Lease Trader allows you to assume or get out of a lease. For many people, the process may be quite useful. For me, in early it was not.
First, the customer service representatives were ill-mannered and poorly-trained. I do not object to an Indian accent helping me. But, the people who spoke to me on the phone did not seem to understand English. Sure, they understood conversational English.
But, transferring a lease is a legal process. Linguistic nuances can be important. I know. I am a lawyer. These people did not understand certain, important, but subtle, distinctions. Worse, they covered their lack of comprehension with vitriol. That is, if I tried to explain the problem, they raised their voices until I quit asking for help. They certainly did not seem to understand which different processes various auto leasing companies used. Or, at the very least, they could not explain the differences reliably or consistently.
Second, their screening process may create false hope. Lease trader checks your credit before allowing you to attempt to assume a lease. The cost is relatively nominal. They approved my credit. When I found a car I wanted, they charged me a membership fee of $149, non-refundable whether I assumed a lease or not. Then, I had to apply to the actual financing company of the car whose lease I wanted to assume.
My credit was rejected because I had no history of borrowing money to purchase or lease cars. Now, I can understand if one company has a different FICO threshold than Lease Trader, but Lease Trader should have disqualified me because I did not have any history whatsoever of leasing cars and that criterion appears to be rather basic to the leasing companies.
The point is that Lease Trader will approve you, collect your $149 and credit application fee, even though your credit report will CLEARLY not be approved by those who actually determine whether you can assume a lease for a car. So, I am out almost $200 and a lot of time. I just bought a car.
The bottom line is that Lease Trader is not a complete rip-off, but you should be extremely careful with the process.
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