Consumer Law, Warranties Equipment Lease - Product failed to deliver

[optical]

I have situation where I purchased a software product was leased through a leasing company in OH back in Dec '06. The total lease amount is about $22,000 and I have about $13,000 in balance.

The short of the product did not work since day one. I worked with the maker of the software throughout 2007 on my issues and they say it would be fixed once their new release comes out. Now 2 years have past and where are not going anywhere. During this whole time I continued to pay my leasing payments.

They basically gave me false promising of the new software release but at this point I feel like I got cheated. I documented all the support cases everytime I contacted them on the issues.

I even got suckered into buying an additonal year of their "support" hoping to get their new releases so the issues get fixed.

The leasing company says that they don't get involve in the quality of the product and I'm obligated to pay the balance and on the lease contract. There is a clause that they are not responsible for the quality of the product.
By the way, this lease company was referred by the maker of software. I did not choose the lease company so not sure if this fact helps.

Where do I start to handle this? I'm in CA but the leasing company is OH.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

This is a very complex issue and you've got a couple of problems with a case. You've used the software for 2 years. Evidently the problem could not have been fatal or else you would have simply stopped the deal cold and said 'enough is enough.' But you also shelled out a support contract on top of this. Who might you have a remedy against? Difficult to say. If you make payments to the leasing company then they have potential liability and cannot simply say they have no responsibilities. But they do have a point about a limitation of their liabilities to you, some of which are logical (they aren't in the software business and might be in leasing solely for pricing purposes) and legal (in your contract.)

My feeling is that unless there is a serious defect in the software, you've got a major uphill battle to climb. As I don't even see any of the details and you will need to have them reviewed, that's the best news I can give you.