Commercial Collections of America CCA A-1 Leasing, Start-up Essentials Union City, California

In December of 2006 I was contacted by John Callesen from Start-up Essentials, a home based business.  My husband and I spent 2 "high pressure" hours on the phone with John being convinced that it would be easy to do and financially profitable for us to join Start-up Essentials.

On November 25, 2007 live support was gone, their 800 number was gone and the laptop would not work.

In December of 2007, I wrote to Start-up Essentials and asked to be released from the 48 month unbreakabke lease because I had developed a seizure condition and had so far not seen any benefit to the project.  They did not respond.

On Jan 13, 2008 I resent the letter to a new address.  There was still no response.

In view of their lack of communication I closed the account from which they were drawing my monthly payments of $134.  This action brought a response from them.  On Feb 26, 2008 they wrote to tell me I was past due and threatened to pursue "all legal actions" against me to collect the debt.

On March 12, 2008 they sent another letter stating that my past due account was now $315 with late fees; and they sgned it "The Decision is Yours!"

On March 27, 2008 they sent me a bill for $4835.00 (the full amount of the contract) and I was to immediately return their Acer Laptop and pay if it needed to be refurbished.

April 1, 2008 I sent them my letter for the third time, because the phone was disconnected and they had changed their address twice.

During this time there was a Class Action going on against A-1 Leasing which I was notified about.  I sent in my paperwork to be included in the Calss and kept my receipts for the mailing dated June 27th, 2008.  The settlement said that if I was current with my payments as of May 1, 2008, I would be included in the class and receive 3 months payment back.  It also said to send in my paperwork even if I was not current and to "cure my debt" which I did not understand what that meant at that time. 

I thought I was included in the Class Action and I never heard from A-1 Leasing again until Feb 19, 2010 when they threatened to send the matter to a Collection Agency.  I checked the web and found them listed on Ripoff Reports. 

May 2011 Commercial Collections of America has called my cell phone and home phone about 20 times, negotiating first for over $9,000 to settle this debt, then they went to $4800, then Tom Baron said they would take half of the debt $2337, and now finally they will accept $1,000.

As I see it, Since they would not respond to my letters in the beginning, and I owed them 3 months, and the Class Action was to pay us back 3 months we are even.