Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Some of the Backstory

I started investigating complaints about Elavon and its subsidiary, Ladco Leasing, in 2010; I had a merchant account with Elavon involving a "software lease" from Ladco Leasing. I fought my way through and finally got out of that "irrevocable" lease with Ladco. I posted on ComplaintsBoard.com, where I found countless complaints about Ladco Leasing. I got an e-mail from another Ladco victim who wanted to know how I managed to get out of my contract. We started an e-mail support group. We got many, many more emails and phone calls from other small business owners who were also victims of Ladco. Each new member of the group shared their story, along with their efforts to fight. These small businesses are located all over the United States, in different industries. The circumstances of each case were different, but had two details in common: (1) they are all SMALL businesses; and (2) they all had so-called "non-cancellable" contracts for leasing credit card processing equipment from Ladco or Northern Leasing. Apparently the name of the company gets changed every so often in order to protect the guilty. Information sharing eventually led to the investigation by the District Attorney of Ventura County, California. It has finally drawn the attention of the news media:
Christine Haas News Anchor/Reporter T: 619-578-0270 Email: Christine.Haas@nbcuni.com On Twitter: @christinenbcsd W: www.nbcsandiego.com

A History Lesson

LADCO LEASING, St. Louis, Missouri Posted: 2012-03-03 by Lori Berra Scam Complaint Rating: 0 % with 0 votes Company information: LADCO Leasing/Evalon/USBancorp Serivces St. Louis, Missouri United States For any of you who could utilize this information, here you are: Erik Porter is the Director of Business Development at Ladco Leasing (corporate office in CA) from Jan. 2011 to present. Formerly he was in Sales & Marketing with U.S. Bank in the Business Equipment Finance Group for 7 years. LADCO's domain is LADCO.COM. The registrar is NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC (URL http://www.networksolutions.com). Updated Oct. 14, 2011, Expires Dec. 13, 2012. DNS servers are: DNS4.ELAVON.NET, DNS5.ELAVON.NET, DNS6.ELAVON.NET. The LADCO's "Lease Flow Funding" form agreement between LADCO and the Agent who signed you up has 4 in-depth Steps to "sealing the deal". LADCO utilizes the services of EPS (Electronic Payment Systems) to move funds accordingly. As most of you may know by now, the rep that snagged you gets a healthy "kick-back" from LADCO for doing so. This is what you're paying for. When I confronted the rep that attempted to "rape" my company using LADCO about how much he made off this deal, he could only look down at the floor and mumbled, "Not very much." My reply, "Well it's enough that you don't want to give it back though, isn't it?" All the Steps are enlightening but Step 3 and 4 are especially informative (this is all typed verbatim from the form): STEP THREE: Verfication a) Notify Ladco that the equipment has been installed or have your installer call LADCO Leasing when finished from the customer site (800-678-8666). b) You can call LADCO from the merchant's location, have the merchant contact us, or you can call us and let us know and we will contact the merchant. c) Please have the Equipment serial number and MID# ready at the time of confirmation. d) LADCO will walk the merchant through a verbal checklist to make sure they understand the terms and nature of the lease. e) LADCO MUST (underscored) verify with the person who signed the lease. f) LADCO is available 7am-4:00pm PST, Monday through Friday STEP FOUR: Funding of Lease To Fund, EPS must have: a) A PERFECTLY LEGIBLE faxed or the original equipment lease properly completed and signed. EPS can approve from fax copies but requires the signed document to be sent with the Merchant application and all associated paperwork. b) A confirmed verbal verification of delivery, installation, and functionality of ALL equipment that is the subject of the lease document. When we have a complete package and all items listed above EPS will issue a check and send it out within 24 hours of the verbal verification. Next day delivery is available. (Bolded and centered) Congratulations - Now let's do it all over again!
More LADCO LEASING complaints LADCO LEASING - They are ripping me off LADCO LEASING - They might as well use a gun LADCO LEASING - Unfair business practices LADCO LEASING - CONTRACTS LADCO LEASING - Stay away LADCO LEASING - Credit Card Processing Scam LADCO LEASING - Deceptive sales practice LADCO LEASING - over charged and not reimbursed LADCO LEASING - leasing fees LADCO LEASING - Scam, stay away LADCO LEASING, Thousand Oaks, California Complaints & Reviews - Leasing terms Review all LADCO LEASING, Thousand Oaks, California complaints LADCO LEASING, Thousand Oaks, California
Lee Ladd Chairman founded LADCO Financial Group in 1979 and after ventures in mortgage brokering and commercial equipment financing, entered the small-ticket leasing field in 1984. LADCO specialized in financing point-of-sale equipment and grew to service over 120, 000 lease and rental contracts. LADCO pioneered small ticket financing as one of the first to utilize ACH for billing and as one of the first to participate in the placement of over $193MM in lease-backed securitizations with rated bonds issued to investors. In 1997, LADCO Financial Group was acquired by PMT Services. In 1998, PMT Services merged with NOVA Corporation, the result was a new parent company, NOVA Information Systems. In 2001, NOVA Information Systems, Inc. was acquired by US Bancorp. LADCO operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of NOVA and US Bancorp. Lee Ladd departed the organization in 2006. In 2006, LEECO Financial Services was incorporated with the securing of a $120MM credit facility. LEECO provides a fully compliant and comprehensive servicing of portfolio. This includes all federal, state and local tax collections, remittance and audit responsibilities; property tax reporting, allocation, collection, remittance and audit responsibilities; and all monthly and ancillary costs associated with monthly billing, collections and portfolio management. www.leecofinancial.com Where is he now? Lee Ladd Owner, mile edge plus Greater Los Angeles Area | Automotive Current: Owner at mile edge plus Past: President and CEO at LADCO Leasing, regional v.p. at Fireside Thrift

Action!

Wow, the Ladco Leasing (et al.) merchant scam has finally caught the attention of the news media. Here is the text of an email I received late last night:
A news reporter from NBC 7  in San Diego has expressed an interest in interviewing small businesses  who have been targeted in this scam.