Complaint Review: Leasecom - Woburn Massachusetts

Hello! First, I would like to say that I have filed a report with the Rip-Off Report before and they are an extrememly helpful group of consumer advocates!!! After dealing with Leasecom, located in Woburn, MA for the last 3 years, I really didn't have a complaint up until NOW... My story with Leasecom is a rather long story, but I will try to make it as short as possible.

In 1999, we decided to try e-commerce. We have a gift merchandise business. We had an informational website with a local company in MN called Qwik Pages ( website designers ). They had contacted us, saying that we had been receiving around 200 hits per month on our site so, naturally, we became very excited about going e-commerce.

Well, they lined us up with another company called Bancard ( a credit card processing company ) who then lined us up with Leasecom, who was financing our processing equipment. Qwik Pages apparently was having some type of changes going on in their company with job promotions, etc... so, our project was shelved, leaving us out of the holiday shopping season, which was something we had been looking forward to - we had begun designing the site, etc... with them in August and they still didn't have it right in late November.

We were not impressed with the e-commerce business and decided to cancel with them, as they were billing us and expecting us to pay, etc... but had not really given us anything in return. Well, there were no problems cancelling our agreements with Qwik Pages or Bancard, but Leasecom was another story.

We were moving in January 2000 so, with everything packed up, etc..., we made our move and 3 months later, were contacted by Leasecom, saying that we had a contract, etc... with them and needed to keep paying them. I told them I had cancelled everything due to Qwik Pages situation, and they said that we still had to pay them ( Leasecom )for a certain amount of time so, we decided to keep the machines ( credit card processing ) because of this contract with Leasecom.

I just took their word for it because all of my paperwork was still packed up in boxes so, not wanting or needing any trouble, I kept paying them, and now in July of 2002, I have paid them a total of around $2100.00 for the machines. A couple of months back, Leasecom had told me that when I paid the amount of $740.32 that the machines would then be paid for and I would be free of our agreement with them. Well, now they are saying that I will owe them $800.00 before the debt is clear. ??? Wondering what was going on, I looked them up on the net and found that there are some 900 websites on them on the internet, mostly complaints, complaints, complaints.

I decided to contact the Better Business Bureau and Leasecom has an unsatisfactory standing with them as well. Well, time to contact Rip-Off Report again, not to mention an attorney, our Attorney General's Office, etc... I am fighting back once again with another so-called business.

This one had us fooled for quite awhile, but now we know what they are all about, and just wanting to warn others about them. On the advice of an attorney, I sent all machines, etc... back to Leasecom via registered mail yesterday and also sent them their final payment of $740.32.

The attorney says, with all the info on Leasecom, let them try to sue us! He said they will probably try through Small Claims Court - we will see about that. I was wondering if anyone else has been through something similiar with Leasecom and what the outcome was. Is there anything else that I should be doing to fight back?

Jackie

Inver Grove, Minnesota