Wow. So many trolls. I'm the author, forgot to sign in when I posted it. First, I live in Northern Virginia, not DC, although I'm not far from it. There aren't people banging on the door to get in here, though. Second, it's an apartment complex so no bank or mortgage involved. Third, I had been sick in the hospital for most of the past 3 weeks. So my rent was 2 days late due to illness. I paid the late fee of $200 dollars without a complaint. (Most late fees are only $50 in comparison.) I simply misread the amount of the late fee. The $6.25 seemed to be an admin fee of sorts. They absolutely had the power to cut me some slack since it's such a small amount. It's just a poorly run office. Fourth, VA isn't very nice to renters as a rule. They absolutely could've gone to the courthouse and gotten a '5 day pay or quit' notice. Which means if I didn't pay, on day 6 a sheriff's deputy would have showed up at my door and forcibly removed me, my daughter and our belongings. As an aside, homeowners in VA who get evicted are given about a week, not 30-60 days to move. Fifth, I desperately wanted to pay it in pennies. But they wouldn't even accept a personal check. It had to be a cashiers check or money order. So yes, I had to drive crosstown to the Walmart with the working money order machine and pay an additional 70 cents for a money order. Finally, when I turned in my rent + $200 late fee the man behind the desk made me wait while he opened the envelope and checked to see if the amount was correct. He told me it was fine so I thanked him for his time and left, thinking all was okay. They waited until 3 full days later to tell me about the 6.25, never admitting that the guy behind the desk had given me the wrong information and told me everything was okay, when it clearly wasn't. I had one business day to get it handled and I had a lot of important stuff going on that I had to put on hold bc of their incompetence. And yes, I will be writing to the higher ups to complain about it. To the poster who asked, I think I will write my next rent check in ******* dollars and goddamn cents. To all the trolls saying I'm trying to take advantage, I sincerely hope you never make an honest mistake after being sick in the hospital for 3 weeks.

Huh, didn't think this would make it. Neat. Thanks for the birthday wishes! To clear a few things up: 1. I started getting birthday wishes from ID checkers a week before my birthday and for a few days after, during which time I went on a couple beer runs for my roommate, bought a bottle of wine for a family dinner, had a weekly girls' night out with some coworkers and, yes, went barhopping with a friend on the day of. 2. I only got Facebook because my college required it and didn't bother filling in the information other than schooling. 3. I'm not one of those people who reminds everyone about their birthday five times a day for two weeks, and I track friends' birthdays on my iPod calendar. Also, I'm a bit of a workaholic and tend to forget events if they don't affect my work schedule (thus the calendar) and didn't actually realize my birthday was coming up until it was mentioned on one of said aforementioned beer runs. 4. Partly due to a lack of FB and other social networking, most of my friends are either from work or people I was really close to in high school and chose to keep in contact with via phone or e-mail (I'm an old person in a 25-year old body. I knit too!). Also guildmates, but I don't think that counts. Hope this helps!

op here. the first fee was a 12 d9llar maintenance fee after I had "closed the account" it was then followed up by multiple extended overdraft fees for 35 dollars each. there wasn't anything that was auto drafting from the account.

It was actually a small family event with only 20 guests, so he really didn't have to look after a huge crowd. And I was the only one in a big white dress :)