My husband was defrauded on an equipment lease for a check reader machine. The lease was filled in by someone other that my husband or the sales person. It may or may not be his signature on the document, but he never agreed to lease a $300 piece of equipment for $4700. Many other small businesses have been defrauded as well. The sales lady came in on 4/18. The equipment was shipped on 4/20, received on 4/24 and the lease execution date was 4/26, 2 days after we received the equipment by the 3rd party vendor. It specifically states that the leasing company would buy the equipment and arrange for delivery and the agreement would take effect upon delivery and execution. However, it had already been delivered by the execution date. Also, there is another form that was filled in by someone other than my husband or the sales person that says we accepted the property on the same day the salesperson was there. There was no way because it had not even been shipped. In addtion, none of the paperwork said what the equipment was supposed to be.

My question is, if the equipment was shipped and received prior to a lease, is it valid? If it was my husbands signature, he didn't know he was signing a lease because no paperwork was left behind. The leasing company could not have purchased and arranged for the shipment if we already had it. The leasing company doesn't care if there was any misrepresntation on the vendor's part, even with the lease filled in by somebody we don't know. They say we still owe it.