Comments on: Finance company doesn’t even know it funds telco bundles

By: CSP Central: Australia's ISP and Telco Legal Site

CSP Central: Australia's ISP and Telco Legal Site — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:25:39 +0000

[...] yes, when we wrote (months ago) about a major lender that flatly denied that it had ever been involved with telco bundles, that was [...]

By: Greg Stevenson

Greg Stevenson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:19:11 +0000

At the time of signing the contracts, they get you to sign a “Delivery Acknowledgement” form and leave it undated. They say this is needed to get the ball rolling and when the goods are delivered you will get a delivery docket. This is later used by the Finance Company to say you have received all of the goods on the Rental Contract.

Usually, the salesman says he will post out a copy of the contract and doesn’t leave you with one. After they have left, they then add extra equipment onto the contract without you knowing, and get paid by MoneyCo at inflated values.

Quite often this equipment is $49 telephone diallers, which they charge to MoneyCo at $1000 each, and there is always way more than what you have telephone lines.

If you are caught in a scam like this, get a copy of the contract from MoneyCo and compare it to the copy you have (most don’t have a copy) and compare the equipment listed to see whether you received it or not.

If you do a google search for a forum called aussielegal there are many others in the same situation and we are trying to find victims so that you don’t face MoneyCo by yourself.

The battle has to be fought in the Federal Court so that fraud can be considered as part of the fight. If you go to the local Court, you have signed a contract with MoneyCo and are not paying, so they will win. They will deny any responsibility for providing telephone services, or equipment. All they supplied is the money – and you are not paying the contract you signed. Even if you sue Scamtel, EquippRent, and MoneyCo, the only people that will show up in Court are MoneyCo. There have been several of these cases lost already.

MoneyCo is supposed to verify the true value of the equipment. In my case I was told I was receiving $4000 worth of free equipment from EquippRent. I can buy the same equipment new for $1800. This equipment was invoiced to MoneyCo for $7500 plus after I signed the contract they added $11000 worth of telephone diallers.

Everyone is under the impression that the majority of the money they paid each month was paid to Scamtel to cover the telephone rebate. No-one new that Scamtel was taking out Finance in Joe Customers name, or the value of this Finance they were being signed up for.

These Scamtel and Equipprent Companies, of which there are many, close the doors and re-open as a new name. One even re-opened with the same ACN number until it appeared on the forum and then they closed it as well.

One Scamtel company changed its name, closed down, but reserved the scamtel name so it can use it again.

There are lots of these horror stories out there, so make sure you do a Google Search on Scamtel complaints and you will find out more info.

I found this link on the forum mentioned above.

By: Jeannie M

Jeannie M — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:09:41 +0000

Dear Mr Moon, you have written an excellent piece above so obviously you know this problem quite well. So please advise what we poor victims can do to extricate ourselves from this dilemma we find ourselves in. I have yet to hear on any forums regarding this, that any victim has had any real success. In my and dozens of others, we have since found that EquippiRent and ScamTelOne were tied in financially with another PHComm P/L formerly known as Nationtel, something like over $1million, all of whom are creditors for the defunct LinesConnect formerly ForteConnect. It appears to be quite a web of companies involved in lies and deceit .
But how do we rid ourselves of the leftover rental?

By: John C

John C — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:20:32 +0000

I am caught up in one of these scams and need a Lawyers advice and assistance. There are many breaches of the contract. I am based in Sydney. Is there someone out there who has experience in these cases?

By: Peter Moon

Peter Moon — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:52:18 +0000

Good scammers beat entire systems, not just bits of them. ScamTel one has few techniques for fooling financiers into releasing funds way in excess of any equipment that’s actually been supplied.
For instance, some customers report that the ScamTel One / EquippiRent rep asked to take a list of serials of existing PCs, copiers etc already owned or rented by the customer. They’d offer some lame reason for doing this like ‘It’s for security reasons.’
Then that list was sent to EquippiRent, and then to MoneyCo – sometimes with a forged customer acnowledgment signature , sometimes with a genuine signature by a customer who was just told to ‘sign here and here and here and here and here’. You have to remember, these customers trusted the scammer at this point.
So MoneyCo will later swear black and blue that it was involved in a genuine deal. It can ‘prove’ it, because look, it has all these serial numbers of the equipment.
We’ve seen a case where EquippiRent did actually call the customer and asked for confirmation that all the equipment on the inventory had been delivered. ‘No,’ said the customer, ‘most of it was already mine and here. It hasn’t been delivered by ScamTel One.’ So what did EquippiRent do in light of this information ? It released the full funding, as if the customer had said, ‘Yes, it’s all good. I have received that full list of lovely new equipment all in good order and condition.’
So, between scammer tricks and boneheaded due diligence processes by EquippiRent, ScamTel One found plenty of room to get its hands on MoneyCo’s cash without providing equipment to equal value.

By: Tony C

Tony C — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:08:16 +0000

Surely the bank or whoever do their due diligence to make sure all the equipment is for real and actually delivered?