I signed up and paid $19, 900 to become a LeaseOne Broker about two and a half years ago. Joe Angelo and people at LeaseOne are nice people but they do fall way short on the promises made about their ability to get deals approved and the back office support they’ll provide. About 2/12 years ago I was downsized from a major bank and had lots of financial selling experience. While looking into the program and before signing up and paying my $19, 900 Joe Angelo called me about three times a week to sell me on why I should become a LeaseOne Broker and guaranteed he could get all kinds of deals approved. He told me about the numerous financial contacts he had and how he could get just about any one of my deals at any amount approved. I took Joe’s promises to heart, paid my $19, 900 by wire transfer and attended the training. I only wish Joe Angelo had been as responsive to my numerous calls for help that went unanswered after I completed training. I submitted many good deals that seemed to fall into a black hole while my customers waited anxiously on feedback as to whether or not their funding was approved. When I called the LeaseOne office for status I got every excuse in the book from the support team: fax machine was down, pages were missing, please refax, etc.” On numerous occasions I offered to email all the required information but was told that fax was the preferred method. Even when I emailed the information somehow wasn’t received or their printer ran out of ink when they tried to print the information.

At the training I met Joe Angelo, Jon Haas and Rick Lopez and as I stated they were all very nice people. At the time King Carpenter was listed on their phone mail system as an employee but I never met him. I become suspicious of the program at dinner one evening when Jon Haas pulled me aside and told me “this program is good for housewives with no business experience trying to write leases up to $75, 000 to their husbands friends owning small businesses with +800 credit score that don’t mind paying 15% -20% interest. For real deals over $75, 000 I should call him direct and he would write the leases through his lease brokerage company”. He also told me not to email him the information using the email system provided by LeaseOne because LeaseOne assigns your password so they can monitor their brokers email account. I can tell you that at the time LeaseOne did assign me an email password and when I asked to pick my own I was told by the assistant Tiffany that I could not. On a separate note, the LeaseOne email system was infected with a virus shortly after I joined the program and my mail file filled with all sorts of pornographic emails that spread throughout my computer and ultimately caused me to trash my pc and buy a new one. LeaseOne sent out a warning note relating to the virus but no information on what to do or help was provided. That evening Jon Haas also told me that Joe Angelo paid him $5, 000 per session for training as well as covering all his round trip travel expenses from Florida to Boston which probably answers LeaseMan’s question of why “Mr. HAAS remain as the Corporate Trainer for 5 years if it were such a scam? I would really love to know the answer to that one.” I can also see why LeaseMan, who I suspect is Joe Angelo would make the comment “I would first like to mention that this website is a forum...If I wanted to, I could go around posting anything at all about any business it wouldn’t matter...This website is a joke and should be shut down”. Maybe it’s a joke to you Joe, but man I wish I checked this out 2 ½ years ago.

The silver lining, every story has one. I became so frustrated in dealing with the LeaseOne folk that I did join the NAELB for $295 and for free I am signed up as a lease broker with many of the NAELB sponsors. I also attend their sponsored events and have made great financial contacts at them. Finally after shedding my hopes on what turned out to be Lease One’s broken promises I am getting my calls are answered and deals are getting approved!! The NAELB sponsors provide 100% better support and are true professionals. They are upfront on what they can and can’t get approved and their rates are more competitive with substantially less fees tacked on to their deals. LeaseOne is in the business of signing up brokers and perhaps there are some folks succeeding but I surely wasn’t one of them. I can tell you that it wasn’t me who was falling short on commitment or dedication as suggested in . I think the LeaseOne response suggesting it’s the frustrated broker’s fault speaks volumes about their attitude. Losing $19, 900 bothered me but I chalked it up to the PT Barnum category of “a sucker is born every minute”. I can only warn other folks not to become the next sucker.