Over the last few years more and more small businesses have turned to leasing options for their copiers and other business machines. Leasing is a great way for businesses to reduce costs and eliminate the hassle of dealing with disposal of old machines once they reach end of life. However, the benefits can sometimes be diminished by leasing contracts that are difficult to understand.
A lot of people don’t realize that copier leasing companies require plenty of advance notice if you’re not keeping your copier at the end of the lease. Often this is at the end of a 5 year lease and because of employee turnover or other reasons the customer copy of the lease can’t be found. If you’re in this situation call the toll free number on your monthly invoice and request a copy.
Yesterday I did this with a prospect and a well known leasing company sent the lease over. It stated that they had to notify the leasing company between the 4th and 2nd month prior to expiration that they want to return it. Otherwise it renews for 12 more months. This is called being “Evergreened”. It happens more often than not because most people assume they can just casually call the leasing company at the end of 5 years and say, “when got a new copier, can you pick this one up?” The leasing company than informs the customer that it renewed for 12 months and they won’t back down.
Even though an Evergreen is unethical it is legal since it is on the lease which no one reads and was written by the leasing company’s attorney. Why do this to people? Tokeep you from going to another vendor and leasing company. In other words to lock out competition because the only person who can get you out of the Evergreen is your current copier vendor if you do an upgrade with them. And guess what? They know you can’t shop around so you’ll probably pay too much and not get a great trade-in.
I am finding more companies asking me to help them get out of a $500 a month copier lease with service built into it. This is how it happens! The original lease was before the great Recession and had lots of service built into it and now they’re copying/printing less. Unfortunately, there’s nothing they can do because the lease is so upside down. The only option is to wait until the end of the lease and make sure the cancellation notice is turned in at the right time. Get a copier leasing quote today and see how much you can save.
Speak Your Mind