As someone who has apartment searched many times in New York City, I thought this was useful information to anyone in an apartment search. It's hard enough to figure out whether you want to deal with a broker, to search through "no broker fee" ads only to find out there IS a broker fee, and to spend several days wandering around the city looking at closets. It's hard enough doing all this without a company like Gotham City Apartments "helping" you.
They go by MANY NAMES:
ABX Master List
Gotham City Apartments
Landlords Direct.com, Inc.
ML One
ML1
Much More Listings
Time Life Roommates
Transworld Roommate Service
And have many numbers:
212-929-9899
212-367-9495
212-243-6999
212-675-2129
They post ads A LOT in the Voice, the Voice online classifieds, possibly the Post, and a few other online sources such as lootusa.com. They have been banned from NY Times, the NY Press, and AM New York. I urge everyone to avoid doing business with this company.
I could go on and on into extensive detail on their business practices, but here are the basics:
They claim to provide listings that they have compiled based on long standing landlord relationships but in reality
provide a list of apartments that are easily found on craigslist and other free resources many of their listings have already been rented or the prices or locations are wrong Post to good to be true ads in the Village Voice, to entice you to subscribe to their service. These apartments do not exist... Well maybe they exist but not in their lists. This is an illegal form of bait and switch advertising.
Hang up on you or don't call you back when you ask why you can't find their Voice ads in their listings or when you ask about a refund.
They have an exceedingly poor reputation:
They have a bad reputation with Better Business and go by several names. See their BBB Report here They have been profiled on Fox5 Problem Solvers and CBS's Shame on You Segments for their poor business practices Their license to provide a listing service, an Apartment Information Vendor License, is expired and they are under investigation by the State of NY. They are legally not licensed to provide this kind of service.
They will lie about this.
Their Village Voice Ads Follow this format:
5th St E/2nd Ave. Pre-War Huge STU w / Cali. Kitch, Sun Drenched $1025; Str. Views, D/W, H/w Flrs, hi ceil. AAP 212-243-6999 NO FEE
They may also use the tag GCA or ML instead of AAP. Obviously very compelling ads. It should be very easy to pick these out.
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