- Report: #1216033
Complaint Review: LEAF Financial Corporation - Philadelpia Pennsylvania
Reported By:
concerned K & V -
Rocky River, Ohio, USA
Submitted:
Updated:
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
LEAF Financial Corporation
One Commerce Square 2005 Market St. 15th floor Philadelpia, 19103 Pennsylvania, USA
Phone:
800.819.5556
Web:
leaffinancial.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
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LEAF Financial Corporation LEAF Commercial Capital REXI Resource America, Inc. LEAF Equipment Finance Fund 4 Time for investors to blow LEAF and expose fraud and deception! Philadelpia Pennsylvania
“A LEAF by any other name stinks the same.” As an investor in LEAF Equipment Fund 4 since 2009, my sister and I thought we were invested in a long term share-program that provided a fixed rate of interest income that was not affected by stock market volatility.
At most, we hoped to make money, but at minimum, we hoped to recoup our initial investment.
Even though we saw a decrease in our monthly disbursements, we believed LEAF’s optimistic statements published as late as May, 2014, that said, “ These indicators (referencing positive economic indicators released in 2014) have especially important relevance to the LEAF Funds, as loans and leases to small to medium size businesses comprise the majority of the LEAF Funds portfolios.” Little did we know that LEAF Financial was in major debt and that the leases and loans and related equipment had been collateralized in order to pay off debt owed to Morgan Stanley and others.
All this became very clear when we had a phone conversation in February, 2015, with Scott Smith, a portfolio advisor for LEAF FUND 4, who said he had “incredibly bad news for us.” Our investments were now worth little or nothing and that within a year the money would be gone with no hope of recovery. This is in total contradiction to positive statements made by Crit DeMent , Chairman and CEO of LEAF, in reference to securitizations from Guggenheim Securities and others,”…It puts us on solid footing to grow the portfolio in our strategic markets in 2011 and beyond… The increased ability to fund leases will also enhance the base from which LEAF continues to manage its partnership programs.” Based on these and other positive statements, we assumed these companies (Guggenheim, Credit Suisse, and others) were brought in to help pay investor partners and to pay off debt.
We now know that the investment money in the Fund was used to off pay a debt in the millions and then create a new” LEAF”-LEAF Commercial-with some of the same officers and board members as the dying LEAF Financial. LEAF Financial Partners have lost everything while the reinvented “LEAF” now receives accolades as one of Philadelphia’s fastest growing privately held companies in 2014. They have benefited from the creation of a new corporation on the backs of the trusting investors of LEAF Financial.
I don’t begin to understand all the manipulations that occurred during this transition period, SEC filings, re-branding, etc., but it doesn’t take a financial brain to understand when you have been scammed!
My sister and I will not let this rest. “LEAF” is a disreputable organization and should not get away with misleading and deceptive practices that in many cases took the hard earned money of its investors to further its own gains.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
ORT
Utah,USA
please contact me
#2Consumer Comment
Mon, January 11, 2016
If the author of this complaint and ANY one out there wants to join me in a lawsuit, please contact me at (((REDACTED))). I am a victim of similar shady activities in Leaf Financial Fund III.
Been there done that!
#3Author of original report
Wed, April 08, 2015
This an update to our previous letter to Ripoff. After writing to Ripoff as well as to Christopher Menkin of Leasing News, we received a response from Scott Smith, Porfolio director of LEAF fund 4. His response was actually sent to Mr. Menkin as a reply to an inquiry made by Leasing News.
I am posting Mr. Smith's response as well as our rebuttal as published in Leasing News.
Both Crit DeMent, and Miles Herman, were contacted for a comment, or asked to direct Leasing News to the appropriate person. Leasing News was referred to Scott Smith, Director, Syndications & Portfolio, who basically emailed: "Based on the attached letter, it would appear that the investor has some misconceptions or misunderstandings about their investment. Please refer them to 866-323-0241 and we will be happy to walk them through this.” (1)
Our reader responded:
“Thank you for following up on my previously published letter. My sister and I have followed your articles on LEAF and you have given us more information on our ‘bad investment’ than we ever received from Scott Smith, Director, Syndications & Portfolio Mgmt., or LEAF’s Investment Relations Rep. This letter should be titled “BEEN THERE, DONE THAT”!
"I contacted LEAF’s investment relations department after receiving my tax form from them. The representative I spoke with had little to say concerning how investment funds were allocated and why the liquidation of equipment and other assets were used to pay off debt rather than reimburse investors. Unfortunately, all he gave me was an ‘I feel your pain’ attitude and a referral to Scott Smith. Ironically, we had spoken to Scott Smith in February with our financial advisor on the phone and got very little information as to what actually went on with these LEAF Funds for the last 7+ years. Mr. Smith told us that the account balance on our most recent investment statement actually reflected numbers from 2013! Unbelievable as it seems, these two LEAF reps could only point to each other for information and neither one had any “information” that would clear up our alleged “misconceptions or misunderstandings” about our investments.
“I’m sure there are many other devastated investors who are confused as to what actually transpired here and would like to recoup some of their hard-earned money and prevent this company with its many LEAF aliases from selling any more deceptive investments to any other trusting investors.”
Concerned K&V
