On September 15, a federal judge in Miami wrote a sentence that every property manager who has ever created a login for a vendor should read twice. In a lawsuit between three leasing software companies, the court found that RentEngine had obtained access to a competitor's platform through "fraud in the factum": it got in by posing as an ordinary user when it was in fact a competitor.
That is one line from a long case, and it decided a narrow question. But it is worth understanding, because the way the access allegedly happened runs straight through the accounts of property managers like you.
What the court decided in ShowMojo v. RentEngine, and what it did not
The parties are ShowMojo and Tenant Turner on one side and Threshold Technology, which does business as RentEngine, and its CEO on the other. ShowMojo and Tenant Turner sued in May 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. In August 2025 the court entered a preliminary injunction that bars RentEngine from reaching password-protected areas of either platform, directly or through anyone else. That order is still in place.
The September ruling came on RentEngine's motion to send the dispute to arbitration. To decide that, the court had to look at how RentEngine had agreed to ShowMojo's terms of use in the first place, and it found the agreement was obtained by deception about who was signing up. On that basis it ordered ShowMojo's claims into arbitration and paused Tenant Turner's claims in federal court until the arbitration is done.
Two things the ruling does not do. It does not decide whether RentEngine is liable for anything, and it does not award damages. ShowMojo and Tenant Turner said so themselves in the statement they published on September 30: the findings were made for the purpose of deciding the arbitration question, and the underlying claims have not been decided. The case number is 1:25-cv-22939 and the order is on PACER.
How RentEngine's access allegedly worked
According to the two companies, RentEngine asked some of its own customers, property managers who also used ShowMojo or Tenant Turner, to create user accounts inside their existing accounts and hand those accounts to RentEngine. RentEngine then used them to see the password-protected parts of a competitor's product.
Read that again from the property manager's side. Nobody broke a lock. Somebody who already had a key cut a copy for a third party. The companies say their investigation has not found RentEngine reaching other customers' data, which is the best news in the story. But the customers who created those accounts were, whether they understood it or not, the way in.
Why this lands on a property manager's desk
Every leasing tool you run sits on an account you own. Your PMS, your showing software, your lockbox provider, your calendars. Each of those accounts has terms you accepted, and most of them say who is allowed to use it. When a vendor asks you to make them a user inside another vendor's product, you are the one doing the asking as far as that product is concerned.
Most of the time the request is innocent and useful. Integrations need access, and the proper ones come through a door the other vendor built for the purpose: an API key, an official integration, a partner program, a documented export. The difference is whether the second vendor knows who is on the other end and has agreed to it.
Four questions for any leasing vendor who wants in
- How exactly will you connect to my other systems? The answer should name the mechanism. "Through their integration" or "with an API key you generate" is a real answer. "Just add us as a user" deserves a follow-up.
- Whose credentials will you use, and who will know? Access you grant in your own name is your responsibility. A vendor that wants to be invisible to another vendor is asking you to carry that risk.
- What will you do with what you can see? Your rent rolls, your prospects, your renters' messages. A clear scope beats a broad one.
- What happens when we part ways? Access should end the day the contract does, and you should be able to confirm it.
If a vendor cannot answer these in plain language, the product may still be good. The relationship is not.
Where Tallo stands
Tallo connects to the tools you already run, and we do it in the open. During setup we connect your PMS and calendars with your knowledge, for your account, through the channels those products provide, and we tell you what Tallo can see and why. When something falls outside the rules you set, Tallo asks you rather than guessing, and the same principle holds for access: if we do not have a clear, agreed way into a system, we do not go in. You can read the lines we will not cross on the About page.
We built Tallo for the part of leasing nobody has time for: the first replies, the scheduling, the follow-up, the screening. Taking that work off your plate should never mean taking liberties with your accounts, or with anyone else's. For the longer version of what that looks like after hours, start with 24/7 apartment lead response that fills units.
Sources: ShowMojo and Tenant Turner's statement of September 30, 2026, distributed by GlobeNewswire; the docket in ShowMojo, LLC and Tenant Turner, Inc. v. Threshold Technology, LLC d/b/a RentEngine and Alexander Stringfellow, No. 1:25-cv-22939 (S.D. Fla.), including the court's order of April 23, 2026 denying a stay of discovery. The description of RentEngine's conduct reflects the plaintiffs' allegations and the court's finding on the arbitration question; liability has not been decided.
