We were contacted by a Norvergence salesman in April4. He offered to provide us all of our telephone service, T-1 service and cellular phone service for less than we were paying for landline service. He explained that this was based upon their proprietary system of voice over data lines. They were going to install hardware if we were approved.
The proposal sounded interesting. We were informed that the hardware took care of everything. We were also told that the cost was broken down into rent for the hardware and the service costs. We were given the breakdown. We agreed to fill out the application. We received notice several weeks later that we were approved. A few weeks later, a technician came and installed some hardware on our wall, but did not connect it. We were told that the next step was our local carrier was going to come install the T-1.
This never took place. When the technician installed the hardware we were asked to sign a receipt for it. A week or two later we received a cell phone. It was never activated.
About 45 days after the application was approved we received an invoice from Popular Leasing which explained that they were the assignee of the hardware lease. I contacted Norvergence. They promised me that they would reimburse me for the lease payments made prior to receiving full service. They asked me to pay the lease payment first and expect a refund check a few weeks later. I spoke to Jason at extension 4503. He also promised to refund installation charges and partial month rental. We paid the first Popular Leasing invoice. The due date of the invoice was 6/30/04.
To date, other than delivery of hardware, we have received nothing of value under this agreement from Norvergence or Popular Leasing.
The hardware has never been and currently is of no value to us at all. We still have our telephone numbers and out telephone usage continues to be billed by our local service carrier, SBC. We are prepared to rescind the agreement for non-performance and failure of consideration. We are prepared to return all that we have received from Norvergence and expect to have what we have tendered as consideration returned to us. I believe that the service was substantially misrepresented.
I do not believe that we would have actually received voice over digital long distance and local service. It seems that Qwest was providing the long distance service not the Matrix system. We were still being carried by our local carrier. It seems that the cell phone service was actually being provided by Sprint and the Norvergence network and Matrix system had nothing to do with it. This is not what we were led to believe would take place.
It seems to me that it was impossible for Norvergence to perform the agreement from its inception. The cost to perform it would have exceeded the consideration that they were demanding from us. This appears to be a Ponzi scheme. It also appears that our leasing company knew what was occuring when our application was made. I believe that their conduct was reckless, if not complicit in the fraud perpetrated by Norvergence.
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