Do not do business with this guy! Steven Apuzzi, is a first class a*hole, and a crook.
Here's what happened - We saw an apartment on craig's list, and called Jeff, a realtor who works for Apuzzi. Saw the apartment, liked it, submitted an application and guarantor, were approved. We signed the lease and gave Jeff first and last months rent and his fee in the form of cashier's checks. He gave us a receipt. End of story, right?
The next day, I got a call from a branch of my bank. Someone had found one of my cashier's checks on the street. I called Jeff and he told me that Steven had lost our checks. LITERALLY DROPPED OUR MONEY ON THE STREET in midtown east.
The thing about cashier's checks is, they are basically cash, which is why landlords and Realtors want them. You can't cancel them. You can't get the money back unless no one cashes them after three months. So I called Steven, I told him that while legally, we had paid him and had a receipt and were under no obligation to pay him again, we were nice folks and would be happy to give him the check that was found. We would also be happy to sign something saying that we would re-issue him the second check in three months when we got the money back if no one cashed it.in the meantime, he would need to pay the landlord and get us into the apartment, as he was legally obligated to do.
He freaked out and YELLED AT ME FOR FIVE MINUTES and called me some pretty nasty things. He threatened to rip up our lease and checks, and rent the apartment to someone else, which is of course, ILLEGAL. He then hung up on me.
It was only after several more rounds of extremely unpleasant, threatening phone calls and after we threatened to go straight to the landlord and present our lease and receipt (leaving him out the entire amount and probably losing him his contract with that landlord), to lodge a complaint with the Realtor's association, and to sue him, that he finally decided to "be a nice guy" and sleazily proposed to do exactly what we suggested all along. He did not apologize, or offer to refund our fee.
Steven Apuzzi, is NOT TO BE TRUSTED. He is a mean, lying, unethical, unprofessional jerk, and you should NOT TAKE THE RISK OF DOING BUSINESS WITH HIM.
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