucks to see any replies or messages from your post for 3 days (3 day subscription) and don't be fooled, after the three days if you have not canceled your account already they will charge 29.99 to your credit card on file without checking in with you or asking permission!

Unethical, should be sued by everyone this has happened too.

They provide multiple options for subscription lengths and then automatically extend your subscription to the maximum subscription length after your subscription ends. Totally misleading and very BAD BUSINESS! Not to mention, they can do this up to three times. I am appalled by their customer service as well. Emails received regarding this issue were not helpful and were rude. NOT A SATISFIED CUSTOMER!

Major ripoff! I paid $50 for 2 months to advertise a room in my home. The place I was renting was a great deal and a great setup. I got almost not inquires. When ever I e-mailed a perspective tenant, 95% of them could not respond to my e-mail because they didn't pay $25 to Roomster. I presumed that they could respond to me because I paid the $. I think Roomster does this to keep people enrolled on the site. It costed me time and took me 5 weeks to realize what was happening. This is truly a scam... try to learn from my mistake...don't go with Roomster! I was able to rent using Craigs List in 3 days and had over 8 inquiries.

I agree with all other reviews on this page. It prompts you to sign up for what you believe to be a short term subscription and then "automatically renews" you for 30 days and charges your card $30. It is in the fine print of the terms and agreement you must check the box to before your account is active. I'm too damn polite to put in words what I think of this crap, but it is the first time I have written a complaint or review about anything. I would love to see roomster offline.

I can't believe they charge you to read your messages! They lure you into thinking theres a so-called "free basic" service, & once you get an email/reply for a potential roommate, they block you from reading it by stating you have to upgrade and pay...I am not going to give these ### my information, I can't believe I opened up a profile, so bogus. Worst, some Spammer from Craigslist sent me a link when I posted an Ad for Wanted Roomshare...

DON'T FALL FOR IT, DON'T GIVE THEM YOUR INFORMATION!

As with other customers who have reviewed Roomster, I signed up for a month and ended up paying for three until I noticed and cancelled. Unlike other sites that let you know that if you don't cancel you're subscription you'll automatically be enrolled in monthly payments, there is no such statement on the Roomster payment page.

Finally, the reason I cancelled is that I noticed that I was double-charged for one month. I contacted customer service to dispute the second charge and they basically said that they didn't charge me twice. I offered to send them a copy of my credit card statement, but they just kept insisting they only charged me once. I ended up filing a dispute through my credit card company.

As for the actual services, none of the emails I got matched the filters I set up. I was looking for a very specific rooming situation, and instead I just got blasted by a bunch of people with properties to unload. Craigslist was infinitely more helpful in the roommate search.

To sum it all up: The site will not help you find a roommate, the payment details are shady, and the customer service is basically non-existent. Stay away.

I called the phone number listed for this company because of the problems connecting to the website and logging in, and a lady answered with a loud "Hello". So I thought I may have had the wrong number. Is this a company run out of someone's garage or something?

Do not use this "service". All of what you are reading here is true. They are as villainous and shady as any predatory financial lender you've ever heard of. You sign up for a temporary membership, and are then socked with a $29.95 monthly membership a couple of weeks later. After pleading with customer service regarding my dire financial situation, I received a snarky email from a rep who relished letting me know I "agreed" to this subscription.

Do not use this site! It is a scam site. I agreed to a 3 day subscription, and after the 3 days $30 was taken out of my bank. I was never notified. I ask for my money back since I never agreed to this, and was told I should have read the fine print. Don't even deal with this site. I have only good things to say about roommates.com, and have found many reputable roommates. I am out $30 from this site and I just want other people to not lose their hard earned money.

Stay clear of roomster! The whole website purely revolves around deception and ripping you off, after filling in a huge and mostly pointless form you have to pay to use the service then the real joke is that its worse than all of the free ones like spareroom.com and easyroommate! Absolutely useless website for what it is then on top of that they automatically set you up with a direct debit and charge you double the starting price every month - all without telling you! Don't know about you but i'd call that fraud. You'd be an absolute idiot to use roomster and you'd be guaranteed to be ripped off, this company should be shut down.

My husband signed up for a 3 day trial offer for 5.95 using my credit card, my card was charged 5.95 and 29.95 on 4/5/10. We did not authorize this transaction of 29.95. When i tried to contact the company i couldn't find a address nor telephone number and i was to contact help desk whom responded The information below is available for your records and may also be available to your financial institution upon request.

On two separate occasions you had agreed to the Terms of Use: on 3/31/2010 10:02:54 AM EST on the Registration Page (see screenshot #1) and on 4/2/2010 8:07:09 PM EST on the Payment Page (see screenshot #2) where you were informed that your Roomster subscription would continue and be automatically renewed until canceled by you. It also shows the renewal rates for the packages available to you on 4/2/2010 8:07:09 PM EST.

All Sales are final and all Roomster accounts can only be closed by the account holder through the procedure described above. We do not accept cancellations by e-mail.

As a former user of Roomster, I would strongly suggest that you do NOT join their service. They charge a nominal fee to use their most important tools (namely messaging other users)...which is an ethically dubious practice, considering that Roomster sells advertising on their site. Roomster will also surreptitiously CHARGE A SUBSCRIPTION FEE of approx. $30 without you knowing. Asking for a refund is a hassle; do yourself a favor and don't even sign up. Craigslist works fine without the headaches.

As other complaints have said, Roomster.com engages in some shady business practices. I signed up for a 3-day trial for $5.95 so that I could read a message that had been sent to me via another user on the site about a possible share they had available. What I didn't realize is that if you don't cancel your 3-day subscription within that time period they automatically renew your subscription-except at a higher monthly rate of $29.95. Roomster.com claims they do this so that your membership service privileges don't become "interrupted". I can almost buy that if they automatically renewed your subscription at the same rate you originally signed up. I find it ridiculous that Roomster.com automatically renews customer membersips at its highest, most profitable rate. Technically this information is listed in the "Terms Agreement" section that you must acknowledge read before moving up to a paid membership; I realize this releases Roomster.com of any legal wrong doing by stating in the Agreement that the website will automatically renew ANY subscription at the highest monthly rate of $29.95. However, almost no one is going to spend the time to read such a lengthy document, which brings me back to my original argument that Roomster.com does not use ethical business practices. The site itself was decent to use; I can't say I found anyone on there to live with and essentially paid $36.00 to read one message that said they had already found another roommate but the site was functional. All in all, I will NEVER use this site again and will tell anyone I know who is considering it to never sign up for it. I will go out of my way to make sure Roomster.com receives less business.

Went through the same thing as others. Signed up for the trial period then was charged the $30. As much as that hurt my bank account (i am not working and attempting to relocate from Missouri to DC so every penny counts) I can only be made at myself for not looking up reviews beforehand and not paying attention to the fine print :( At least roommates.com doesn't automatically renew your subscription.

Buyer Beware! Use your credit card wisely and be sure to read the contract before you accept!

Briefly, evidently I (like many others) did not realize that Roomater has an iron-clad clause written into their Internet contract which automatically renews a one month fee charged to your credit card. Originally I only signed up for a 2-week plan of 14.95. During this period of time I realized that the Roomster services were not designed for my needs. I was simply receiving too many scam contacts, as well as unqualified people making contact with me. At the end of the original 2-week period, I never used the services. Then I noticed that my credit card was charged an additional $29.95. I immediately began contacting their repulsive Help Desk and leaving telephone messages with their Customer answering machine. Each time I have respectfully and clearly explained my misunderstanding of their policy and requested a refund. To date, I am always met with either; no response, automated form replies and no refund. This is truly a company that does not deserve to have honest people utilizing their services. It is unlikely that I will receive a refund and I want to warn those of you reading this to simply beware!

Roomster DOES NOT offer any customer satisfaction guarantee …

They could care less if you are satisfied with the service you are receiving from their roommate website. In fact, their customer service is really the worst I have ever encountered!