University Crossings — Local services in Philadelphia

The building itself is ok. There's a game room and gym, and the front desk security is usually friendly. There are some nice finishings installed in the apartments, but it's all to make the place look good on the surface. The problems started from when we moved in. The bedroom furniture was in the living room, the couch was all over the apartment in pieces, and the entire place was covered in dirt and grime from the previous tenants. At this point, 10 months into the lease, the kitchen sink doesn't drain properly, the walls are paper thin (I can hear every part of my neighbors conversations, when their phone buzzes, and the walls shake when they move), some bedrooms don't have windows, the furniture is cheap and the couch doesn't stay put together (the pieces all separate whenever someone sits on it), lighting is only set up in the kitchen and bathroom, the shower hasn't drained properly all year, whenever a maintenance request is filed there is a 50% chance it won't even be responded to, AND you're being charged a ridiculous amount of money to share a bedroom. For the same price, I could get a nice one bedroom apartment on or extremely close to campus.

Recently I went to pay online because I was out of state for a week and started the process before midnight. Because of an error when I initially tried to make the payment and having to go back through and refill everything the payment didn't end up being made until 12:30 am on Wednesday when the rent was due by the end of Tuesday. I went to set up an account at the beginning of the year for automatic payments, but I wasn't able to and continuously received an error message. When I went into the leasing office they couldn't figure it out, so I have had to pay a 20 dollar fee as a guest payment as I'm almost never home because I can't sleep in the room with the noise my neighbors make. It's extremely frustrating to deal with paying a fee for the guest payment system that has crashed on multiple occasions, pay a fee to pay my rent, and then have a late fee added on because the payment was 30 minutes late. I was charged late fees after emailing UCross to tell them I was in the hospital, and unable to come in with a check, and I shut up and paid those even though it was physically impossible for me to get in to bring in a check. Making payments with the system ACC has set up has been a problem for me all year, and I sincerely hope you fix it. It's the largest reason I will not be returning to University Crossings next year, and I pray that no one else has to deal with it because it's an extremely costly inconvenience to residents already being overcharged for rent in a sub-par apartment. I've dealt with it because of the lease I'm locked into, but I'm too frustrated with the system to just sit by and shell over more money without at least...

Although I only live in UCrossings, this probably will reflect any American Campus Communities Building on Drexel's Campus. Also Disclosure: They are giving a $10 Amazon gift card to me for this review.

Pros: Semi-large apartment, cheaper per-month than dorms, comes furnished, MOST appliances are good quality, built in gym, package hours are mostly all day, right near all of the engineering buildings, bug/rodent free (but that should be a given), small food events in the lobby are nice every once in a while Cons: You are not allow to see your room type before you lease it (Imagine leasing a car, but not being able to see pictures of it except a top down pencil drawing. And then, they tell you the pencil drawing is not to scale, and each car may have different features depending on the random one they give you [sunroofs, backup camera, bluetooth, idk] BUT you are expected to pay the same no matter what the price, dimensions, etc) Multiple fire drills a week @2AM To this day there have been heating issues in most apartments, and some (as I have heard) are still not resolved small water heaters inside the apartment (not only do you not have enough hot water for 2 showers, but you pay for this off of your own "included" electric) $100 electric budget per month is never enough and they are never transparent (they always charge extra money a month, and you never know how many KWH you are over. Just a bill that you are supposed to "trust") rent for the same room goes up $15-20 a month every year (EX. My apartment went from 850 to 870 for the next year with no added value for that increase) apartments aren't properly cleaned between someone moving out and moving in (I expect everything to be pristine when I move in for the price) dishwasher is terrible quality, has trouble cleaning any size load of dishes "early-bird" rates are just advertising pressure, you are not getting a lower rate at all laundry is expensive, and there are only 3 washers & 3 dryers per floor study rooms have the worst WiFi coverage in the building (to the point where you cannot access the internet in those rooms) I lease the space I'm in and yet there is a limit to the amount of people I can have visit (~4) as well as the length they can stay (3 nights). I cannot have a person there for more than three days (Family visiting from another state would be troublesome with that limit) Elevators constantly break and feel/sound as if they will drop you from 9 floors up Website to auto-pay rent looks as if a Freshman Drexel student built it. Makes the Equifax website look good They leave a canned response to critical reviews to look as if they will change these things, but in reality, things...

[Edited after calling "Customer Service" read below] Really disappointed. Definetly not worse the money. Room without a window and without any light. Was tricked by a girl to take over her lease, now being traped in an 6 month lease instead of a 3 month lease. It is NOT possible to take over just a spring lease you have to take spring and summer... They don't tell you in advance that there are various additional costs. I have to pay 350$ to release the room, paying the lease has a fee of 20$. Increased my lease from 839$ to 849$ without telling me. At the end it would have been cheaper and easier to take an hotel for this time...

[Added: After calling ACC] I called the number of the so-called "Customer Service Team" as the message seemed that they really care about their residents.

I am even more disappointed. The woman on the phone told me she feels sorry about my situation and writes down everything I mention to get stuff changed, but that does not help me at all. It felt like they don't care as long as they get their money.

As I got tricked and the incompetent staff of American campus community did not provide me enough information to find out myself that I get tricked, makes them also responsable. The woman told me they can do nothing about it because it's a contract. In my opinion they can: If both sides want to end a contract it would fine. BUT they don't WANT to because it is all about MONEY NOT SERVICE.

To make sure they really work on it, here are more point I mentioned: Had to sign addittional paper about the 350$ when ariving, didn’t tell me before, AND didn't not give me the time to read the paper before signing Study area next to elevator, to loud to study there, light is turning off after a few minutes, How can a student study under these conditions giving false information about number of people living in the apartment will staying there Staff coming in our apartment without real knocking 3 of 4 elevators broken for...