Benchmark Financial Group provides loans and equipment leasing to businesses. After me experience with them, I had the unfortunately pleasure to learn off their scam.
They start out as a normal company, credit application, credit checks, etc. After some time, they will verbally approve you and then prepare a lease agreement that stipulates a specific amount to be borrowed, the lease term, and the monthly payment.in order to finalize the lease, Benchmark needs a $200 documentation fee, then first and last months lease payment as a deposit.
After I sent the singed agreement and deposit, I was to receive funding for my equipment lease by the end of the week. Long story short, a month goes by and no money. They finally acknowledge that they cannot get the funding we agreed upon. But they could a portion of it. So they sent me a new lease agreement for half the amount of funding a I needed. One problem though... The original lease agreement I signed had APR interest rate of 11.5% over 48 months, the new agreement they sent over had an APR of 32%. I told them this was ridiculious and wouldn't sign, and since they failed to approve the original lease, I wanted my deposit back. They said NO.
Benchmarks reasoning is if they approve me for "any" kind of financing, they fullfilled their end of the agreement. And by me not accepting what they offered, I was defaulting on the lease. Even though the lease agreement clearly states that deposit is refunded if they can't approve the "signed" lease agreement which was for a specific value at a specific rate.
After doing further research online, many people have had this happen to them. After consulting with a lawyer, I found out it will cost more to sue them then the deposit amount I lost. Benchmark probably preys on businesses that our far away, and more likely to not do anything.
My lawyer recommended a class action lawsuit, and we found one in the starting phase
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