I am a small business owner in Surrey, BC Canada. 2 sales reps approached me and signed me up with this CollectivePOS in mid Feb 2011. They claimed they offer lifetime warranty for the terminal but they do not own the terminals. They also advertise 'lease to own' that's also false. They only process debit transactions, not VISA/MC/AMEX as they claim or advertise. Once I signed the contract(s) they denied that they have anything to do with the other 2 companies they hooked me up with. They are crooks!!!
They also added additional monthly charges by altering my contract with them after I signed it, and it took me forever to get them to correct this and other so called 'billing errors'. For example they charged me $5 a month for an imprinter, which I never received. I call them almost everyday, for exactly 29 days. The person handling my case became either 'busy' or 'out on lunch' all the time after I sent in my request for a refund.
The contract they presented me was actually a 3-in-one contract, with missing pages!!! Not all the terms and conditions were on the contracts I signed, and when I confronted them about this they just said 'You signed the contract, there is nothing we can do'.
Once signed up with Collective POS I was also hooked with 2 other companies (Northern Leasing & Elavon), that both had hundreds of thousands of complains filed against them as well as a class action lawsuit lodged against this Northern Leasing company in New York.
I was trying to cancel my contract with them then I was told that I will be charged for $300 from CollectivePOS, $195 from Elavon, and I can't even cancel the lease agreement with Northern Leasing. Northern Leasing were asking me to pay them $3000 to buy out the lease agreement and plus another $240 if I wanted to keep the terminal. (Lease to own? haha)
Here is how to fight them:
1.) Close your bank account, stop payments won't work as they will just use a different company ID to withdraw the money.
2.) Make a complain to Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. (CollectivePOS is being regulated by this agency)
3.) Make a report to Canadian Anti-Fraud Center.
4.) Make a complain to Better Business Bureau. (354 Charles Street, East Kitchener, ON N2G 4L5 Email:
[email protected])
5.) Report to your local police, make sure you file it under identity theft/fraud.
6.) Make a same report to the Ontario Police by mail or e-mail.
7.) Contact your local MLA or someone represent your area, and make a formal complain and ask him/her to forward it to the proper authorities.
8.) Once you got a police report number contact your credit bureaus to place a 'fraud alert' on your file, because they might try and screw up your credit. They will do it for free if you have a police report number.
9.) Contact your local news station and tell them about your business experiences with this particular company and have them make it a national news.
10.) Keep all documents and get ready to take legal action (If you want)
11.) You can ignore Northern Leasing & Elavon if they decided to harass you with mails and phone calls. But you do have to answer them if they sent a collection agency to try and collect money. First ask them for a copy of the contract, and tell the collection agency that the debt is actually a fraud and you already reported this to the police and ask them to put a dispute status on the file, and ask them not to get involve in this. They will usually back off at this point. If not, ask for the license of the collection agency, as well as the agent's license. Inform the agent that you will only accept regular mails for future communications. Give them the evidence and show them that they can throw the contract in the garbage, or a judge will. By law in Canada they can only contact you by mail once you tell them (by certify letter) you will only accept mail communications. The law says they can only call you once a day, if you can prove that the collection agent violate this rule (or the rules i mentioned above) you can actually sure them and have them pay for all legal fees.
12.) Don't be afraid to stand up and fight them. If they called you and harass you just hang up and dial *57, have the call traced and write down date and time, after their 3 attempts call the police and they will follow up the case. If they threaten you with life hang up right away and trace the call also, then call 911 or the police immediately.
You can buy the terminal for around $300 on-line. It is a scam, do not do business with them. See for yourself, Google Collective/Northern Leasing/Elavon (DBA Ladco Leasing) complains and see what you got!!!
