Complaint Review: Nova Merchant Services LLC

On April 30th of 2015 a salesperson from Nova Merchant Services came to my place of business to do a comparison of the above mentioned company's merchant services and rates against those of my then existing company's rates. After looking over a statement he proceeded to show how much my savings would be with Nova. He went on to say that if I signed up with Nova it would be a month-to-month service, no lease and that the terminal and pin pad would be included at no extra charge. Based on the credit card volume found on the existing credit card processing company statement, my typical monthly fee would be approximately $ 35 plus PCI compliance fee, if not compliant. I agreed to volunteer information for what he said was an APPLICATION which included several signatures and initials. I was not given a copy of the application form. The salesperson said that once I was approved I would receive the terminal/pin pad and I was then ready to start processing.

About a week later the two machines arrived at my place of business. I hooked it up several days later when I had time for that in my schedule and then shortly thereafter began processing. About one month of processing went by with no technical difficulties.

Towards latter part of June a letter arrived through USPS from a company named Northern Leasing Systems of New York City. Within the letter was seven pages, six of which detailed a NON-CANCELABLE EQUIPMENT FINANCE LEASE AGREEMENT. The first page of this document looked completely unlike anything I had seen when the salesperson filled in blanks on the application. I was watching him enter all info I was volunteering and also saw the pages and their layout. After reading the " NON-CANCELABLE ..." heading near the top I began a thorough look at all included information in blanks that followed. Within seconds it became clear to see that the handwriting changed from one filled in box to the next. It had been filled out by at least two different people. In addition to this some of the filled in boxes contained information CONTRARY to what I gave to the salesperson.

The next day I called my bank and told them of this situation and then proceeded to close my account which was also their recommendation. I also called Nova and spoke with a person named Raphael who was my assigned customer service agent to find out what Nova had to say about this so-called " lease ", word that I'm using very loosely here. I went to point out that these pages look nothing like what i saw in the salesperson's hands and that on page 1 of this document one can readily see at least 2 different handwriting entries in addition to misentries in certain filled in boxes. He readily volunteered that they in fact did re-write the paperwork due to some " misentries " by the salesperson !!! Basically, he admitted that this document is not the original ! I should also point out that in numerous subsequent phone conversations with contacts at Nova they would never give me Raphael - damage control is the only reason I can think of. In any case, I basically went onto to state that this " lease" document is fraudelent is bogus and fraudulent as it is not the original. The changing handwriting is the very simple evidence of that as there was only one person filling in the boxes on the APPLICATION. On top of that Raphael admitted to the rewrite ! And on the basis of just that I told him that this so-called lease is null and void because there never was one. One does not even have to be a lawyer to understand the illegality here: If an original document/contract is re-written or even ONE piece of information is re-written or changed the SIGNEE has to see that change and then either approve or disapprove of any change or re-writes. Either the original stands on its own or the new paperwork must be authorized and witnessed by all parties. If such law did not exist, we would see hundreds of " contracts " conjured up each hour of any day at the whim of one party and the expense and detriment of the other. 

Since June I have gone onward with reports to the Attorney General of North Carolina starting with intial complaint on Northern Leasing Systems since they were the company from which the " lease " paperwork came from. The company failed to respond to the AG's office query ( no surprise there ) and AG's office has since forwarded my complaint to the AG's office in state of New York.

I keep getting phone calls from Northern Leasing asking for me to make a payment on the lease which I refuse to do as I never signed a lease. One more thing I will add here regarding the " lease " - the bottom of the pages of the document ends with " Scanned by CamScanner ". I believe " Scammed by ScamScammer " would have been more appropriate.

I am currently filling out paperwork on Nova Merchant Services with the Attorney General's office of NC since the complaint against Northern Leasing has failed to bring about a resolution so far. 

My preferred resolution with both Nova and Northern Leasing is very simple - cancel the lease and for Nova Merchant Services to accept to take back the equipment ( which they refuse to do ) and cancel their cancellation fee of $ 495  which I was only made of aware of a MUCH later point in one of several email exchanges I had with a Nova representative named Rae Lin.