When my credit card machine stopped working in I called TransFirst—the credit card processing company to fix the machine. The service rep??? Rich Taylor told me they did not service that machine any longer and I would need a new machine.
I told him I had a very low budget and needed the cheapest machine possible and only wanted to accept master card and visa. He told me the cheapest machine was $350.00. I could not afford that. He said i could lease one on a month to month basis and if I went out of business I could cancel the lease. I was worried the machine might not work with our phone lines—he quarenteed me it would. He said I could sign one page on line, then sent me an e-mail saying that He had to send me a written contract and had highlighted where I needed to sign or initial. He did not tell me that Northern Leasing was even involved, but mentioned their leasing department. Said I could decide to buy the machine at any time, or cancel the lease.
The machine did not work well at all, I sent it back and got a replacement machine —it did not work well either. Mean time I was not getting service or savings promised and my bank found TransFirst unacceptable and cancelled the relationship going with another company—I was required to change companies with them. When I called to cancel account and return malfunctioning machine, I was told I would have to call Northern Leasing to return machine. I asked—who is Northern Leasing? They said they sold them my lease.
I called Northern Leasing and was told that I would have to pay them like $1,300.00 to return machine and buy out lease. I said "what lease?" I was told it was month to month and I could cancel any time. They said "We have your signature on a lease for 4 years of payments and we will not let you out of it". I said the machine is not working, so the person said to return it with a letter stating it did not work. I thought that would end the lease.
I had not been given a copy of my lease and when I did get it—it did not look like what I signed, but was in a very hard to read. Small type face. It took almost a year to get that lease copy. When I read it I was just sick—what an onerous piece of crap. I trusted my customer service rep and took his word for what was in the contract—big mistake. I told the people at Northern Leasing about being tricked and lied to and they said they did not care—they had my signiture on a contract and they wanted the money. I said I did not have the machine, so shouldn't have to pay anything. They said they did not care whether i had the machine or not—they wanted the money.
I have been trying to deal with them every since and they have made my life a nightmare. They promise to send fraud reports for me to fill out—the reports never come. They were taking money out of my checking account and it was more than I agreed to, so i closed my checking account and notified them in writing that I wanted to pay with checks and rescinded any permission to take money out of my account. I was at this point trying to get a reduced settlement.
I paid several payments, then got a bank statement and was shocked to see money had been taken out by them without my permission. I filed fraud charges with the bank and got that money back—4 amounts in less than 3 weeks. Then they started really harassing me. I have not paid them for almost 6 months and they are threatening all sorts of awful things like law suits in NY and wrecking my credit. I have asked for a financial accounting of money paid by me so far and they refuse. I won't pay until i get a financial accounting—any normal company would be glad to do that. I have gotten as many as 10 calls IN ONE DAY. I have notified them both on phone and in writing not to call me, that i want all correspondance in writing, but they ignor me.
i need help, but don't know where to go.
0 comments