Unfortunately, given how the economy has transformed over the past couple of decades, you are…read moreforced to consider less and less options in certain areas. Further, if you live and work in a smaller town, often your options are from a provider from a larger, far away town.
Such the case with myself and Office Concepts. I first leased a copier from them through a local guy I knew. Everything was great. Not only did we lease the copier, we paid them monthly for a service contract. No complaints.
When our lease was over, they contacted my office and told my assistant. I gave her the green light to get a new machine. Smooth transaction, old machine gone, new one in it's place. However, I have no idea who our sales person was, all I had was the name on our monthly invoice for the service. They ran their leasing through a third party. My guess is they make a margin on the sale of the machine and clearly on the monthly service fees.
We decide to consolidate my small town office to our main office an hour and a half away in Indianapolis. I called OC to tell them we would no longer need our copier and was told my lease wasnt up for another year. So, I paid every month for another year and called them a month ahead of my lease expiration to tell them to terminate on that date, no response. Called again a couple of weeks later, couldn't get past the person who answers the phone, left another message. This continued for three more months and I kept getting billed. I was obviously very frustrated by this time.
I was fed up and demanded they come pick it up...again, no response. Finally I had to hassle everyone to get me to the office manager.....the response....read your contract....tough. Not our problem. The contract he was referring to was full of small print from the third party leasing company. I have no idea who they are. I worked with Office Concepts. Again, not our problem was the response.
I contacted the leasing company and after explanation of my story, they waived any further fees and agreed to take the equipment back because, as they said, technically what Office Concepts was telling me was correct, however, it was clearly unethical.
Now...again read the fine print.....I'm responsible for finding a palette, preparing it for shipping, insuring it and finding a shipping company to transport it back to the leasing company.....they recommend a truck with air suspension that specializes in transporting electronics....okay, my town has 6,500 people in it.....let me just check the yellow pages.....
Again, this is some kind of tough luck attitude from Office Concepts because I no longer need their services....not that I'm going to a competitor, I literally don't have the office any longer. If I bought a new machine, they would come get this one and drop the other off...but...read your agreement, you're on your own...to the tone of $675 because, given the demand, I'll have to buy out the contract and have a copier that I'll have to store or give away.
My advice.....STAY AWAY FROM THIS BUSINESS. Unethical!!
