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<\/p>\nI was chatting with a friend recently about what I do\u2014interviewing office technology dealers\u2014which prompted her to tell me that in her previous job as facilities manager for a New Jersey university the university\u2019s purchasing manager once told her that copier salesman were the sleaziest people he\u2019s ever had to deal with.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t shocked to hear that, but I was taken aback a bit because I know a fair amount of copier salespeople and I certainly wouldn\u2019t paint them with such a broad brush. But it did get me thinking, along with a story by Art Post in his Print4Pay Hotel blog, that there are some folks out there whose questionable business practices give even the most professional and honest dealers a bad name.
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No one wants to see their profession bashed even if the stories and incidents are true and Post\u2019s blog elicited a comment from an angry dealer who felt that it created a negative impression of all copier dealers. His concern was that potential customers would read the post and then lump honest sales people like himself into that unscrupulous category. \u00a0This may sound idealistic, but my feeling is that good will triumph over evil and one way to do that is to expose the bad apples and questionable practices that occasionally take place in the business. And dare I quote that awful Osmond\u2019s song from the \u201870\u2019s, \u201cOne bad apple don\u2019t spoil the whole bunch?\u201d\u00a0 There I said it and it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
To get a better idea of what the good apples are facing out in the field, I contacted a few definitive sources, including the always vocal Andrew Ritschel of EOS in Fairfield, NJ; Ray Belanger of Bay Copy in Rockland, MA; Al Scibetta of Copier Fax Business Technologies in Buffalo, NY; Frank Grasso of TGI Office Automation in Brooklyn, NY; and Mike McGuirk of Pro Copy in Tempe, AZ. They shared their experiences along with tactics they use to help undo the damage caused by the industry\u2019s bad apples.<\/p>\n
Ritschel recently celebrated his 33rd<\/sup> year in the industry. As a sales rep and now as the owner of his own company, Electronic Office Systems (EOS), he\u2019s witnessed a lot. \u201cI have met and worked with smart, dedicated, hardworking, honest, caring and talented industry professionals,\u201d he says. \u201cThese people account for 97 percent of the people working in our business. However, the remaining three percent cause chaos, immense costs, and harm to our businesses, our clients, and our industry’s good name.\u201d<\/p>\n What I found when talking to these good apples was that the biggest issues center around leasing.\u00a0 Ritschel recalls reps who\u2019ll ask the customer to sign a lease while telling them they\u2019ll fill in the lease term later. That\u2019s when a 60-month term becomes a 36-month term. Or they\u2019ll tell the customer they\u2019ll pay off the balance of their old lease and return the customer\u2019s old equipment to the leasing company, and then not do any of those things.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also seen sales reps inform the customer about their monthly lease payment while neglecting to point out the 15 percent yearly payment escalation clause in the fine print of the lease.<\/p>\n Another tactic he\u2019s familiar with is when a sales rep tells a customer, \u201cThis is a great once in a lifetime deal, but I need your order by tomorrow or my (150% above retail) pricing will go away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur industry has enough people in it who work hard to give us a bad name,\u201d acknowledges Mike McGuirk, president of Pro Copy. \u201cBut I do believe it\u2019s a minority.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s been in the industry for awhile and has seen a few shady deals go down around him.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a couple of dealers out here doing a 3\/5\u2014a five-year lease with three years worth of maintenance included. So the 60-month lease would include three years of maintenance or 300,000 copies, and when the client had to buy maintenance [after three years] their payments almost doubled.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the worst things he\u2019s seen is similar to what Ritschel talked about, getting someone to sign a lease without noting the term or penciling it in, writing 39 for example, and then later turning into 63. \u201cThat\u2019s a blatantly dirty practice,\u201d says McGuirk.<\/p>\n Some leasing companies don\u2019t allow dealers to return products early, which can lead to questionable behavior. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard one dealer in one market that didn\u2019t pay the lease off,\u201d recalls McGuirk. \u201cWhat we\u2019ll do is tell the customer you have 20 months left, let us cut you a check for those 20 months and you continue to make your payments to the leasing company, but you\u2019re not making two payments. That\u2019s what we think is the right way of doing it. And we return it.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the dealers in McGuirk\u2019s market wasn\u2019t doing that. What they did was set up a P.O. Box and was pretending to be the customer and make payments for the customer. Meanwhile the customer was getting bills for a lease that never got bought out.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just reviewed our leasing portfolios and one of the companies that we chose to do business with is Everbank because they are specifically encouraging early returns,\u201d reports McGuirk. \u201cTheir position is if you bought out one of our leases, it\u2019s better off in our hands than in your warehouse. That\u2019s the first common sense thing I\u2019ve heard in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n The scam that Post wrote about is also worth repeating. In that situation the sales person told the customer that they would remove and store the old device (no notification was sent to the leasing company about the device being removed nor was a letter of intent provided if one was needed at the time the device was removed). Of course the dealer told the customer that they would make the remaining payments on the old lease.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bottom feeder of a dealer cuts a check back to the customer either monthly, or quarterly, or in some cases they don’t make any payments,\u201d explains Post. <\/strong> \u00a0\u201cBut the real scam is the copier. \u00a0Remember the copier that is supposed to be sitting in the dealer\u2019s warehouse?\u00a0 (Keep in mind that the copier may have to sit in the warehouse for 6, 12 or even 24 months).\u00a0 The\u00a0bottom feeder of a dealer then takes the leasing company\u2019s property and rents it to another company\u00a0for a term that is shorter than the term that is left on the lease.\u201d<\/p>\n In this case the leasing company is getting hosed because instead of getting a system back early or getting a system back with a low meter read, they get the system back with higher usage. The customer is in violation of their lease and could be called into default. \u201cAnd what happens if the dealer goes out of business like that dealership did here in New Jersey?\u201d asks Post. \u201cThe customer is left holding the bag for the remaining stream of payments, probably no copier to be found, a legal mess, and they\u2019re still making payments on the new copier.\u201d<\/p>\n Al Scibetta, owner of Copier Fax Business Technologies, offers three classic examples, again related to leasing. \u201cThey\u2019ll tell the client they\u2019re going to include service in the lease, they write a 60-month lease, they cash out $15-$20K worth of service up front, and the leasing company never knows that service was built into the lease,\u201d explains Scibetta. \u201cThe company goes belly up and the client is left holding the bag.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s seen that happen twice in Buffalo with two big dealers. Fortunately for the affected customers, they were Konica Minolta clients so Copier Fax was able to step in and strike a deal with the leasing companies, saving those clients thousands of dollars. \u201cNow they\u2019re our clients,\u201d reports Scibetta. \u201cWe build service into the lease, but do it as a monthly pass through, and the leasing company knows what we\u2019re doing. Unscrupulous dealers hide it.\u201d<\/p>\n The second classic rip off is when the dealer agrees to pay off the existing lease the customer has and raises the payment to cover that cost, but never pays off the old machine. Meanwhile the client continues to pay invoices on their old machine.<\/p>\n \u201cThe third and craziest one of all is when they change a 36-month lease to a 63-month lease,\u201d observes Scibetta. \u201cThat\u2019s when a $15,000 lease becomes something like a $100,000 lease. Clients are none the wiser, they keep getting the bill from the leasing company and they keep paying it.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s found that astute customers will catch these discrepancies, but these are things the bad apples tend to bury or forge, which ultimately creates a bad name for all copier dealers.<\/p>\n On a more positive note, Ray Belanger, president of Bay Copy in Rockland, MA, feels that in general the industry has become more professional. \u201cIn the past it was a lot like that,\u201d he says about sleazy sales reps. \u201cWe still see some, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s anything like it was years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n The issues he sees most often are sales reps who neglect to clean up old leases, doing a deal and not figuring out the buyout, low balling the buyout, or not including the customer\u2019s service obligation in the new contract.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s someone not doing their due diligence and informing the customer about all the costs if they want to make a change,\u201d states Belanger. \u201cOnce in a while you\u2019ll end up on the short end of that; a competitor will look like they\u2019re cheaper, but there\u2019s a whole bunch of things such as switching costs and backend buyout that weren\u2019t [factored in]. That\u2019s the most common thing that you see.\u201d<\/p>\n Belanger says it\u2019s difficult to tell if these issues are deliberate or incompetence on the part of the sales rep. In some instances, it\u2019s customer incompetence. \u201cThese are issues that typically occur in larger accounts with poor internal controls,\u201d notes Belanger.<\/p>\n He\u2019s seen large accounts with multiple leases being double billed or billed for assets that weren\u2019t there, or billed for the same asset twice. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen leases in place that the customer was paying for and you couldn\u2019t even tell if they\u2019d received the equipment. A lot of that was on the customer, and unscrupulous sales reps can just go to town on someone like that.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to undoing the damage of incompetent sales reps or clueless customers who enable incompetent reps to flourish, the best way according to Belanger is being professional, having a good reputation, tenured sales people, references, and being a local business with a rich history like Bay Copy.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually we\u2019ll expose it we find something that was real slimy and explain to them how they can protect themselves,\u201d adds Belanger. \u201cHonestly you don\u2019t see that as much as you used to. Most of those guys are gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Frank Grasso, CEO of TGI Office Automation in Brooklyn, NY, agrees that most of the individuals and companies who excelled at tarnishing the reputations of office technology dealers have left the business, at least in TGI\u2019s market. \u201cIt\u2019s not as prevalent as it once was,\u201d he opines.<\/p>\n But pockets of incompetence and questionable practices still exist ready to take advantage of na\u00efve customers. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate because you find a lot of that behavior with companies that don\u2019t deserve it, mostly non-profits and churches, believe it or not,\u201d says Grasso. \u201cWe help them out of those messes.\u201d<\/p>\n What works in TGI\u2019s favor for helping get customers out of trouble are the relationships it has with leasing companies. The issues Grasso has seen are many of the same ones noted earlier, streaming out buyouts or the dealer not satisfying the old lease obligation and pocketing the money, for example. \u201cSome of these buyouts are huge and the customer is left holding the bag,\u201d laments Grasso.<\/p>\n Again, that\u2019s rare in the New York market. \u201cThere\u2019s more of an educated buyer here and it\u2019s not the first lease they signed so the experience level negates a lot of that,\u201d states Grasso.<\/p>\n As does TGI\u2019s reputation. \u201cWe try to elevate ourselves amongst the competition and our reputation and words are the only thing we have to stand on at the end of the day,\u201d concludes Grasso.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was chatting with a friend recently about what I do\u2014interviewing office technology dealers\u2014which prompted her to tell me that in her previous job as facilities manager for a New Jersey university the university\u2019s purchasing manager once told her that copier salesman were the sleaziest people he\u2019s ever had to deal with. I wasn\u2019t shocked to hear that, but I was taken aback a bit because I know a fair amount of copier salespeople and I certainly wouldn\u2019t paint them with such a broad brush. But it did get me thinking, along with a story by Art Post in his Print4Pay Hotel blog, that there are some folks out there whose questionable business practices give even the most professional and honest dealers a bad name. No one wants to see their profession bashed even if the stories and incidents are true and Post\u2019s blog elicited a comment from an angry dealer who felt that it created a negative impression of all copier dealers. His concern was that potential customers would read the post and then lump honest sales people like himself into that unscrupulous category. \u00a0This may sound idealistic, but my feeling is that good will triumph over evil and one way to do that is to expose the bad apples and questionable practices that occasionally take place in the business. And dare I quote that awful Osmond\u2019s song from the \u201870\u2019s, \u201cOne bad apple don\u2019t spoil the whole bunch?\u201d\u00a0 There I said it and it\u2019s true. To get a better idea of what the good apples are facing out in the field, I contacted a few definitive sources, including the always vocal Andrew Ritschel of EOS in Fairfield, NJ; Ray Belanger of Bay Copy in Rockland, MA; Al Scibetta of Copier Fax Business Technologies in Buffalo, NY; Frank Grasso of TGI Office Automation in Brooklyn, NY; and Mike McGuirk of Pro Copy in Tempe, AZ. They shared their experiences along with tactics they use to help undo the damage caused by the industry\u2019s bad apples. Ritschel recently celebrated his 33rd year in the industry. As a sales rep and now as the owner of his own company, Electronic Office Systems (EOS), he\u2019s witnessed a lot. \u201cI have met and worked with smart, dedicated, hardworking, honest, caring and talented industry professionals,\u201d he says. \u201cThese people account for 97 percent of the people working in our business. However, the remaining three percent cause chaos, immense costs, and harm to our businesses, our clients, and our industry’s good name.\u201d What I found when talking to these good apples was that the biggest issues center around leasing.\u00a0 Ritschel recalls reps who\u2019ll ask the customer to sign a lease while telling them they\u2019ll fill in the lease term later. That\u2019s when a 60-month term becomes a 36-month term. Or they\u2019ll tell the customer they\u2019ll pay off the balance of their old lease and return the customer\u2019s old equipment to the leasing company, and then not do any of those things. He\u2019s also seen sales reps inform the customer about their monthly lease payment while neglecting to point out the 15 percent yearly payment escalation clause in the fine print of the lease. Another tactic he\u2019s familiar with is when a sales rep tells a customer, \u201cThis is a great once in a lifetime deal, but I need your order by tomorrow or my (150% above retail) pricing will go away.\u201d \u201cOur industry has enough people in it who work hard to give us a bad name,\u201d acknowledges Mike McGuirk, president of Pro Copy. \u201cBut I do believe it\u2019s a minority.\u201d He\u2019s been in the industry for awhile and has seen a few shady deals go down around him. \u201cWe had a couple of dealers out here doing a 3\/5\u2014a five-year lease with three years worth of maintenance included. So the 60-month lease would include three years of maintenance or 300,000 copies, and when the client had to buy maintenance [after three years] their payments almost doubled.\u201d One of the worst things he\u2019s seen is similar to what Ritschel talked about, getting someone to sign a lease without noting the term or penciling it in, writing 39 for example, and then later turning into 63. \u201cThat\u2019s a blatantly dirty practice,\u201d says McGuirk. Some leasing companies don\u2019t allow dealers to return products early, which can lead to questionable behavior. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard one dealer in one market that didn\u2019t pay the lease off,\u201d recalls McGuirk. \u201cWhat we\u2019ll do is tell the customer you have 20 months left, let us cut you a check for those 20 months and you continue to make your payments to the leasing company, but you\u2019re not making two payments. That\u2019s what we think is the right way of doing it. And we return it.\u201d One of the dealers in McGuirk\u2019s market wasn\u2019t doing that. What they did was set up a P.O. Box and was pretending to be the customer and make payments for the customer. Meanwhile the customer was getting bills for a lease that never got bought out. \u201cWe just reviewed our leasing portfolios and one of the companies that we chose to do business with is Everbank because they are specifically encouraging early returns,\u201d reports McGuirk. \u201cTheir position is if you bought out one of our leases, it\u2019s better off in our hands than in your warehouse. That\u2019s the first common sense thing I\u2019ve heard in a long time.\u201d The scam that Post wrote about is also worth repeating. In that situation the sales person told the customer that they would remove and store the old device (no notification was sent to the leasing company about the device being removed nor was a letter of intent provided if one was needed at the time the device was removed). Of course the dealer told the customer that they would make the remaining payments on the old lease. \u201cThe bottom feeder of a dealer cuts a check back to the customer either monthly, or quarterly, or in some cases they don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1649,1814,1641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8891,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions\/8891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}