I opened my buisness Sept of this year. I took credit and debit card slips and did not know how to get them into my account.
Money Tree Merchant Services of Virginia Beach Va. Sent me a card in the mail. To say I was feeling a little overwhelmed is to say the least.
They sent one of their reps to my shop and he gave me his sales pitch. 1.7% on credit cards and 1.35 for debit with only 9 cents per transaction.
All of this for NO money down. Money Tree would only charge me $45.95 a month for the epuipment for two years at which time I could buy for only one dollar.
I will be the first to say this was a stupid move on my part. Bills were starting to come in and I needed the money from all the sales I had done for those three weeks.
This rep marked me down as having sales of $13000.00 a month. Wow if I had those kind of sales I would have just paid for the equipment right then and there.
He also marked me as having average sale at $150.00. I did the what most would do and asked the same questions over and over. What else is there I need to know. It all looked great at the time.
A couple of days later I received a new credit card machine along with a check machine. I thought I was all set. Little did I know.
Now I go online and start checking my buisness acct. An I have been overdrawn twice. Which was a $40.00 charge from the bank. No one even gave my credit to even get in my acct before they started taking their money out.
I finally caught on to what was going on. Found out that Lease Finance Group was debiting my acct $51.48 a month and I had know idea who they even were.
I called my bank to see who was debiting my acct they could give me a name but not an address or phone number. Then I received a debit bill from Money Tree merchant services. So I called the number that was listed. I got Merchant Services.
The so called $45.95 a month was to Merchant Services for processing. I finally got the telephone number to Lease Finance Group. I called them and asked them why they were in my acct. I was told that I was leasing my equipment through them.
When I signed up with Money Tree NO mention was ever made about a finance company. I have been there before. So the lady and I had some words. She just kept saying that I had signed a contract and there was nothing I could do about it.
I just asked her one simple question Why would I finance a $300.00 piece of equipment for $2500.00.
So today since I didn't have a physical address to send the equipment back to I thought hey why not take it to the one that
got me in this mess.
So I called and was given the physical address of 4239 Holland Rd va beach va. Well I knew where that was so I drove the 45 minutes to take this mess back to the source.
When I got there I had been given the address of a shopping center. There was no buisness establishment for money tree. So I picked up my cell and gave the buisness that didn't have a physical address a call.
He and I had a few choice words. Bare bones is that I gave him 48 hours to get my company out of the mess he and his company had caused. If not well here the television stations love to get involved in how scam artist take advantage of the miniorty but also the disabled.
Now I know where I messed up. An I am more than willing to take my licks. But if I take them then so will both of those companies.
Thanks
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