Defrauded by a Prometheus-owned property?

Hi,

I’m a tenant at a Prometheus owned property, and am looking for other people who were financially harmed by the actions of dishonest leasing staff at any Prometheus property. I will likely sue them in small claims court, but if we’re able to find an attorney with unfilled pro-bono quotas & people defrauded by Prometheus, we may have a class-action lawsuit. Not sure if the WA Attorney General would wanna help – seems unlikely. In case some attorney later tells me that I’d have better odds at a small claims court, then I wouldn’t sign up as a class representative.

My previous lease for a 1 BR apartment ended on Feb 24. I had been paying $3418 on a month-to-month tenancy. I was given an offer to sign up a 12 month lease at the same rate or pony up $3681/mo on a month-to-month tenancy. I refused the offer because they charge new tenants quite less than renewal offers.

On Feb 14, I signed up an application for a 10 month lease at 3371/mo online but the lease start date was March 7 (the 12 month rate was $3298/mo). I added comments about backdating the lease.

Employee A called me on Feb 14 & told me that she will have to ask someone in the leasing team (she probably made that up) if existing tenants can have new lease applications backdated instead of renewing their existing leases. She said she will get back to me in 1 or 2 days. That day finally arrived on Feb 24, even after following up at least 5 times over phone, as well as in-person (they told me over phone that only Employee A was aware of my lease situation, and that she was sick. I think they lied because when I visited in-person on Feb 23, Employee A was present at their office). She told me over phone on Feb 24 that they couldn’t offer me the 10 month lease for $3371/mo unless I move out & move back in. They count on existing tenants paying inordinate rents to avoid moving out. This way, they also save up on maintenance costs. She told me that I could go for an 11 month extension of my current lease at $3444/mo (I later forgot & wrote $3454 by mistake in an email. They’re so dishonest that they stuck to $3454). I initially rejected the offer & went for an extension of my move-out-date by paying pro-rated month-to-month rent at $3681/mo, but since the maintenance folks are hard-working, the following morning (on Feb 25), I decided to stay & expressed my intent to sign up an 11 month extension.

They told me they’d send me the new lease agreement soon but sent it to me on Feb 27. I was traveling & signed up the lease on Feb 28 without reading it through. The lease duration is actually arger than 11 months!!!! I emailed & they wrote, “Please keep in mind that not all months have 30–31 days, which is why the system-calculated end date to be February 5th”.

This is a lie! That’s not how their system works! For example, if you try signing up for a lease starting March 25, 2026 for a duration of 10 months, their system would show Jan 24, 2027 as the end-date! They lied & since they misrepresented the lease contract, I think I will prevail in a small claims court.

If you were also defrauded by leasing staff at a Prometheus property, please post & then we can ask big-shot lawyers with pro-bono targets if we are class representatives for a class-action lawsuit against Prometheus.

Thank you!