We signed with Bryan, who assured us on several fronts that we were going to get these savings based off our old statement ($98, he was SOOOO sure we were going to get $98 savings, so in the end with a great machine that was covered for ANY problems, we would save 20% as well off our old company). Of course seeing that the lease is for 4 years and I been warned to hell and back NOT to sign with Northern Leasing, I didn't want to sign. Every time I talked to Bryan he assured us if necessary he could get us out of the lease.
Can we get out of this lease?
Yes. Don't worry about it.
But it says here it's non-cancellable.
Don't worry about it, I'm not here to scam you. I'll guarantee you'll be saving over your new company.
Can you sign a paper to the effect we'll be getting two months free and the lease can be broken?
Sure. But you must also guarantee that you'll work with us and not sign with any old guy claiming he'll save you more over our rates.
Yes, of course, if the rates are good why switch over $6 (which is the number bryan gave as an example because almost no company is going to give us below 5 basis points).
Now fastforward one month later. After lots of arguing over a partial fee and the $100 credit we still didn't get. We should have known by then, but I guess not.
The average rate for a small business should be around 3% maybe a little less a little more.
Before the machine was taken into account, the amount was 3.7% if you included the machine, it was 4.5%. The statement included web monitoring fees ($6.95), data guard ($3.95) which he didn't mention as fees when I asked him what other fees are there. This statement cost us about 2.3% over our old company, plus the opportunity cost of 2.74 over the other company we were deciding on, plus of course the fees and lease money.
Also Bryan never told us we would have minimum billing floor of $60 (in the beginning, for first two months it was $25.) As a small business owner doing around 7k worth of business, and we were up front about that, and even had about 4 months of statements to see that it was about 7k, at 5 basis points, do you seriously think we can make $60 in fees? Or even 25% The average amount for those two months was $6 so we were paying an extra 20,40 dollars for simply the privilege of having an account with Transnational.
Of course at this point my boss wants to cancel, but doesn't really do anything about it until one week before the end of the first statement. We inform the rep Bryan in advance, which we shouldn't have done and just waited to see if he said would fix the problems that he said would fix to get our effective rate back to around 3%. If we didn't inform him ahead of time we probably would have saved a lot more money.
So we cancel (telling him in person, and faxing over a sheet stating so, and calling him), and that's when bryan starts giving me a hard time about the free two months. His view of the incident was that we would continue on with the service and he would give us those two months, I treated the two months like a trial period.in no way shape or form did Bryan say that these two months free we conditional on us continuing business with Transnational for the rest of the lease period. If so, why even try? Just because you say the rates are low doesn't mean they are, and you were super confident after some serious number swapping around, we could get that rate, it's just shady.
Then on our third and final (I hope so) statement was an annual fee ($95!!!), which he also didn't mention. $95 annual fee for Visa (according to Bryan, this is a cost Transnational passes onto the merchant, now we were with them for maybe two months, and we get tagged with an annual fee straight up? Makes more sense to tag us with only 3 months worth, but no, they would lose money that way. Another undisclosed fee until I called Bryan and asked about it.
In the end, Bryan got us out of the uncancellable lease like he said. But as of right now, we are out $290.82 the opportunity cost of going with a different company which has already shown the rates to be what they say they are (2.74%). How does that 290.82 break down? $49.95 4.95 loss liability insurance x 3 months partial monthly surcharge of $29.47 for starting on the 1st, instead of the 15th for Northern Leasing.
If you have high volume and high transaction amounts like the Jade Tattoo Palor that Bryan puports as their client, you probably would get a good rate. But if you're a small business owner of a small restaurant, why bother with the headache? Certainly, $55.45 may not be a lot month to month (and the business owner doesn't care as it's coming out of MY paycheck, little as it already is), but I hate the fact that everyone calls us what amounts to fools for "not reading the fine print". Well, I did, I countered, and he countered, and I ended up in a sinkhole. Are we not supposed to be sales reps? The answer is probably no, but then why bother with having them if they're not going to do what they're supposed.
Bryan really is a great sales rep (in terms of how he sells, and how he was upfront about some things and breaking the uncancellable lease for us at cost to his company, but in the end, the disappearing act, having a dodgy cell phone reception and not saying anything for about two weeks, and then another week was not that great. At least drop me an email. He did do what he said he'll do, which is more than what some people ended up with.
I mean it's up to others to crunch the numbers, but for 3 months, expect to pay at least! $300 on top of those "great" rates.
We probably ended up forking over more than $600 if you include the opportunity costs and undisclosed fees. Well, I'm covering the $300 actual costs out of my own wages because I was the translator, and my boss signed even though I translated and he warned the guy he only looked at the final numbers no matter how great the rates were on paper, and bryan of course says yea. Of course my boss kinda sucks, and places the entire responsibility on me for being the translator and pushing for to sign with this company (give them another month I said.
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