Lease Finance Group could easily be the poster child for ripping off small businesses!
Our company entered into a Merchant agreement with a company out of Carlsbad, California called Payment Systems who in turn was hooked up to Lease Finance Group (the actual leasing company) The POS machinery failed to function and repeated attempts to get a tech out to get it going failed so we eventually quit making payments (auto withdrawals) from our business checking account.
LFG has complaints lodged against them from seemingly every state in the Union for not only refusing to close out leases, but in several reports, not stopping collections after the term of the lease has expired.
LFG started calling us on three different phones fifteen to twenty times a day - after we stopped payments, often one call right after another - threatening us with every kind of consequence if we didn't keep up the payments. When we refused and had the bank stop collections on the autos, (this only lasts for six months) they continued to try and when the term expired, they started taking out payments twice a day.
After researching other complaints against LFG, I found that the only way most of these businesses were able to stop them was to close their accounts and either switch banks or at least open another account. We did this and while we have stopped LFG at least for now, collection (via autos) has continued from the merchant company, Payment Systems. Wells Fargo is the banking host for a company called 1st Data Merchant Service and they are in turn host to - yes, you guessed it - Payment Systems. It took a BofA executive over ah hour to break through these layers.
LFG's position is the the 4 year lease cannot be canceled for any reason and they neither accept nor admit to any consequence of failure of the equipment vended by Payment Systems. We have been told repeatedly that we are required to pay the lease no matter the circumstance. Attempts to get past the goon on the other end always fail and the initial complaint not addressed.
Our company is now at the "Pre Legal level" with LFG and the bully techniques have largely switched to "we will sell your lease to someone else if you"... Make up the back payments and pay a transfer fee... Etc.
Our company in now proceeding though the first legal recovery stages against LFG, namely, filing formal complaints with The California Attorney General, Ca. BBB, ca. Consumer Fraud, Illinois AG and BBB along with the New York AG, their respective Consumer Fraud Divisions and their BBB's. Some of the reports I have read say that the Illinois AG has had good success getting refunds from LFG and making them call off their dogs. We have also started forming legal proceedings against Payment Systems, 1st Data Merchant Service and plan to implicate Wells Fargo in the current illegal taking of money from our new account which has not issued that authorization.
Our company's refusal to pay is based on non performance of the equipment and probably more importantly, the more serious charge of taking funds from our new account without permission or authority.
Not once since this nightmare started has any one of these companies said they would be willing to work something out. Payment Systems just went deaf and LFG says it's not their problem.
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