The Newark Star Ledger reported on 10/27/04 about how many small
businesses were stuck with leases they must pay for worthless service
and equipment. This was their feature article on the Business Page.
See:
http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-0/109885514466130.xml
Big financing companies have filed suits against hundreds of small
business that stopped making payments on their NorVergence [sic]
leases.
A NJ lawyer, Michael Green of Milltown, has filed a class action
lawsuit against the financing companies accusing them of violating
consumer protection laws. He says small business customers were
misled and that the financing companies should have done due
dilligence -- had they done so they would've discovered the leases
were fraudulent. The leasing companies disagree.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly hope and expect Mr. Green
will prevail. There is **no way** the financing companies could not
have known about this fraud; they are now trying to unjustly enrich
themselves at the expense of the poor business people involved. There
is another firm of attornies working on this matter as well, basically
claiming the same thing. If the finance companies did not thoroughly
investigate the paper they were being asked to handle, that is their
fault. There are laws against unjust enrichment (where someone takes
advantage of the stupidity or ignorance of another party) as well as
against the more serious acts of fraud. I can't help but feel most of
the banks and finance companies knew full well what was happening and
assumed they would be able to pull it off; I doubt any of them (the
finance companies) expected the little customers would revolt as they
have done. "Just pay your bills, what the computer says you owe, since
as you must know, computers don't make mistakes."
Although the one group of attornies has suggested the business people
bring their bills up to date during the interim while they try to
recover for them, the latest group of attornies (Green, et al) has not
commented that I know of. I still suggest that debtors *freeze all
accounts payable to Norvergence** unless/until their attorney
instructs them to the contrary. PAT]
Lisa Hancock (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com)