My Dad owns a medium sized drink and equipment distributing company called Denver Syrup & Bar Supply. He was approached last March by a sales rep for Norvergence.By 3-21-04 my Dad had signed the rental agreement for 1 matrix box, a 7 line phone system with "fruad protection" 10 digital phone and 23 cellular phones.
Along with all this wonderful new equipment Norvergence was supposed to service carrier neutral unlimited cellular service, 2 800 numbers and free long distance for every phone on the plan. For this wonderful service that Norvergence was going to provide, Denver Syrup was to pay $410.77 per month guaranteed for a period of 60 months.
The small problem was that the technology for this cheap service was expensive. The golden opportunity; there was a bank willing to lease the equipment to Denver Syrup for the same period of time. He was to pay $1,571.48 per month for the matrix box and 10 digital phones. The rental agreement was to go into effect andpayments made starting 30 days after the matrix box was installed.
Of course the matrix box was delivered and installed promptly.By 4-27-04 it was all up and running. The technician had to return the next day to set up the phones but the matrix was installed. The very next day the tech came out and told my Dad that the "brain" of the phones was incorrect and that he'd have to return them. He would be back out the next day with the correct stuff. He never returned
The tech is willing to sign a letter to the fact that he took and returned to Norvergence the phone system. He feels badly and I believe was one of the folks duped in this whole thing as well.
Since Norvergence has filed for chapter 7, my Dad's phone system was shut down. He was able to restore it the next day with his previous company. He thought he was lucky, until the bank started calling.
You see my Dad had stopped paying his lease when the system was shut down. He had no idea that his lease was sold. He spoke with the creditors of bancorp and explained the situation. They were less that responsive.
To date we have spoken to them repeatedly. They have agreed to reduce the payoff from 94k to 38.5k My Dad is willing and able to pay it just to get them off his back but he's choking at the prospect. This can not be legal.
Can a contract give up your legal rights to remediation? This rental agreement states that article 2a of the UCC does not apply to it. It also states that Norvergence can sell or trade the agreement at any time without notification. The new owner has all legal rights to the agreement but the renter has no rights at all if it's sold. I don't even know where to look or what to do yet. There is an FBI fraud case being explored (I spoke with them today) but it will be months before that is established.
What options are there?
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