VDI Telecomm lease agreement

[Padster50]

Hi, sweeney todd, i have a problem with shire leasing i wonder if you can help, would you be willing to give me your thoughts on the matter, which is quite complicated.

In early 2007 i was contacted by shire to say funding was available for new equipment, i was looking for a new one man testing mot lift, and to cut a long story short put a supplier in contact with shire, from this point on i had no involvement in the negotiations other than being given a rough price by the supplier b4 putting him in touch with shire, until 26-06-07 when shire emailed me saying my agreement was attached and that they had spoken to the supplier about payment and delivery/installation. Up to this point i had no idea of the date or the cost of the payments.

i refused to sign the acceptance and delivery note as obviously i had not even seen the equipment yet.

It was delivered on 19-08-07 and the supplier commenced installation on 22-08-07.

I was called back from holiday by a concerned employee and i expressed my concerns about the substandard installation immediately to the installer(still installing) and to shire leasing, telling them i was not happy with it and not to pay for it. They were pressuring me to say it was ok but i refused and subsequently never accepted or signed.

Problems were immediately evident and despite following the complaints procedure to the letter, ie consumer direct, recorded delivery letters etc, no reply was rec from shire at all, it became unsafe and after having three independent inspections condemning the installation i was forced to stop using the lift, effectively closing me down, still no reply was rec from shire.

they have denied joint and several liability under sec 75 cca, and thereby ensued a long and fruitless debacle with the FOS, culminating in them not upholding the complaint.

In sept however i was accidentally sent from an employee at shire a copy of a fraudulently completed acceptance certificate.

This is only the bare bones of the matter, as you can imagine, I have reported it to staffordshire police who investigated. What is your opinion on the acceptance, as this seems to be my only protection in the whole agreement and this has been fraudulently completed by overlaying my dd mandate over the sig box, (quite obviously). Also it has just come to light when i enquired who the funding was placed with that they, (shire) have funded it themselves;;

I would be very grateful for your thoughts, Chris Seager

Reading Drive In MOT centre

PS Iwas a sole trader tover under 1000000 pounds therefore am a consumer under the cca as amended 2006-7

[Sweeney Todd]

Hi Padster,

 

Are your dates correct? That this is an issue from 2007? Not relevant, just seems like this has been dragging on for a long time.

 

Bottom line is that the funder requires a Certificate of Acceptance to be signed by you to confirm that the goods have been satisfactorily delivered, installed and accepted by you, and that you are happy to authorise payment for the goods to the supplier and commence the lease. it is the signing of the certificate that obligates the customer to make the lease payments.

 

As you suggest, proving that the Certificate of Acceptance is not signed by you is your defence. If Shire do not have a Certificate of Acceptance signed by you, then they do not have authority to pay the supplier and commence the lease.

 

Norton Rose are a legal firm that specialise in leasing. This is an article that appeared in the 2003 edition of Leasing World where they explained their view on what should be included in leasing documentation:

 

Typical Clauses in a lease agreement

2.1.5: Acceptance

• A deemed acceptance provision by the lessee is generally less satisfactory than a separate acceptance certificate. A " deemed acceptance" purporting to take place before the lessee has received the equipment is unreliable.
  Rejection of equipment by a lessee after commencement of the lease is not easy to accommodate in a finance lease. Generally problems must be sorted out direct between the lessee and supplier, but there is often no direct contractual relationship between those parties (the equipment having been sold to the lessor). This area needs careful review when acting for a lessee.
  The lessor is looking for unconditional acceptance by the lessee: if there are problems they must be sorted out direct between the supplier and the lessee.
  

The Certificate of Acceptance is used to overcome this required condition. Without a Certificate of Acceptance, you have not accepted the asset in good working condition, and so Shire are required to take up the matter with the supplier.

 

You, in the meantime, do not have goods of merchantable quality, have not acknowledged receiving goods of merchantable quality, have not authorised the lease to be activated and have not authorised the lessor to pay the supplier.

[Padster50]

As i suspected to be the case, thank you, would this be a good grounds now to stop paying and start legal action, i can send you copy of agreement and forged doc to view if req, cheers chris.

Ps reason for delay is that FOS has had it for 18 months, what a waste of tim e;;;

[Padster50]

PS in this case shire are the funder

[Sweeney Todd]

It may be worthwhile scanning and posting just to see if there are any other peculiarities.

 

I won't advise you on whether you should stop paying, but if I was in your shoes I wouldn't have paid a penny so far, because:

 

1. You haven't authorised any agreement to have been activated
   
2. Whilst you are paying, there is no incentive for Shire to take any action, as they are still receiving their payments
   

If I had been paying, and provided I had

 

1. evidence that I had been disputing this issue from the outset,
   
2. had evidence from August 2007 that I had advised both the supplier and Shire that the goods were not of satisfactory quality and that I was not authorising Shire to pay the supplier
   
3. Had evidence of a forged signatory
   

I would immediately stop paying and I would be demanding reimbursement of all the payments that I had made to date.

[pippadeee]

That Panasonic system is designed to work on analogue exchange lines (its a hybrid- works on analogue and digital/ISDN lines), but what is missing from the list of what they have invoiced you for is any reference to the extension sockets/wiring you would need in order to use those four system phones.

 

Was there any discussion at the time you agreed to this deal initially as to whether they said they would also install the system for you once it was delivered? The cost for the total kit you listed would only have amounted to about a quarter of the £4k they're chasing you for too.

 

This call package you were signing up for - I presume this deal was put to you on the lines of "switch your landline calls to us for xx time and in return (so long as you don't switch your calls to anyone else) we'll give you this system for free?

 

What happened in respect to this side of it then? Were you at the time using only BT for your phone calls? Or another provider? And did you ever actually switch your calls to these people or not?

 

If you still have all of the original paperwork in respect this that can be scanned (anything you did sign, any quote you got given/letters explaining the deal/predicted call savings/call tariff info - the lot, would be useful to have sight of.

[Sweeney Todd]

Hi pippadeee. Before you get too bogged down in the technology and solution delivered, you have to remember that this isn't an issue of Withoutalimb buying the phone system for an over inflated price.

 

The leasing company bought the phone system and the leasing company rented it to Withoutalimb.

 

Unfortunately for Withoutalimb, the only binding contract that he signed was with the leasing company to rent the goods, as described within the schedule, for x number of payments, at y frequency, of £z amount.

 

If he has any recourse here, it revolves around either:

• Proving that the finance company were negligable (ie. leasing sold by a company not holding a Consumer Credit Licence)
  
• Paperwork being proven to have been incorrectly completed
  
• Proving that he hadn't acknowledged satisfactory delivery of the goods and authorising the lease to commencement
  
• Goodwill of the broker, Shire Leasing
  
• Goodwill of the funder, HFGL
  

[Thunderboots]

Trading Standards have investigated VDI and found he was operating illegally, but have now lost him!

Now the lawers have started sending letters asking for the money or court action will be sort. I have threatened media coverage if they don't cancel the lease etc. Any help would be gratefull.

 

Cheers

 

How come this guy keeps (let me say 'allegedly' here) getting away from official enquiry? This account of evasion of Trading Standards - what is that all about? I was under the impression that if Trading Standards have real cause for concern about any alleged illegal or fraudulent action by a Trader then they could get a police warrant in order to investigate the company. This guy seems to be very hard to get hold of. How can he be brought in to account? Has anybody been able to get any where with their complaint? I too now would like some information and I know i am not the only one who has questions for him. It is hard to go into details on forums without then getting threatened with legal action for saying the 'wrong' thing but as far as I will go on here is that:

 

There are several people worried and wanting to establish how legally (or allegedly not) he is operating and what action can legally be taken now to have money returned to allegedly unhappy customers.

 

Any further assistance would be nice, or if there is any more recent news please tell us.

[buzby]

How about an unrealistic conception what Trading Standards will actually do...? Take action is all very well, but unless it is under the old 'Weights & Measures' laws (where they are the arbiter) going to court is something they do so rarely, you;ll see more pigs in flight first.

 

The matter will be referred from the Council (who is TS) to their 'central' body who will assess the matter and decide how best to proceed, and this usually means an advisory tosome government agency (like OFT) and they can carry on as before. Not their budget, not their problem.

[Thunderboots]

Point taken Buszby but look at this link from this newsgroup

 

The point is that Trading Standards in this case referred the case at some point to the Police who raided the premises. Now the guy we are talking about on this thread is from Scotland so I will take it that it's different there but no less assertive in investigation?

[buzby]

It's broadly similar, however just as you or I can go to the police and freport suspicions that may leat to police action, it would be a mistake th think that TS have some inside track to initiate the same action. They may have more credibility than a single claimant, but that's about it.

[Gummywol]

I have been following this Martin Creaney/VDI. This guy says one thing and does another after he has your monies. I am still chasing him after many months and he is very elusive once he has your money in his pockets. You would be well advised to steer clear until he has answered some of the claims against him and been satisfactorily investigated. I got help from an agency who ran a profile on him and all that this thread has previously reported is coming up on the profile plus a few more bits on alleged ccj's. He has recently stopped advertising on the Franchise Shop allegedly having had his account with them suspended on the back of a number of complaints. Lots of questions need answering from this set up - dont get involved with them until the complaints have been investigated fully or you could face losing a lot of money.

[Thunderboots]

The Advertising Standards Authority have adjudicated on the matter of Martin Creaney's advertisements under VDI Telecom - read it for yourself here:

 

Ok - I can't post messages because I havent posted more than 20 posts. I'll copy and paste. If you Google the Advertising Standards Authority website under adjudications for 22 December 2010 VDI Telecom are told not to advertise in their cretinistic and lying ways again.

 

ASA Adjudication on VDI Telecom

 

VDI Telecom

 

272 Bath Street

Glasgow

G2 4JR

 

 

Date:

 

22 December 2010

Media:

 

National press

Sector:

 

Business

 

Number of complaints:

 

1

Complaint Ref:

 

137296

 

 

Ad

 

A press ad for VDI-Telecom.co.uk stated "FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY with a Tier 1 UK Telecommunications Reseller ... The only UK franchise with GUARANTEED INCOME and 100% buyback of your £24k franchise fee! ...".

Issue

 

Two complainants challenged whether the following claims were misleading:

1. "The only UK franchise with GUARANTEED INCOME", because other franchises offered the same; and

2. "100% buyback of your £24k franchise fee!", because they were refused a buyback.

 

CAP Code (Edition 11)

 

3.17.12.652.5b

Response

 

VDI Telecom did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

 

Assessment

 

Upheld

The ASA was concerned by VDI Telecom's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 11) clause 2.6 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their obligations under the Code and told them to respond promptly in future.

We considered that the ad did not provide a clear description of the work involved and extent of investors' commitment. Because VDI Telecom did not provide evidence that they were the only UK franchise with guaranteed income and 100% buyback of the £24k franchise fee, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 11) clauses 2.6 (Unreasonable delay); 3.1 (Substantiation); 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 52.5b (Employment and business opportunities).

 

Action

 

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We asked CAP to inform its members of the problem with VDI Telecom.

 

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)

 

Speaks volumes really.

[buzby]

Good to hear - however, saying have 'adjudicated' anything is a bit of a laugh. They have no legal standing, and the decision has not cost VDI any money. They can carry on withnimpunity doing what they do as long as they nont advertise in the same way. Not ideal, but better than nothing.