In July I responded to USA card services offer of a free e-website and training to include a 50 page e-commerce website, submission to top search engines, unlimited products shopping cart, domain name registration, virtual credit card terminal, 7 day internet marketing course, 250 color business cards and 1 year of free hosting. The reason they were offering all this did not seem to good to be true because they make money off of the credit card fees paid by e-commerce site customers, so helping with these items helps them. DO NOT BELIVE THIS! There are cheaper ways to get an e-commerce site off of the ground. What they did to me was horrible! After I was contacted by Tammi Bean in the Texas office, she stated that I needed to sign a "lease agreement" to have my website built and activated and to have my virtual credit card terminals set-up.
I asked her about the cost of this lease and what is was for, and was told that it was for the physical credit card equipment. I asked if I could skip that part and was told no, and that the lease language was standard. USA card service would act as the liason between the equipment lease company and myself. I was also assured that if I did not need the physical card reader or I went out of business before the 48 months was up, that I could sublease the equipment at no cost to myself and that she could connect me with plenty of people that could not get merchant accounts that would be willing to sublease my equipment. I also was told that I needed a co-signer. I signed up and paid $160.00 per month for these "free services" and the required equipment lease. The website was a disappointment as I could not use it for my online media business because I could not add sounds or music, even though I expressly asked about this ability. The website was a cheap template that is available online from several sources from free to under $100.00.in additon, I could not get into the email portion of my site to check email, and in December, my site stopped working completely with no explanation.
I kept paying as agreed and contacting customer service regarding the email issues (I never got a pin pad either), to no avail. Due to financial trouble I was unable to make my January payment and realized the true nature of what was going on. I could no longer contact Tammi Bean, my personal representative, and the new rep told me that I cannot get assistance from them in subleasing the equipment. Furthermore, they have nothing to do with the lease and their services are "free", the non-cancelable lease is what I am paying for. When I reviewed my lease, I realized that the people billing me were Ladco Leasing and found them here in the consumer complaints, but the lease I signed was for Global Tech Leasing! My elderly father is my co-signer and has had 18 hits against his credit, while my personal and business credit is being ruined by this company!
To add insult to injury, Ladco said that I may lease the equipment, but would still be responsible for the equipment costs, and if the person subleasing defaulted it would go against my credit! USA Card Services told me that if I entered intoa a sublease theat I would have to turn over my website also! To make matters worse, the Nurit 2085 that I am "leasing" arrived refurbished, and can be purchased refurbished for $249.00 at www.merchantwarehouse.com, as well as a pin pad for $139.00! I am being charged $4,000.00 for equipment that only costs $388.00, due to a non-cancelable lease for 48 months (I have 41 months left to go.)! The lease is excessive, unconscianable, and should be illegal. When I asked Ladco to tell me how much they paid for my equipment and what my actual lease fees are they told me they could not give me this information, and that USA Card Services has it. When I called USA card services they sent me back to Ladco for this information. DO NOT FALL FOR THE SCAMS BY USA CARD SERVICE, LADCO LEASING, OR GLOBAL TECH LEASING! I could not find any info on GLobal Tech Leasing on the site, but apparently they either sold my account to Ladco immediately after I signed the lease or they are Ladco Leasing.
All that USA card Services offers are programs that you can get on your own free of charge or for a nominal expense. The website templates are generic and easy to access by simply doing a search for website templates on a search engine, the e-commerce merchant accounts are provided through various sources such as Authorize.net that you can access on your own (USA card services bills you $10.00 per month for this gateway); the training and resources are prvoded by gosmallbiz.com (you can access this directly also), 250 free business cards are provided by Vistaprint.com (a reputable company that charges a nominal S&H fee for agreeing to have their name on the bakc of your free business cards), all you get from USA card services is a link to the free services they offer. You can get all they offer yourself by logging on to the websites that they are affiliated with, and without having to sign an expensive and unconscionable lease agreement.
Accessing these companies directly will also spare you being victimized by these companies understanding of the parole evidence rule (Parole Evidence Rule says that the writing in the contract is the sole and complete legal agreement between the parties.) when your salesperson disappears along with their promises, leaving you with bad personal and business credit, and a horrible lease as the agreement between the parties. My educated guess is that this company is profiting from the affiliate money they get when they "refer" people to Global Tech Leasing and/or Ladco Leasing and all of the "free" services that they provide. USA Card Services is simply a referral service that profits by providing a "free" generic web template. If you are a business in need of internet services do a little research for each service that you want and you will come out much better.By the way, the website for usa card services has a Better Business Bureau online logo. I agreed to use this company against my better judgement because they had no complaints about them, and I naively belived the sales reps claims. I assumed if they were fraudulent they would not be able to have a Better Business Bureau Online logo on their site.
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