Below is the letter written by the owner to cancel the merchant account with Concord, Element Payment Systems, and Lease Finance Group.
5/23/04
Concord
9633 S. 48th St. / Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85044
Phone: 1-866-435-3636
FAX: 1-888-656-9329
Re: cancellation of merchant account
To Whom It May Concern:
I am canceling effective immediately my merchant account for Nutrition Depot of Sugarland - Account #0852426-0001, ProflexSports Account #0852426-0002 and rental equipment agreement #001-0589826-000 for the following reasons:
1) The person who signed the agreement was not an authorized officer for this organization.
2) Your representative, Jeff Stephan lied to this person stating that the terminal equipment was a rental agreement with a monthly fee when in fact it was a lease agreement. Also, we had equipment that just needed to be reprogrammed but you forced upon us new equipment which we really did not need.
3) You have never set up the online merchant account where I am able to accept transactions for ProflexSports and yet I am being charged a monthly fee of $30.00. How can I be charged for services which you are not providing me?
4) The initial merchant agreement stated that the intial rate for swiped transactions (Nutrition Depot) will be 1.6% with a 20 cents transaction fee and for mail/internet orders (ProflexSports) at 2.09% and 20 cents per transaction fee. Yet, I have never been charged this rate. Without any notification, you increased the swiped rate to 1.71% and transaction fee to 24 cents. I have no idea what the mail order rate has been increased to because you have not configured the system such that I can accept credit card transactions.
4) We have tried to contact you multiple times over the phone and through email about this situation but we never received a reply.
Your company is very deceptive. Your representative, Jeff Stephan misrepresented, and did not fully disclose the merchant account agreement details. You lure innocent merchants on the hopes of better merchant rates and lock them into long-term equipment lease agreements for equipment that costs only a fraction of the lease. Next, you subsequently increase the merchant rates once you have this agreement in place knowing that the merchant can not leave because of the agreement that is in place. This is a total scam. It is shameful the tactics used by your organization. You not only do a disservice to the reputation of your company but to the whole industry as well.
Effective immediately we are returning all equipment (Nurit 252-Serial# 1000906890, RDM EC6000i/6004f-Serial# 1402147012437, Nurit 3020-Serial# 1000807708) to Concord and canceling all merchant accounts for ProflexSports and Nutrition Depot of Sugarland.
Cc: Lease Finance Group, division of CIT
Cc: CTS Holdings, LLC
Cc: Better Business Bureau
Cc: Federal Trade Commission
Cc: Attorney General of Texas
Cc: Ismail Qadir, Attorney-at-Law
Well as others can attest I am now being bombarded with calls from Lease Finance Group (CIT) for payment of their 4 year lease ($4800) on equipment that is worth a fraction of this lease. Now CIT wants $6400 in payment. For what I have no idea. The agent is independently working for Concord (merchant account provider) and somehow the lease is being provided by CIT. I don't even know how CIT came into the picture. I am not sure how this bait and switch scam was done to me but now CIT wants $6400 for full payment of the lease and Concord wants $300 for early termination. Concord is going to report me the credit bureau and CIT wants to bring a judgement against me.
BEWARE of this scam. They will show you low merchant rates just to hook you on the equipment that you probably don't need or you can get for a couple of hundred bucks. The agent gets paid by selling you this equipment. I have no recollection of signing their so called "no-cancellable lease". Who ever heard of a non-cancellable lease in the first place? I sent back the equipment to Concord/Element (Jeff Stephan's company (the agent) and they returned it back to me. I sent the equipment to CIT and they took it but they still want the full payment on their lease. The only reason I had agreed to the monthly rental of the equipment in the first place was so I could get the low merchant account rates. They did not provide me with the a useable merchant account for the online business and they jacked up the rates without notification and they still want us to do business with them?
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