Landmark Merchant Solutions - LADCO Leasing High Pressure Sales Delivers Only False Promises & NO Customer Service! Here are some possible solutions for this ripoff! Schaumburg Illinois

Jane, you are absolutely right. Your bank can stop companies and individuals from accessing your account, and anyone who has a similar problem should contact their bank immediately!

In addition to contacting the Illinois state Attorney Ggeneral, I would encourage you to contact the Washington state Attorney General's office (your home state) as well as the Federal Trade Commission. These government agencies do not like to see the public defrauded, and in fact, they have gone after several other bankcard processing companies in the past.

See:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/04/merchantprocessing.shtm
and
http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?id=14330
and
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/02/cms.shtm
and
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/01/cmsjudgment.shtm

Jane, you are absolutely right. Your bank can stop companies and individuals from accessing your account, and anyone who has a similar problem should contact their bank immediately!

In addition to contacting the Illinois state Attorney Ggeneral, I would encourage you to contact the Washington state Attorney General's office (your home state) as well as the Federal Trade Commission. These government agencies do not like to see the public defrauded, and in fact, they have gone after several other bankcard processing companies in the past.

See:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/04/merchantprocessing.shtm
and
http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?id=14330
and
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/02/cms.shtm
and
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/01/cmsjudgment.shtm

Jane, you are absolutely right. Your bank can stop companies and individuals from accessing your account, and anyone who has a similar problem should contact their bank immediately!

In addition to contacting the Illinois state Attorney Ggeneral, I would encourage you to contact the Washington state Attorney General's office (your home state) as well as the Federal Trade Commission. These government agencies do not like to see the public defrauded, and in fact, they have gone after several other bankcard processing companies in the past.

See:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/04/merchantprocessing.shtm
and
http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?id=14330
and
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/02/cms.shtm
and
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/01/cmsjudgment.shtm

I worked for this shady organization for a few months. Everything nasty you have read about it is true. The company does not care about its clients or their success. It cares about LEASES.

Landmark sells merchant account services and a promise of a free website to entice people to enter into the non-cancellable leases on credit card processing equipment. Their target client is someone who is interested in setting up a home-based business, such as selling collectibles or toys or cosmetic jewelry, and wants to accept credit cards as a means of payment.

People wanting to do so could simply get a basic merchant account gateway -- software that processes cards and sends the money into the client's bank account. However, Landmark steers people away from this economical solution with the website -- which is done on a cookie-cutter approach. In other words, the same basic layout is used for all websites. Only the content and color scheme differ. The website is used specifically as a hook to lure clients into leasing physical credit card equipment at insanely high prices.

This equipment (primarily new Talento T-1 and refurbished Hypercom T7P or Nurit 2085 models) can be found for sale at business stores and on the internet for just a couple of hundred dollars. Landmark takes this $200 piece of equipment and locks the client into a 48-month lease, hopefully for $49.99/month + tax, but they will go down to $39.99/month for the new equipment and $29.99/month for the refurbished (but only if your credit score is good).

At the end of the lease, the client has the option of returning the machine, continuing to RENT the machine at the $49.99 per month, or buying out the "fair market value" of the equipment after the four-year lease is over. This "fair market value" comes out to approximately $250 if I remember correctly.

On top of all this, the merchant account they sell has the following stipulations:

* $10 per month account maintenance

* $25 per month transaction minimum (in other words, if the per-transaction percentages do not add up to $25, the client will have to make up the difference -- this comes out to a minimum of $1500 to $2000 in credit card transactions per month, a tall order for a home-based business). This fee is waived for a couple of months.

* $25 per month transaction minimum in check processing. Same as above, except for check guarantee service instead of credit card processing. This service can be waived, but clients are encouraged by the sales staff to accept it because this fee is also waived for the first couple of months. By the time it starts getting assessed, the clients have typically forgotten they have it.

So, the typical client ends up paying over $110 per month for 4 years for equipment worth $200, and a website (if they ever get it -- they have to jump through some hoops to get it built) that simply emails orders to the client to key into the machine. That's right -- the website DOESN'T EVEN PROCESS THE CARDS DIRECTLY. It's just a shell for people to submit email orders.

George Sinnis is a bully of the highest order. He browbeats people into signing the contracts. Kevin Petz is a smooth-talker with spray-can hair who promises the world to clients then ignores them when they realize they're being swindled. These are their two top sales reps. Sales reps there who have a conscience typically don't last very long there because they start realizing the swindle that's going on. I was one of those reps. To give an idea of how they go through reps, I was in a training class of about 30 reps. After 4 months, 2 of us were left.

Sales VP Tim Candelaria is the good-cop to CEO Alan Gitles bad-cop. Tim leads most of the morning rah-rah meetings congratulating sales reps for their previous day's swindles and typically has a smile on his face. He seems like a genuinely nice guy who turns a blind eye to the evil all around him thanks to his six-figure income. Alan is a former lawyer who walks around looking stern, making sure that the warm bodies du jour are making their dials and finding their victims. He has no tolerance for concience and people balking at ripping clients off. He wants his leases, or you're out the door fast. It's that simple.

Do not be fooled by anything one of their sales reps tells you. If you get George Sinnis on the phone, tell him he's an obnoxious a*s. If you get Kevin Petz on the phone, tell him you can smell his sprayed-on hair across the phone.

As a former employee of Landmark merchant solutions I can testify that every complaint is most likely true. When i first started working for them we were trained for a week by Tim candelaria, george sinnis and a few others. We were taught how to convince people that they would receive things that we knew they would never get and make false promises just to get them to sign on the dotted line. After I completed each sale and a few weeks went by, my phone would always ring with complaints from my customers. EVERY ONE OF THEM. We were then told to completely ignore the calls and only to worry about getting new customers. Nice company. They have secured, keyless doors, obviously to protect themselves and the scam artists (salesmen). They also offer their salesmen bonuses each month to those who rip off the most customers. Were told to sell the terminals for 49.99 each month for 48 months. If the customer wouldnt bite we could then lower it to 39.99 and then to 29.99. I guess tim and george feel that a small scam is better than no scam at all. When in reality the terminals cost about 150.00 total. They go through employees like water. If you cant rip off enough people, then you are out the door. Well, after about 4 months I couldnt take it anymore. I woke up feeling terrible every day I went to work there. I know not many people will see this post but if it saves one person from getting scammed by this company then it was well worth it.

As a former employee of Landmark Merchant Solutions I must apologize to those who I screwed so royally.

After working there for a few months I started to notice how sketchy this operation really was. From a sales standpoint we were supposed to create this wonderful package of a fully customized web site built by our wonderful team of web designers-- which is total b.s.--
This illusion we were creating allowed us to sell a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff for nearly $2500. Meanwhile locking folks into a 4 year non-cancelable lease.--

Our job was to be as elusive as possible for if someone were to actually question the value of their $2500 investment or the validity of the company we were surely going to lose a sale.
I saw George many times screaming at customers, cursing and bullying them to stay in line, threating collections.--He was good at it, and this is why he was promoted to V.P.

Tims response is hilarious. I know he has a conscience somewhere and knows how badly he screws people on a daily basis.- His job is to put out fires as he so eloquently attempted here.

LMS preys on new start-up businesses and screws every business they come into contact. I couldn't sleep with myself at night knowing that I was truly preying on and screwing the American dream before it even got off the ground.

My attempt here is not to scare off potential customers of LMS- b/c that won't happen, but more over a note to validate the disputed claims of those who have posted here.

I did a quick search and found nine complaints against Landmark Merchant Solutions. One complaint might be construed as just an angry consumer. Nine? I don't think so.

Dear Editor,
My name is Tim Candelaria. I'm the Vice President of Sales for Landmark Merchant Solutions. Landmark appreciates the opportunity to respond to the criticism levied by Jane Marie, which we know to be erroneous and without any basis whatsoever.

Landmark has been in business since March of 2001, and is well known throughout the Merchant Account industry as a standard bearer for high integrity and quality service--traits with which we treat each and every merchant who processes credit cards with us. When we first discovered this merchant's complaint, we initially chose to treat it as a merchant who is simply attempting to avoid their contractual and financial obigations, which occasionally happens when you extend credit. Our investigation also revealed that this merchant has had many similar "issues" with other business relationships. However, knowing that prospective merchants looking for a merchant account would possibly see this scathing and inaccurate complaint, we felt compelled to respond.

Jane Marie is correct about our offer. Even with a history of financial problems for the business, Landmark offered her a FREE website with the merchant account. The website was professionally created, and was up and running well within the time promised. George treated her with respect and professionalism throughout this process. Only when this merchant failed to make payment for processing equipment, did Landmark initiate contact as to the status of the account, particularly when we had built a free website for this business in good faith. It was only then that the merchant registered complaints.

Landmark stands by its actions which were well founded and legitimate. We respectfully request that you, the editor of Rip-off Report, either remove this misleading claim from your site, or call me to investigate the matter to the fullest. Once you do, we're confident you'll want to remove this disparaging material from your site.

Sincerely,
Tim Candelaria
Vice President, Sales
Landmark Merchant Solutions
Ph: (847) 221-0414
Email: TimC@LandmarkMerchant.com