SomeYuppie wrote:
I just skimmed and from what I saw only four people have stated numbers for the initial investment. Those four are myself, Ted, flatsix, and BeverlyHills. flatsix, BeverlyHills, and myself have all mentioned the current 12,000 cost per machine. The only one who stated anything different is also the only one of us four who has never had any direct contact with NAS or Gillis.
Yet you are the only one who supposedly deals with them that has been specific about things like the transaction fee or actual payment made and what it is based on. Which has been a question. As a matter of fact you were the only one that said much of anything.
I believe I did answer this already. ATM's are insured by NAS to cover their liability to us. NAS has all the rights and liabilities of ownership per operating agreement. ATM is licensed to them. If something happens, it's on NAS. If something happens to NAS, we the investor are the beneficiary of an insurance policy that covers our original investment. That policy is paid from NAS's end and does not come out of our 50 cent per txn amount. We (the investor) are paid net 30, so I think we lose the check for the month if something like that happens.
You sorta answered it. You stated that NAS held actual ownership of the machine IIRC. No mention of the insurance or whatnot. Reason I asked is I would hate to see someothing happen, machine is registered to you but not owned by you and you are liable for a bunch of fees and no recourse to get anything out of it.
Dealing with payment processors as part of my job, I do know that banks have raised their fees to processors, which in turn raise their fees on us. I know ATMs across the country have seen fee increases over the past 2 years, so I can assume costs have gone up and the increase is covering those costs. If I'm getting 30% anyways, why be greedy and complain?
Could very well be. I have not dealt with that part of the business since 2011. When I was still doing it 1.9% was the high end charged by an issuer.
The what varies per contract and per how desirable the location is. I think I heard that it's about what we, the investor gets, which is around 50 cents but does vary. Why? This is obvious to me. Why wouldn't a business owner want compensation if an ATM is being installed in their "high traffic" area? Per the business model that Gillis told me, they compete for these profitable areas and win contracts because they pay location owners a few cents more than competitors.
I'll quote something I said earlier: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.
I can quite literally count the number of places that we paid a % on one hand. You are providing a service to them, why should you pay for it? The only places that wanted a fee we paid a very small fee to and dumped as soon as we could get another location.
Again, it's just Ted, who hasn't dealt with NAS directly, with the most conflicting information. Everyone else seems to more or less say the same thing.
Not going to go back through and double check. Too tired. I do recall $12k being agreed to as the now price but others mentioned $11k and BeverlyHills dude said it had always been $12k. Again, IIRC.
I do respectfully disagree with the terminology. I have seen other leasebacks schemes (involving virtual hotel concierges) where the leasing company used a processor and were financially backed by another company, and all of these companies had the same owner. Needless to say, I didn't invest. I consider each company in that set up to be a related party.
With NAS, processor has completely different ownership and is located in Texas. Processor funds NAS with fees due with a transaction count per machine. NAS pays us out based on the transaction count and gives us a statement from the processor. I did mention a third party audit when I originally invested and Gillis said he doesn't have means to audit the processor he uses and that's the most important part since he simply sends us statements generated by the processor with the txn count, along with a check that pays 50 cents per transaction.
Credit processors, IIRC, HAVE to be audited regularly to keep the licensing they need to do business. Not really as important to me as NAS itself being audited.
Per your rough calculation, NAS makes a ton of money, even if the ATM's don't do near 400/month. Like I also said, if they perform badly, they are moved. Like I also said, there's been only one among the people I know where they didn't do 20% and it was for one investor and for one year, which still did 18%. Where does that money come from? Seems like per your calculation, NAS can easily afford it. If they truly have a system for success and know what they are doing, I don't see a single problem with this considering you're telling us that a good machine can pay for itself in a year, which would be a 100% return. If even in a bad area they don't average 400, yet still make 40% before giving out payment to the "investor", they can easily make money while still paying out a 20% return.
True. My biggest thing is that it not only sounds kinda hinky, it reminds me of MLMs which pay people out of the intake. Coupled with "incentives" to bring more people in.
I'm hesitant of responding to Ted. He has an original post from 2009 showing concern, yet has never come into contact with NAS. Like I said, myself, the half a dozen people I know, flatsix, and BeverlyHills all say one thing, yet Ted is mentioning a possible third party charging rates that none of us get.
Again, maybe there are parts of the company you don't see. Not making excuses but you don't run it, no matter what information you get from a few others.
So if they want as much money as they can get their hands on, could be a Ponzi scheme. If they play it slow, could be a Ponzi scheme. Got it.
You asked why they wouldn't take someones money if they were a ponzi. I answered.
Yeah, when I said I work for a wealthy guy, he has made investments that have had ROE's in the thousands. He's also had investments where he literally pissed away a million or two. Point is, from my experience, 20% returns on passive investments aren't that farfetched.
Not farfetched to achieve 20%, kinda farfetched to guarantee 20%. You can make an incredible amount of money, but can't guarantee that you can.
At least Vincent has provided information that shows me he had prior dealings with machines and made statements where I believe him to be knowledgeable enough on the topic. I enjoy his posts and he has asked good questions. I suspect he will ask one that I don't know which will lead me to follow up with Gillis at one point.
I want to thank you for that. It's kinda hard sometimes to figure out where I fit in a forum primarily dedicated to tax and/or financial scams not being an attorney, CPA, accountant, etc. But, like you said, I do have experience in this particular business and tend to have a good feel for what is what in business.
(I actually went out of my way and uploaded a sarcastic smiley, just for this occasion)