Roomie: Roommates & Rentals

I am an active duty Servicemember. The last time I moved to a new duty station 5 years ago, I was able to find a roommate in 3 days using this app, so when I got to the one I am currently in, I was expecting it to be fairly easy and fast to find a roommate this time. I was given 10 days in a hotel by the military to find a place to live, and I put in multiple messages to listings in my area hoping that I would get a response in a few days, which never came. By day 4 I had no response and about 8 messages sent out to people advertising rooms. By day 6 I started feeling a panic, as in 4 days my stay in the hotel would expire and my wife and I would be essentially homeless without a place to stay. I gave up, applied for base housing and now ultimately have solved that problem by myself, but in the process of applying I noticed that I had over 20 emails from Roomie in my spam folder. These emails were informing me I had new messages, but I didn’t have any in the app itself. I clicked on the link in the email to view the message and it took me to a paywall. At no point was I clearly notified by the app that I would not be able to view, possibly even send, messages without payment or a subscription. As members of the military may know, time spent in a hotel ultimately comes out of the travel fund that if we don’t spend all of, we receive. I will not receive about $800 due to the delay I was in a hotel actively messaging listings and searching for a place to stay. Do not use Roomies, use base housing or the required housing assistance office on base. Additionally if you do want to use Roomies, read into the recent $1.6 million class action lawsuit that was filed against the LLC for shady and deceptive business practices, specifically generating false and inactive listings for the perception of local activity and paying an external source to generate hundreds of thousands of stellar reviews for the app. I am considering legal action.

When looking for a roommate, there’s no ability to filter for people who have added profile images or descriptions which means you have to look through a lot of informationless accounts. Also, ‘find a roommate’ feed feels more like a dating site. Few people actually post descriptions that let you get to know them and there are very few images that let you get to know the person and I did not encounter a single video. The UI is super buggy. I spent an hour writing a description for our apartment and had to switch to my browser really quick to validate a link I was adding and my entire description disappeared. Also, I could not see where I was typing half the time because my keyboard blocked the view and the magnification tool was not working for the same reason. Also, being asked if you’re comfortable with LQBTQ is odd. I can see why it would be included but that information is just publically displayed. If someone wasn’t comfortable with LGBTQ, people of that community just shouldn’t see apartments that don’t accept LGBTQ and renters shouldn’t see LGBTQ when searching for roommates. Otherwise it’s a huge breach of privacy.

The app works like any social network app, but it’s pretty buggy, I tried to watch ads so I could message ppl instead of paying a dollar every time, after watching the ads the app would get messed up and have to reboot itself, so I never got to message anyone, maybe paying for the premium would make it better?? But if that’s the case it’s kind of whack that the app doesn’t work unless you pay for it. The premium features they listed should be what you pay for, not the basic function of literally opening it and using it.