Lease Finance Group, a division of Cit Financial USA, Inc. and Wholesale Merchant Services ripoff! Dishonest salesman and sale. Chicago Illinois

In the case above, I believe CIT leasing to be the victim of a rip-off by 2 credit card salesmen and by the leasee!

The Leasee stated that she repeatedly told the salesmen that she "was not legally supposed to sign anything for the business", that the only thing she owns at her job is "my coffee cup." Then in the next paragraph she mentions that she went ahead and signed the paperwork. Now she complains.

The credit card salesmen were probably on straight commission. This is common practice in this industry. If they indeed did gain a signature from a person who was not the business owner, or who did not have legal authority to purchase for the business, then they have defrauded the leasing company.

The leasee mentions that the 2 salesmen came back when the equipment was delivered to set it up. What she fails to mention is that all leasing companies require a verbal confirmation from the businesss owner at time of delivery of equipment. The leasee ordered by signing for it, accepted delivery of the equipment, and someone confirmed the lease at time of delivery. All of this must happen before the salesmen are paid.

If the leassee, who was not the legal business owner, signed to purchase equipment for the business, then she at least is suject to dismissal by her employer. At best she is incompetent, and at worst she is an accomplice in defrauding the leasing company.

My question is...who was ripped-off?

Dear Alexia,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having problems too. I would suggest that you contact an attorney. At least they can probably get to talk to someone else. Our attorney tried to get some answers and names of those involved and also threatened to sue or take them to court. Most big companies won't take the time to send someone to go to court because it would cost them more then it would to just let the debt go. I would definately keep calling them and writing letters to the BBB and your Attorney General. If you get enough people involved in your action against them they will probably just give up. They probably have enough money from you to cover their costs anyways since the machine and supplies more than likely don't cost them that much in the first place seeing as how you can go and buy them for a fraction of the cost. I would also contact someone in your chamber of commerce just so that they can get the word out to your community and try to save others from this same hastle. Good Luck!

I am going trough the same problem with this company. A ripoff and liers. I've been trying to get out of the lease and it seems as is not way out.

They are charging me for a service that I cannot even use.

They took my check and start billing my checking account with amounts I did not know about.

I close my bank account and cancel with EPS but CIT does not want to end my lease and they continue to call me arrasing me all the time.

I've been making payment for a machine that is not being used.

I tried to talk to a supervisor about this problem, but all I can get trough are customer services operators who are just rude.

I hope somehow we can all get out of this mess. CIT is a ripoff and would continue doing that is we dont stop them.

Jill, I'm glad to hear things worked out for you. In my rebuttal I suggested you have an attorney review the lease. Which it sounds like you did. There have been dozens of posts about CIT on this site. Your posts point out the kinds of companies that sign people up using these type of leases. People, beware of these preditory companies. They especially pry on people just starting out in business. They often get their names from business journal's lists of start up companies, incorporations and new leases. They are like sharks. So beware. Don't lease a CC machine for thousands of dollars, for what you can buy straight out for $300 to $900.

Hi Jill,

I would just like to say Superrrr. This is great. I don't know if you realize it, but there have been 40+ posts on Rip-Off Report against CIT's tactics.

If you wouldn't mind, it would be very helpful if you sent one more letter. This is to the FTC given in a pervious post. So here is the link: https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

As I said the FTC doesn't do individual cases, but will log the complaint. When they start getting enough they will investigate and may start legal actions against the company.

I really feel that the post on Rip-Off are just the tip of the iceberg.
Again congrats & have a super day.

Just to let everyone know, I did get this matter taken care of. After a few months of threatening phone calls, endless letters, and sleepless nights they finally canceled the lease. I had sent letters to the Better Business Bureau and the Minnesota Attorney General, who either sent the companies letters or to the Bureaus in the companies area. We also had an attorney friend of ours call them up a couple times and threaten to take this to court.

If you think about it, it would probably be a bigger loss to them to have to send someone here to go to court for this then to just let someone out of the lease. Especially like in our case where we had two witnesses saying that the guy who filled the paperwork out knew that he was lying on it.

A couple months ago I got a letter in the mail that said that they were releasing us from the contract. Woo h*o! (I called the company just to make sure they weren't lying about that too.) And we still have the machine, which would cost money to reprogram if our current provider would let us use it. But the good part is that we no longer have to pay that outrageous bill or have to deal with that company.

So if you do happen to get stuck with this company the best advice I can tell you is to send letters, maybe have an attorney call them, and keep your head up. They actually gave in quite easily for us.

Thank you to all those who have responded to my letter with some advice.

Just got done rebutting on the previous post about the person who leased the CC machine that didn't work. She was going off about CIT. Now I'm not going to get into it over CIT's leases. At least this post has it right about the Wholesale Merchant's Service. The point i'm trying to get across is that the company that is selling or leasing the machines are as guilty or more so.

In my humble opinion, they are as dishonest or as big a scam as CIT. They are the ones who sell/lease you the machines and make the huge profit. This young lady is smart enough to at least see who the real crooks are. I think if you have an attorney review the lease, you may find that you can't be held for the lease unless you are an officer or owner of the company.

Don't know if it is the same Merchant Services, but they call here at least once a month. I just hang up on them. They have tried that scam on me before. Promise the world and can't deliver.

Hi,
You may want to sent a complaint to FTC (Federal Trade Commission) . I did and received a response saying they don't do individual cases. However, if they log enough complaints, they will start an investigation and possibly legal action. So here is the link: https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01 to the FTC complaint form. I've told many people about it, so you may want to do the same. Make sure you give specific examples or even let them know you have documentation of deceptive or misleading information. Also, if possible, please scan & send copies of these documents to me at [DELETED]. I haven't given up, but it does take a while for the squeaky wheel to be heard.

As far as CIT, here is their main site: http://www.cit.com/main/default.htm . Also, within this site, I found e-mails and have sent copies of my rip-off report, including a copy of all the complaints listed under Lease Finance Group in the Rip-Off site. Here are some e-mail addresses, you may want to send your concerns to: investor.relations@cit.com, corpcomm@cit.com, directors@cit.com,

I did get the Rip-Off Report Do-It-Yourself Guide and it did have some good steps to follow. However, it was a little lacking in the cyberspace rip-offs. I've been paralleling the thoughts or ideas in this Guide to try to apply them to the internet. For example, instead of sending faxes, send e-mails. So every web site I am interested in, I look for e-mails and make up a group listing & start bombarding them with e-mails and include my rip-off report, plus any other rip-off concerns.

I hope this helps. Thanks, G for California