I have found, after speaking with several lawyer friends of mine who I do work for, that Ladco’s “lease” is not a legal document for several reasons. Here they are: 1.) There is a purchase option right on the contract in most cases. If a purchase option is offered, but not afforded to the merchant, then the document is not legal. It is quite obvious that if a purchase option is present, and the merchant sees it, he or she’s going to ask about it. The Merchant Services reps won’t even talk about the purchase option and will most likely try and divert attention from it, or tell you that it doesn’t apply to you, so they can get you to sign into the lease. 2.) I have not been able to find the part on the contract that mentions the extra charges if you do not have business insurance. Yes, in the quest for even more money, Ladco has instituted a policy where, after you get the machine and are locked into the lease, of course, you are charged an extra $6.00 a month if you don’t have business insurance. In most cases I have encountered, they charge it anyway from the beginning until you continuously let them know (many times) that you either have it or you don’t. Why not, they have your bank routing and account numbers and they can do whatever they want until you try and stop them, right? What makes this part illegal is the fact that it’s not mentioned anywhere on the contract or the lease. Therefore they legally cannot collect it. Legally, that is. . . but they will until you stop payment or close the account. 3.) This one gets me. When I talked with “Josh” over at Ladco, a very nasty person who said I was “stupid” for not reading the lease, he told me, “If you buy a car or house, don’t you read the contract or the lease?” Well, I told Mr. idiot Josh that a $200 credit card machine isn’t anywhere NEAR as important as a car or house purchase. NO ONE is going to read the contract with the Merchant Services rep standing right there in front of you. Of course, Ladco NEEDS for you to not read the lease (and most people don’t, BECAUSE IT’S NOT THAT IMPORTANT AND WE TRUST OUR BANK) so they can perpetrate their scam. Since Mr. Josh was talking about reading leases and what constitutes a lease, I looked up what constitutes a lease, and I find that Ladco’s “lease” is nothing of the sort. When you buy a car or house, EVERYTHING is listed on the lease; The cost of the item, the lease payment, the interest rate, and the final cost to the customer or buyer. Ladco’s sham lease has NONE of this on it, therefore it is not a legal document. Their “lease” only has the amount of payment on it and THAT’S IT PEOPLE. I have to mention that the Ladco people are TRAINED to say these things, because to them it’s the only thing that makes sense. Of course, when you really think about it, very few people read a car or home rental or lease agreement because we’ve been FULLY NOTIFIED of what the lease or rental entails BEFORE we sign it. This cannot happen in Ladco’s world, because then no one would sign the contract, right? RIGHT! Of course, IF Ladco put all the details of the lease on the actual lease, NO ONE in their right mind would agree to it, and there’s the scam. Keep the customer in the dark as much as possible and maybe, just maybe, they won’t scrutinize the contract and will just pay the bill every month. See, this works for large companies but not for small ones, and that is where they have made their mistake. Oh well, time to pay the piper, Ladco.
A.Quatroni was an active member of our e-mail group and was very generous in sharing useful information with the rest of us. His own personal story can be found on his blog MERCHANT SERVICES SCAMS
