My wife and her partner own and operate a small Quilt Shop. They sell Quilting Material/Products and Teach Quilting. A Mr. Michael Bresette (A representitive for Northern Leasings Systems, Inc.) (NLSI). contacted them at there place of business and inquired about their Credit Card Swipe machine leasing arrangements. He stated that he could cut their machine lease fee's in half to($25.00/month/3years).
At that time, he was informed that they were currently in a credit card swipe machine leasing agreement for $50.00/month with another company. He stated that "that was not a problem" the lease was transferrable and that all we had to do was return their machine with a note stating that the old lease was transferred over to the new one. They signed a lease agreement with Northern Leasing for $25.00/month.
After they signed, the "Scheduel of Payment" amount on the lease agreement was changed without their knowledge to $35.00/month plus tax and loss of damage wavier for a total of $43.42/month. Furthermore the co-owner who signed the lease agreement initials were forged on the leasing documet as approving the change. NLSI denies any mis-conduct for this action by their representative and claims that he acted as an independent agent.
They have a Judgement against the co-owner for the amount of $2,429.99 that has ruined her credit. They refuse to admit that the document has been altered or that the entire leasing agreement was obtained in a fraudulent manner. The only way that we could stop them from withdrawing their fee's from our company checking account was to close it out. Once you allow them electronic access to your account, your bank will not stop them.
Credit Card Swipe machine leasing is a joke. You can outright purchase your own machine or a rebuilt for less than $300.00. They try to frighten the small business owner by horror story's of loss of sales should their machine break. The truth is, the machines are super reliable, you can get one delivered overnight and if there is a power outage, they can't do a damm thing about it either. These people have elivated "Rip-Off" to a science
Warren
Berkley MA