On May 1st John Sabino of Merchant's Choice Credit Card Services (an affiliate of Woodforest Bank of Texas) entered my wife's salon in Enterprise, Alabama and offered credit card processing that would be cheaper than what she already had and you guys know the rest of the story.
It looks like our fraudulent lease with MBF is about to be cancelled at our request because we went through the necessary channels to do so. First of all, like many people out there my wife never saw any sort of lease (not even the first page) of a binding contract with MBF/Northern Leasing. A couple of weeks after a pin pad was placed by John Sabino as part of what he called a trial period with Woodforest Bank at my wife's shop, we received an copy of the forged lease with a letter stating that we did not insure the piece of equipment. As I mentioned earlier we never had seen a lease until this moment. It was clear that the two signatures were obvious fakes.
I contacted MBF Leasing and told them our story. They sent us documentation to file a claim of forgery and they also requested that we fill out a police report before they would even consider our claim.
I think it is very important for you to understand that you must file a police report naming the salesman as the guilty party because he/she is in fact the one who is trained by the many companies associated with MBF/Northern Leasing/LGF Lease Finance to scam people. The guy who set up my wife's account and the subsequent fake lease with MBF is very personable and seems to be honest but he is not.
These guys are trained to deceive! Again, the only way to get anywhere with MBF without suing them directly is to file a police report naming the salesman as the one committing the crime. Suing MBF is nearly impossible since they are one large company with 500,000 leases or more with smaller "subsidiaries" controlling the many aspects of a very sneaky leasing business.
In a follow up report on Northern Leasing, ABC News of New York stated that one of higher ups working for Northern Leasing is a former judge who got the boot for laundering money for the mob.
I have spent countless hours reading court documents and researching the many faces of MBF/Northern Leasing and here is how the company operates:
Northern Leasing/MBF Leasing offers lucrative compensation to salesmen who work for various credit card processing companies to set up leases which are unbreakable.in many cases the merchant never sees a lease of any kind or only the first page at best. (My wife never saw any lease at all). If the salesman cannot secure a signature from the merchant; he/she or a supervisor forges the signature.
Remember, these salesmen are making most of their money from compensation from Northern Leasing and not so much from the bank providing the processing of credit cards.
Northern Leasing/MBF Leasing now have another company by the name of LGF Lease Finance to provide the financing for the equipment that they are leasing.in other words, the leasing company gets financed by another leasing company to further confuse merchants trying to resolve fraudulent leases.
Since Northern Leasing is not permitted to sell insurance in the state of New York, they have another company provide the dreaded insurance that everyone seems to get stuck with because they never had access to a lease agreement stating that insurance is required.
MBF/Northern Leasing then offer very nice incentives to salespeople who set up credit card processing for banks but ultimately make their money sticking merchants with dreadful leases. Woodforest Bank of Texas is fully aware of the tactics of their salesmen.
When I explained what happened to my wife a representative distanced Woodforest from MCCS (Merchant's Choice Card Services) even though their website and business cards identify them as one in the same. She stated that credit card processing is a highly competitive field like selling cars and that the salesmen sometimes take shortcuts to make a sale.
Currently Northern Leasing is tied up in the courts of New York in which they are the defendants for the multitude of fraud charges that they are facing. Had it not been for this pending litigation, I am afraid that MBF would not have been so quick to accept our claim of forgery but MBF has credited my wife's account as of yesterday for a portion of the lease payments already made.
As a matter of fact, an individual called yesterday telling stating that the insurance on our electronic equipment was about to expire (due to what appears to be a lease cancellation) and tried to trick my wife into continuing with the overpriced pin pad insurance. Another sneaky dirt bag in this whole con that has been set up to con thousands of merchants.
Again, let me urge you to follow through with terminating your leases if they are in fact fraudulent. Contact MBF and request a forgery claim packet if in fact a forgery occurred. Then file a police report naming the individual who stuck you with the lease as the perpetrator. Be polite with MBF in all of your dealings and hopefully they will do what is right and ethical and cancel the lease. Act now while they are tied up in the courts!
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