Sign Petition

	Send as boycott letter to Senator Chuck Grassley, Chair, and Fellow Members, U.S. Senate Finance Committee
	Also send as boycott letter to Michael Fleming, President of the Equipment Leasing Assn.

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REGULATE THE LEASING INDUSTRY NOW

…an urgent messages from LesseeRights.org and the 11,000 Norvergence Victims

To: Senator Chuck Grassley, Chair, and Fellow Members, U.S. Senate Finance Committee
Cc: Michael Fleming, President of the Equipment Leasing Assn.

Re: This is a petition’ whose purpose is to: 1. Call for a boycott of all Leasing Companies who participated in the Norvergence Leasing Fraud scheme until restitution is made to victims and illegal practices stopped; and 2. A Plea to Congress to hold hearings in order to investigate Leasing Company frauds.

We represent over 11,000 small businesses, Girl Scouts, Churches, charities for illness and affliction, and other government and not-for-profit agencies across the country. We are the victims of the largest telecommunications scandal in history. The now defunct Norvergence and their “lending partners” Leasing Companies, are suing thousands of us. They want us to keep paying for services never rendered.

The fundamental Leasing Companies’ scheme: Norvergence’s services were labeled “equipment.” “Equipment,” that cost only $200 or $1550, was fraudulently valued by Leasing Companies as worth between $10,000 to $200,000. If Banks are allowed to falsely value $200 equipment for $200,000 and then expect small business victims to pay them for it, then the entire banking system is at risk of collapse. See report for further details. (http://www.lesseerights.org/Monitordaily_RRShearer_Article11_4_14_05.pdf)

Due to Leasing Companies’ actions, we victims of NorVergence are making a pledge to boycott all of the leasing companies, including parent companies and subsidiaries, that helped NorVergence carry out its fraudulent business plan. We will conduct no personal or commercial business with:

Boycotted Leasing Companies:
ABB Equipment Leasing, Bank One, BB&T, CCL – Commerce Commercial Leasing, Celtic Bank UT, Cincinnati Financial Corp., CIT Technology Financing, CitiCapital, Court Square Leasing, Credential Leasing, The Huntington Bank, Preferred Capital, Crown Bank Leasing, De Lage Landen, Dolphin Capital, First Corporation, First Lease, Firstcorp, GE Capital, IFC Credit Corp., ILC – Information Leasing Corp. AKA National City Commercial Capital, Insight Financial Corp, Interchange Capital NJ, Irwin Business, Lakeland Bank, Liberty Bank, Madison Capital, National Penn Bank, OFC Capital/ALFA Financial, Patriot Leasing, Penn Bank Leasing, PFG Commerical Finance, Popular Leasing, Preferred Capital, Inc., Primary Financial Corp. Source One Capital, Sterling National Bank, Studabaker – Worthington,Toshiba America Info Systems, US Express Leasing, USBancorp, and Wells Fargo Financial Leasing. Thus far only TFC Express Leasing has been removed from this list. They have given full restitution to all of their Norvergence victims.

We further pledge that we will continue to publicize this injustice by spreading the word among our fellow colleagues in our respective industries, and by using all means to disrupt the possibilities of Leasing Companies continuing the victimization of others. We have a relentless commitment to bring this matter to the public, to make use all forms of the press and other media, and to expose Leasing Companies involvement as part of this fraud. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and Leasing Companies are about to find out just how powerful we are. Until restitution is made to Norvergence victims and they stop the illegal practices associated with the Norvergence litigation, Leasing Companies will remain on the boycott list.

The list of frauds involved in the Norvergence and Leasing Company partnerships include bank fraud, accounting fraud, insurance fraud, property tax fraud, and the evasion of fees and taxes for phone, data and cable service. We urgently request that the Senate Finance Committee hold hearing to investigate the frauds perpetuated, both in the context of the Norvergence case and in unregulated leasing industry practices.

*Design Update: March 2005