ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

[flatsixforme]

Yes, very good point about the $2.2M...I just can't get over that amount of money potentially being lost to a ponzi scheme! I did fail to mention that this family friend did tell me that not just any investor can call Joel up and invest...I'd have to call and say I knew this family friend. That is one of the biggest red flags!!!

[worried]

I have tried hard to find any indication that Nationwide is legitimate but can't. ATM leasebacks (any leaseback scheme for that matter) are considered 'securities' by the federal SEC and all state securities regulators that I've looked at, and as such, are required to be registered. This is denied by Nationwide, but that denial doesn't change the fact that they're breaking the law. An important detail I found today: Gillis, Wishner, and Nationwide "loaned" over $1.2 MILLION dollars to a company called "Fuel Doctor" which is being sued (several lawsuits) for selling a ridiculously fraudulent product that plugs into a car's lighter socket supposedly improves fuel economy... I'm an electrical engineer, I laughed myself silly when I read that, but, it's not funny when you think that $1.2M is somebody else's money that they're basically stealing and I believe trying to hide somehow... go ahead and google it: Gillis, Fuel Doctor, it's right there in an SEC filing from this year.
Ponzi schemes ALWAYS collapse eventually. The main character either gets busted, dies, or disappears, and everyone else is left holding the bag and they WILL get the authorities involved who will then start going after any 'profits' reaped by early investors (look up the Madoff scandal and the 'trustee' and who they went after). Here's the key point that I've concluded from researching all this: they will look at all associates (including friends and relatives) of early investors who profited. In other words, if you give or take money from someone involved in a Ponzi scheme, you're going to eventually hear from the authorities and they're going to take money from you. MAYBE you could get away with it, but I think to be safe you have to assume that you're going to be busted along with everyone else. Ignorance is no excuse (and can be feigned anyway). It also seems to me that once you get involved with a scheme or even associate financially in any way with someone involved, that's it, you're part of it and the ONLY way to not get hurt by it is to be willing to disappear at some point. That's my take. I would love for someone to be able to prove my suspicions wrong about Nationwide and Gillis by offering real, objective evidence in the form of official registrations, 3rd party audits, etc., but I'm pretty sure that if they can't be found on today's internet, they don't exist.

[Tednewsom]

"I would love for someone to be able to prove my suspicions wrong about Nationwide and Gillis by offering real, objective evidence in the form of official registrations, 3rd party audits, etc.,"

-- you and me both.

[notorial dissent]

Check with your state's Corporation and Securities commissions, see if they are registered to do business in your state and are licensed to be selling securities. If they are not, then that should be an immense red flag.

You have already pointed out the lack of verifiability for Nationwide, plus you have seen what has been written previously. What more do you want? How many more red flags do you need before the walk away sign flashing gets you attention?

If you have money to throw away, why don't you look for something less chancey? Why is this particular opportunity to throw away your money so attractive to you?

[Tednewsom]

Common throughout the lease-back world (going back a couple decades to the pay-phone and office furniture variations) is the patently ridiculous dodge, "Oh, we're not selling securities, we're offering financial partnerships, so we don't have to register with the SEC."

My ass. No, guys: you're selling securities.

[ElenaPezzini]

Joel Gillis and Nationwide Automated Systems, Inc. are the most honest and legit business and investment business you will ever find. I have been happily doing business and invested with them for the past 2 decades. I have also referred family, friends & clients to them and all of us have been very happy. Mr Joel and Nationwide Automated Systems are completely transparent and highly ethical. I highly recommend them

[Burnaby49]

Joel Gillis and Nationwide Automated Systems, Inc. are the most honest and legit business and investment business you will ever find. I have been happily doing business and invested with them for the past 2 decades. I have also referred family, friends & clients to them and all of us have been very happy. Mr Joel and Nationwide Automated Systems are completely transparent and highly ethical. I highly recommend them

I guess we can all relax then.

[Tednewsom]

I'm going to make a wild guess, but I think your irony will be lost on this happy customer.

[Tednewsom]

Perhaps that was too snippy an answer. Really, the smarter & more honest the target, the easier it is for a sharp confidence man to get the edge. One uses the person's reasoning powers against them, letting the mark rationalize why a situation must not, cannot, be the obvious transparent scam it appears to be. And very smart, very nice people fall into that trap terribly easily.

Here's a pertinent observation on that sort of mentation:

Cognition, Perception, and Attitudes

Schemas are mental frameworks that focus on a certain theme that allows humans to organize social data. Once schemas are created, they shape attention, or what people notice, encoding, or what enters into memory and retrieval or remembering. Memory can represent inconsistent information. Schemas could distort one’s understanding of the social world, when they refer to unrealistic information. Schemas make one’s believe that its information is accurate, even when it is not.

Inoculation against counter-attitudinal views is resistance to subsequent persuasion increasing when one receives arguments against his or her own views and receives others arguments that refuse the same counter-attitudinal views. Cognitive dissonance is noticing discrepancies among own attitudes. It produces negative affect, such as confusion.

That’s wisdom from noted Life Coach and Hypnotherapist Elena Pezzini, M.S., C.P.C. (a graduate of the highly regarded "Northcentral University," which is not a diploma mill, no matter what everyone says, and no matter how much money the owner has had to repay in fines and lawsuits.)

http://EzineArticles.com/6285352

[Tednewsom]

(For those who didn't get it, the rah-rah letter above was in fact written by Elena Pezzini, M.S., C.P.C. , who is the author of the quote.)

One of the leading cheerleaders for this outfit recently sent mass emails to assorted "partners" encouraging them to spend more dough in this can't-lose racket. You can just feel the excitement bubbling out of the pitch. After the upbeat "What an opportunity!" line, the cheerleader further enthused:

Here's a rave article about Nationwide Automated Systems from Reuters, the international news service which specializes in business. You can see how much they think of the company! It was published way back in January, and a satisfied customer called my attention to it.

I recently had dinner with Joel and told him about it. He was totally surprised. He had no idea anyone was writing an article about his company.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/ ... KW20130130

What is dreadfully, painfully upsetting to me is that this otherwise-intelligent cheerleader has so bought into the fantasy, their brain does not even recognize the obvious.

Hello? It's a PR release-- from the company.

Under "Sponsored Links."

And there is a disclaimer right under the header:

"Reuters is not responsible for the content in this press release."

AND the press release is signed:

Joel Gillis
contact@nationwideautomatedsystems.com

So not only is the cheerleader vision-impaired when it comes to reading English, they don't realize when someone is lying through their teeth.

"Oh, wow, gee, Reuters, huh? I had no idea someone was writing an article."

Yeah, schmuck, an "article" which is a paid press release signed by you. For God's sake.

[BeverlyHillsMan]

I know Joel Gillis personally, as well as his partner, Ed Wishner, as I have since 2004 when I was referred to NASI by a friend who already owned ATMs through them and was doing well. Let’s call him Adam (not his real name). I then bought 16 ATMs that began operation in January, 2005, for $12,000 apiece -- not $11,000, not $19,000. They have never been sold for any other price (at least since that time), no matter how many ATMs the investor buys -- no “quantity discounts.” Along with the monthly check from NASI, a transaction report is sent showing the number of transactions on every machine. I created a spreadsheet and have kept track of every single machine for every single month since then. That situation continued until the end of 2011, by which time I had long since recouped my original investment and was well into profit. I was then in a position to purchase substantially more ATMs. During the course of the next 18 months, I increased my position to 250 ATMs.

Before doing so, however, I did significant due diligence in 2011 on Joel and Ed and NASI. I saw these blogs (the ones that were written before then, at least) but I observed that they were nothing more than vague suspicions and innuendos based on no firsthand knowledge whatsoever. Nevertheless, they gave me the jitters. Are these cynical bloggers the sophisticated ones and am I the goat? I had my secretary call all 16 hotels in which my original ones were located,and tell them that her mother had a problem with the ATM in their lobby and could she please have the phone number of the servicing agent displayed on the outside of the machine. Having gotten all of those numbers, we then called them and left messages. Most simply never returned the call but those who did confirmed their business relationship with NASI. Furthermore, NASI has the contract to provide service for all Hilton Hotels in the USA. I asked Joel for the name and number of his contact there, which he gave without hesitation. I called and left a message on her answering machine but the announcement made no reference to Hilton so I became suspicious. So I called Hilton operational headquarters in St. Louis, MO, and asked for the person in charge of their ATM machines. After a couple of interim referrals, I ended up with -- yep, the same woman and the same answering machine. She called me back a day or so later and we had a long conversation about NASI and Joel, with whom she had done business for a decade-and-a-half.

I pressed on. My friend Adam had continued to buy ATMs over the years and then owned 150. I had repeated lunches with Joel and Ed and asked many questions, all of which were answered well and reasonably. One of those lunches included my eldest son, a Harvard Law graduate who has practiced securities law and real estate law and is a sophisticated investor himself -- and by nature very skeptical, even moreso than I. He asked many penetrating questions but, in the end, could find no red flags. I asked about NASI’s biggest investor, who then owned 1,000 ATMs -- let’s call him Ben -- who was also their longest investor and a good friend who knew them 30+ years since before they were in the ATM business. Joel freely gave me his phone number, I called him and we spoke at length, then some months later became better acquainted over lunch. I live in Beverly Hills and Ben lives not far from me and we have become friends. Adam, Ben and I are all certain that the NASI business model is no Ponzi scheme. In the same 18 months that I have increased my holdings to 250 ATMs, Ben has increased his to 1,500, for himself and his kids and grandchildren.

What about this $12,000 price for an ATM? Yes, I researched the price of just the machines on the Internet, too, and saw that new ones go for $3,500 to $7,000 and used ones as low as $2,000. But keep in mind, you must pay tax, delivery charge and installation. Joel says they always get new machines and have about $4,500 to $5,000 into each one by the time they are delivered and installed in the location. But before that, you must first secure the location. This invariably requires an up-front payment to the owner of the hotel or gas station or convenience store or whatever. As an apartment owner (see below), I know exactly what he means. I have laundry rooms in all of my properties. The washers and dryers in them are all owned and operated by coin laundry services. They always give me an up-front payment of $2,500 to $5,000 to secure my building, the amount depending on how many apartments are in the building and how long a lease -- 5 years or 10 years or in between -- that I am willing to sign. No, the ATM leases do not go on “forever” (per one erroneous blogger), they have a 10-year term, just as my leases with NASI have a 10-year term. And if Joel and Ed split a 35% profit on the sale of each ATM to me, I don’t care, I am happy with the return that I will get over the years.

I am primarily a real estate investor, mostly apartments but also some commercial and some office buildings. Mostly they have been in southern California but also Houston, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Wisconsin. Now they are exclusively in Beverly Hills. I have also invested in oil wells and motion pictures. My net worth is in 8 digits and Ben’s is undoubtedly greater than mine. I think that those bloggers who are casting about their innuendos and vague suspicions should come forth and let us know their experience and success with investments, as I have just done. Or are they computer geeks sitting timidly in dark rooms with nothing better to do than eat Twinkies and write blogs posturing as seasoned investment critics but wouldn’t risk $5 to buy a $10 bill because it would be too scary, “too good to be true?” One of them is fond of saying “If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.” Well that is sage advice, provided you have had experience with ducks, as well as other kinds of birds that resemble ducks but really aren’t.

One can break down most investments into 4 kinds, or “levels,” with respect to risk and return.

1. Bank deposits, Treasury and other conservative bonds. They return ½% to 3%, lowest of all but with absolutely minimal risk.

2. Stocks, mutual funds and more speculative bonds. Returns of 3% to 8% are reasonable but with significant risk of capital loss. If somebody guarantees you 10% or 12% or 15% return at this level (e.g., Bernie Madoff, Marc Drier, et al) -- because he is a more clever investor than Warren Buffet and all the other millions in the stock market -- it is absurd, don’t go near it.

3. Real estate. Returns of 10% to 20% are commonly offered by large, institutional partnerships and are frequently delivered, while small, on-on-one partnerships often do much better. But many investors calculate the risk as even higher than stocks. (Personally, I do not. Real estate is a very reliable repository of net worth although, admittedly, location is critical.)

4. Start-up businesses. In this most speculative level of investment, including everything from a software start-up to a new restaurant, projected returns will range from 15% to 50%, with everyone secretly hoping for the next Microsoft or Spago’s that will make even far greater returns. And the investor expects the promoter of the business to have experience in that field -- if you’re going to start a new restaurant, then you had better have some background as a restaurateur.

If you compare NASI’s ATMs investments in the #1, #2 or #3 categories above, the projected return will seem unreasonably high and you may fall into the “Looks like a duck” syndrome. But please observe that Madoff and Drier and their ilk said this: “Give me your money and I will purchase stocks in other companies in which I am totally passive, have no control, do not know the CEOs and know nothing of operating such a business, but I will make a much better return than any other investor in the stock market because I am so much smarter than all those millions of stockholders who are competing against me.” But Joel and Ed are saying and doing nothing of the kind. The NASI business model should rightfully be compared to the #4 category. Every time NASI gets in a new batch of ATMs, most of which NASI keeps for itself and some of which it offers to investors, that batch of ATMs are all in new locations (for NASI) and so it can be thought of as another new little start-up business. Joel and Ed are not passive investors in somebody else’s corporation, they have complete control over NASI and have long experience in successfully running ATMs and so the investor can have a reasonable expectation that they will continue to do so. Furthermore, there is no appreciation on the actual ATMs, as one hopes for in stocks or in real estate, so with no upside on the asset value, a return of 20% cash-on-cash is not unreasonable. In that context, in fact, it is actually conservative. (I would never go into a real estate investment in which the return would be as little as 20%/year including appreciations.)

There is a great TV series called “American Greed” which has told the stories of a number of Ponzi schemes -- Madoff, Drier, etc. -- as well as other kinds of financial frauds. If you pay attention, you will notice one thing that they all had in common. Madoff, Drier and EVERY other Ponzi schemer hit the wall in 2008-2009, with the onset of the great recession. Money completely dried up. Madoff and Drier increased their promised returns in last, desperate gambits to postpone their inevitable implosion by just a few more months but even if more suckers could be found with the will to give them money, they simply didn’t have it. There were no funds for the Ponzi schemes to keep going. The recession shook them ALL out. NO Ponzi survived it.

Think about it. If NASI is a Ponzi scheme, then Joel and Ed are required to fabricate the transaction counts on every single machine for every single month of every year for every investor in order to send out those reports. That’s several thousand figures they have to invent every single month. Oh, maybe they have some piece of computer software that does it for them, you say? I’ve got to tell you, I know them, and even if they were that devious -- which they’re not -- they aren’t that computer savvy. Consider this: During the recession, my 16 ATMs were my own little barometer of the economy. From the beginning of my ATM investment, I was accustomed to getting $3,200+ per month but then I watched the income slowly decline starting in late 2007, actually, when a few economists were already saying we were headed into recession but nobody believed them. My little stake of 16 continued to decline until they hit their low point of $2,620 in March, 2009, then very slowly started to inch up. It continued to rise through all of 2010 and 2011. Today, economists point to March, 2009, as the low point in the recession. If Joel and Ed were fabricating transaction counts, how could they possibly have known back in March, 2009, that it was the low point in the recession when nobody else in the world knew that? Incidentally, those same 16 ATMs now bring in around $3,400/month, more than they ever did before. My other 234 ATMs are doing just fine, too. Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot speak for other purveyors/operators of ATMs but NASI (the 4th largest in the nation, by the way) does not operate a Ponzi scheme.

This is the first blog that I have ever written in my life and the only reason I spent this much time writing the damn thing is that I am stuck in the airport in Madison, Wisconsin, with a 4½-hour delay on my flight and I have nothing better to do. Even so, I feel somewhat the idiot for squandering this time because I am certain that none of these naysayers will ever invest so much as a nickel in their lives so there is no point in attempting to change their minds. And anyway, why should I care? I don’t give a rat’s ass if anyone reading this ever buys a single ATM from Joel or Ed. It’s just that they are nice guys, simple, straight-up and on the level and I hate to see their names disparaged with this kind of unfounded innuendo and scurrilous suggestions. And one last thought: Has anyone noticed the complete ABSENCE of anything negative about Joel or Ed or NASI on the Internet? If there were anything of substance in existence that impugned their characters, well, it would be out there. In fact, it is amazing to me that their lives are so squeaky clean that nobody has anything concrete to dredge up against them.

Thus endeth the lesson.

[Tednewsom]

What a marvelous, fact-based, first-hand and funny response. You're excruciatingly knowledgeable about the ins and outs, and I'm delighted you had the 4 1/2 hour delay to take the time.

Personally, I still think the whole thing is hinky, and the plethora of identically-functioning companies hauled into court over ATM leaseback operations or popped by the SEC would be enough for me. And clearly, it's enough for a number of people a lot more hip to this stuff than I am. But your counter-arguments are very solid, and you appear to have done a boatload of due diligence.

The recent investment of Nationwide's funds (and the principals' personal funds) in some gimmick auto product which doesn't seem to do a thing is another peculiarity which I would consider a characteristic red flag. Perhaps it isn't; perhaps Consumer Reports and Track & Auto are run by dopes who don't know a thing about auto products. It's a wacky world. Anything's possible.

I passed on it because it made utterly no mathematical sense. Perhaps I was wrong. But I clearly was not alone, and equally clearly, most of the people posting on this thread know what they're talking about. (They don't come off to me as bitter geeks living in their mom's basement, but I'm always optimistic about strangers.)

Right now I'm going out to the car to plug my charger into the cigarette lighter to increase my gas mileage 25%.

Seriously: thanks very much for the response, BHM.

[JamesVincent]

I'm not even going to try to reply to your entire post, just way too much there. I am, however going to touch on a few points that jumped out at me. Literally, they flew out of the screen and smacked me in the face.

I then bought 16 ATMs that began operation in January, 2005, for $12,000 apiece -- not $11,000, not $19,000. They have never been sold for any other price (at least since that time), no matter how many ATMs the investor buys -- no “quantity discounts.”

Why not? I guarantee they get a bulk discount. If they buy as many machines as they claim I can bet they get them dirt cheap, why not pass that savings along and encourage further growth?

Before doing so, however, I did significant due diligence in 2011 on Joel and Ed and NASI. I saw these blogs (the ones that were written before then, at least) but I observed that they were nothing more than vague suspicions and innuendos based on no firsthand knowledge whatsoever.

If you had read the posts in this thread before then they weren't based on vague suspicions with no firsthand experience. I actually installed coin-op machines of many types while contracting for a billiards company. My posts were written based on firsthand experience in the business. I had no experience with that particular company, true. Several other posters had firsthand knowledge of the company and brought their experience here.

Having gotten all of those numbers, we then called them and left messages. Most simply never returned the call but those who did confirmed their business relationship with NASI.

A very good reason NOT to go with that company. Customer service in that type of business is the number one priority. If it's not happening, walk away. And it also sounds like they are contracting out to a customer service company OR, they aren't actually buying the machines. Sounds like they are leasing them themselves from another company and then that company has the customer service issue. Either way, I wouldn't deal with a company that has poor customer service.

I'm going to break this one down into two parts, it really needs it.

Yes, I researched the price of just the machines on the Internet, too, and saw that new ones go for $3,500 to $7,000 and used ones as low as $2,000. But keep in mind, you must pay tax, delivery charge and installation. Joel says they always get new machines and have about $4,500 to $5,000 into each one by the time they are delivered and installed in the location.

Installation involves wheeling them into place and connecting to a phone line and then running a setup program. We charged $500 to do this. The biggest expense,outside of the machine cost of course, is getting a dedicated phone line run to that location. Now THAT could get expensive, it may cost $300-$400 to do that. As far as getting them delivered from the company I don't know of a single company that wouldn't deliver them for free or close to free with the bulk they claim to do. Again, customer service. They WANT you to continue ordering their equipment, they will give you a ton of discounts.

But before that, you must first secure the location. This invariably requires an up-front payment to the owner of the hotel or gas station or convenience store or whatever.

I never paid a location to put a machine in. I may have to setup an agreement where they get a portion of the intake for using their space but at the end of the day you are saving the customer a ton of money and heartache and giving the end user a convenience so why would you have to pay them for that? If anything several locations paid us a small fee to bring one in.

Even so, I feel somewhat the idiot for squandering this time because I am certain that none of these naysayers will ever invest so much as a nickel in their lives so there is no point in attempting to change their minds. And anyway, why should I care?

They why did you? Wouldn't want you to soil yourself. And considering every regular member here is already successful in one field or another I would think that was kinda insulting.

I don’t give a rat’s ass if anyone reading this ever buys a single ATM from Joel or Ed.

Then why spend so much time on it? You certainly hyped them enough and yourself to boot.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Pfft. You want to impress me, post your invoices. Post unaltered data from the machine. Pull a report from the machine, scan it and post it. Post your lease agreements. PROVE that someone has to put out all that money for something that shouldn't cost anything. PROVE that they don't GET a bulk discount from the company and a good reason not to pass that along. Or are they just pocketing that money? What model ATMs do you have? That could answer a lot of questions of why they cost so much.

At the end of the day I can sum out up your post really quickly.

blah blah blah they're awesome blah blah blah I'm awesome blah blah they won't give people anything blah blah blah you're all stupid blah blah blah I'm awesome and I'm telling you about it blah blah blah did I mention you're all stupid and sniveling little rats? blah blah

That's about what I got out of all that mess you posted.

[Tednewsom]

Like I said in my initial post, I am awed by the smarts here, pro and con.

I wonder. Is a "Con Man" the opposite of a "Pro Man"?

[JamesVincent]

Now that I have a couple of minutes and got some of the snippiness out of my system for the moment (the day is young though so it might return), I want to talk about the figures you posted.

Consider this: During the recession, my 16 ATMs were my own little barometer of the economy. From the beginning of my ATM investment, I was accustomed to getting $3,200+ per month but then I watched the income slowly decline starting in late 2007, actually, when a few economists were already saying we were headed into recession but nobody believed them. My little stake of 16 continued to decline until they hit their low point of $2,620 in March, 2009, then very slowly started to inch up. It continued to rise through all of 2010 and 2011.

Now, are you saying you were MAKING $3,200+ per month or were you getting $3,200+ per month in transactions? Either way, really doesn't matter. If you were making $3,200+ per month out of a ATM in a hotel, great. Hotels are probably the worst place to have an ATM, there's no real need for it. I don't know of a reputable hotel that won't take a credit/ debit card. If you were getting that amount in transactions (which sounds about right) consider this. Several of the bars I had put ATMs in were doing over $2k per NIGHT. You want to really make money using ATMs you combine them with other coin-ops. We had one contract where we had all the coin-op pool tables, all the coin-op touchscreens, the coin-op jukebox and the ATM. That made a tidy little sum every month. Use the ATM to fuel all the other machines. Drunks are great for spending money.

If Joel and Ed were fabricating transaction counts, how could they possibly have known back in March, 2009, that it was the low point in the recession when nobody else in the world knew that?

I don't think anyone ever said they were fabricating reports. In fact, that part of their business may very well be good. ATMs usually do produce when in a decent location. I think what everyone had issues with were the fact that an ATM does not cost anywhere near $12k. To buy, lease, or setup. So if they are getting you in the rear from the get-go and THEN charging you 35% that makes them iffy.

So I'll leave you with this. If a coin-op doesn't make it's money every month and pay for itself within a year, it isn't worth the investment. If an ATM is taking years to pay for itself, it's not worth the investment. As far as paying $12k to get in on one ATM, not worth it. I can buy 3-4 brand new ones for that, spend some time placing them myself and not have to share anything but maybe with the owner of the business I place them in, usually about 10-15% of what I make off the machines. And there's usually a caveat of a certain amount (like the first $500) that I would keep all to myself, does not get divided since it was my investment and maintenance coming out of my pocket. I personally know of several companies who do it completely on their own, no investors whatsoever, and have thousands of machines in hundreds of locations. And that is how they do business.

One thing I have NOT seen mentioned by anyone, including yourself, is licensing. IIRC in Md., DC, Va., Pa., and De., all the states I did business in, ATMs were licensed just like any other machine. How does the licensing work? Ca. may be different but somehow I doubt they would hesitate to fleece some more money off of a consumer. Is it licensed to you or them? Can you get copies of the license? Can you post a copy?

[JamesVincent]

Like I said in my initial post, I am awed by the smarts here, pro and con.

I wonder. Is a "Con Man" the opposite of a "Pro Man"?

Lolz, I has a funny now.

[JamesVincent]

Something that totally slipped my mind, it happens. How many transactions per month? Money is made on a transaction, not a number figure, in a ATM. You charge a flat rate per transaction. The only time a total number of dollars matters is when you figure in your % paid to an online company to do the actual transaction for you. So if your average transaction is $20 (which is a good amount by the way, I've seen ATMs offer money down to $5 and still charge a $2 fee per transaction but the norm is still around $20.), you charge $2, lets say, and then pay 1.9% against that $20 for a credit company to issue that amount. You want a smaller amount as your average to offset that 1.9%, or whatever it is. A large average amount and you can actually start to lose money, or have to charge a higher fee, which can then drive away customers. Some banks, if you affiliate with them, charge less but the average is somewhere around 1.9% for an ATM IIRC. How do they work that? Is that part of the total? What credit company do they use?

Far from ending any questions you raised a good deal more in my mind.

[Tednewsom]

Aww, but they're really nice guys.

BTW, beverlyhillsman, this:

$12,000 apiece -- not $11,000, not $19,000. They have never been sold for any other price (at least since that time)

-- is not true. As far as you know, it's true. That's a different kettle o' gefelte fish. The people I know involved in this are paying +/- $19,000 apiece for the same things. And on the other hand, the financial adviser I spoke to in the Marina area last year (who bought into it, then immediately pulled out when she did her D.D.) said the quote given to her-- was over $20 K.

[worried]

Amazing how people are actively selling this scam for Joel (if they're not Joel himself)... one question Joel: how come you're not registered with the SEC? You are selling securities... you can deny it all you want, but that doesn't change the truth... I've been accused by a family member of 'not asking questions, just making accusations'... well that's my question... and it's a big one...

[Tednewsom]

"We enter into business partnerships. We deal one-on-one with interested individuals, so it's not a public offering. That's what it says right in the contract. It just so happens that the partnership then buys an ATM and places it, and the partnership benefits from the proceeds. We then split income with the other partner as contractually agreed. Securities? What securities? And no public offering or securities, no SEC. Ta-daaa."

If someone in a position of authority would like to use that quote to answer these impertinent questions, you have my permission.

But you'll owe me 50% of the proceeds.