The Original Dave Murray is back
“Dave Murray ( Founder of PreferredLease in Lake Tahoe) has started another leasing company. Denali Capital Corporation, located in San Clemente, CA. Rumor has it he has brought back some of the old employees from PreferredLease. Does this mean another mass mailer of pre-approved credit cards?” Name witheld ( highly reliable source) Last we heard David Murray was in management with Venserve/SalesStream until the change in the program. They also were a company that sent out approvals with plastic credit cards, as Preferred Lease of Lake Tahoe did in the “old” days of the late 1990's. There were reports of sales ethics and other types of activities at the time at Venserve/Salesstream. He reportedly left because of this, Leasing News was told, but never verified as neither party would confirm or deny anything. There were ex-salesmen who talked about splitting “advance rentals” and “deposits” not returned or “dirty tricks,” as one called it, plus contests for who could get the highest “document fee.” These techniques were reportedly common at the original PreferredLease of Tahoe run by Mssrs. Murray and Schneider. March 10, 2003, Leasing News archive: “Warburg Pincus is selling it's interest in SaleStream Capital to Texas Equity Holdings (TEH, LLC) a company owned and operated by Lighthouse Investments. There has been a large injection of capital, around $3M I hear, to promote the vendor driven business model that the company was originally structured to support. There will be no more B2C activity. “I have been directed to hire an additional 5-8 salespeople in the next 30 days to ramp things up. This will create a need for new office space shortly but we will be staying in the area. I will notify you when this is official. “The Venserv name, email and contact info was changed almost a year ago to SaleStream Capital. The new investors are currently redoing the entire website and it will re-appear in a format more to their liking. Tony Watson Vice President Business Development SaleStream Capital Corporation Archives, December 20,2000 Preferred Capital, Tahoe City, California ( also known as Preferred Lease, one of the first companies to for mass telemarketing and mailing of credit approvals to attract business, considered the “daddy” of them all. They hit the Perfect Storm, as did many of their major buyers from Advanta on up. Here is the story: ) In June they closed all their branch offices ( Crystal Bay, Nevada, San Diego, California, Dover, New Hampshire), it was reported. They were heavy in the mail marketing and telephone solicitation with the "Pre-approved" approach, selling mini-paper to GE/Colonial Pacific, Manifest, Commerce Security, up to over $10 million a month in their "hay day." Negative Cash Flow that has hit many others in the industry was reportedly the reason for the downsizing or consolidation, depending on your viewpoint. David Murray and Louis Schneider were the principals. They considered themselves marketers, not brokers or lessors, and even treated their tax returns as they were a marketing company. ( David Murray is no longer with the company, according to the their receptionist---he was listed as the President in the UAEL directory ). They would promote their young account reps into various management positions. There were no"leasing veterans". Preferred DID generate a fair amount of loyalty to their employees due to some of the percs: free season pass to skiing, various company-paid outings (i.e. white water rafting) and bonuses (gave away a snowmobile once...) Their former employees are not talking much as everyone was very happy. This was the premier "application only" operation. It was not basically "internet," but by telephone and mail where there was no relationship selling, just low quote, get the customer approved, change the rate or terms, a "boiler room" operation similar to one as by Republic Leasing of Anaheim, but not as "intense," but more "turn the application around" and move on to the next one. The approach was the same that was used by some of the salespeople at the Republic Group and Corporate Capital before they were acquired by First Sierra. Corporate Capital even issued a "credit card" to the end user, but did not check their credit for approval until an actual application was received. The building in Tahoe City was full of little cubicles, each with a recent college graduate, none of whom knew anything about leasing, or sales for that matter. The sales program was very clever. The company bought mailing lists from D&B and other sources and sent solicitations to the prospects. The solicitation included what appeared to be a credit card and the prospect was informed that he/she had been "pre-approved" for up to $75,000. All that it would take to activate the credit line was a call to an 800 number. The system was taken almost directly from the type of letter you get from credit card companies. Naturally, when the prospect called, he had to provide a "little" additional information (again, a la credit card solicitations). Of course, there was never a "pre-approval". The prospect was "pre-qualified". We received a Plastic Card almost every week at the various companies here at American Leasing. I am sure everyone in California has at one time or other received one of Preferred's mailers. All our advisors are aware of this company, and most said they have received the card. The company recruited their salespeople directly from colleges, using as a lure the Tahoe ski and fun lifestyle. They did little or no selling, but followed closely the company "line". They were simply order-takers, responding to incoming calls rather than making outgoing sales calls. About a year ago the company moved into larger quarters on or close to the lake front. In June, the Tahoe City Newspaper noted they had closed their branch offices. The web site makes no mention of this and calls to the current president have gone unanswered. We have verified that the company is for sale, is in the process of being purchased or maybe purchased. We are not at liberty to give the details as we are unable to confirm some of them, including bank problems and up-side down cash flow---these are rumors and unsubstantiated at this time---but from several sources as we had with Metrolease, Unicapital, and others in the early beginning. Our "readers" give us the information we have here. Jan 4, 2001, Leasing News had an exclusive interview with attorney Mark Self: Preferred Capital is for sale, according to their general counsel Mark Seif. Last November, 1999, they did $17 million in capital equipment cost. That was their best month. They had been doing anywhere from $14 to $15 million each month, according to informed sources. Not any more. Peferred Capital was very heavy in the mail marketing and telephone solicitation with the "Pre-approved" approach, selling mini-paper to GE/Colonial Pacific, Advanta, Manifest, Commerce Security, among others. With the changes of policy at their funders, placing business started to decline and warehouse lines could not find take-outs, resulting in serious cash flow problems, especially in October and November of last year, it was reported. " Yes, we have not been sold, " Seif said in an exclusive interview. They have had many offers, but the two original principals could not agree on the selling price, and from a high of 270 employees, closed their branches, and are now down to one-quarter their original size with their main facility in Tahoe City, according to Seif. " We have 42 sales reps now, " he says. " The commissions are now based on rewards. We have cut the boats, cars, and all the frills...We are aggressive, but not what we used to be. Right now, we are actively talking to investors, strategic partners." He blames credit tightening, more competition, more sources for the dramatic change in the small ticket market. " It is not the internet, " he explains. " We are with Live Capital, get leads off our web site, but the business is very small. Not much is being done on the world wide web. We are going to weather the storm with a tight budget, running lean and mean, taking very good care of all our funding sources." He and Louis Schneider are basically managing the company. David Murray left on November 7, 2000. "Basically David didn't like laying off his friends, facing the financial difficulties of a downsized company, closing offices, and didn't want to remain in the leasing business any more, " Seif explains. " It wasn't fun... And yes, the small ticket market is no longer what it used to be. " Archives, November 7, 2003: "Louis Schneider, former partner of Preferred Capital, is into his second year oflaw school, apparently in New England “ ...and apparently loves it. He is in semi-hiding while attending school so nobody knows which school he's attending. He is enjoying his time away from leasing.” Jim Raeder of Capitlwerks LLC has claimed on several occasions to Leasing that his Better Business Bureau report comes from their company purchase of Preferred Lease and he has been trying to get it corrected for quite some time. http://www.leasingnews.org/Pages/Company%20Report.htm --------------------------------------------------------- From readers: The truth is that Dave (he was the majority stock holder) personally buried the company with his extravagant expending and reckless life style. After he took off crying leaving 3 million in debts, Dave faked a personal bankruptcy by filing a chapter 7 then when the creditors closed their files, he dismissed his filing. I am told Bank of the West is now looking into Dave and the fraud he potentially committed. The truth is that Dave destroyed the company. In Re MURRAY,DAVID K -- Read your article on Dave Murray. The last couple of years he has also worked for Five Point Capital who does the same "credit card" mass mailing/marketing. He may just have been an outside consultant. They will be competing with each other. (Name with Held) --- When you ran the story about Tom Allanson founding TaxNet after leaving Intuit and GE Colonial Pacific Leasing, the same David Murray, who was a co-founder, is the same who started Direct Capital and then Preferred Lease. “TaxNet™ was founded by Tom Allanson and David Murray. Tom is the former Head of the Tax Division of Intuit (leading TurboTax®, Pro Series® and Lacerte® tax software products) and Dave worked for this same division as the Head of Innovation... “He founded a company called Direct Capital and developed a new model for equipment financing. A few years later he sold that company and started Preferred Capital Corporation. In just a few years he grew that company from a small one-man firm to a company with fundings of nearly $200 Million and over 250 employees. It was at Preferred Capital that David met Tom Allanson. David's company was generating lease contracts and selling them to a division of GE Capital - and Tom was the President of that division. “After he sold Preferred Capital, David founded a company called Kord Marketing Group. This was a high tech consulting company with clients like Intuit, Ingram Micro and Insight. Later, Intuit hired him as the Head of Innovation for TurboTax.” Full biography at: http://www.leasingnews.org/Pages/David_Murray.htm "Dave and Tom Allanson sold Taxnet to H & R block and Dave netted 2 million Dave bought a house in Tahoe. I am sure the all the Preferred creditors that got stiffed including the expense in law suits that Raeder had to fight off would be happy to learn of this. "By the way, the real genius behind the marketing was a consultant named Tom. I worked there, I know personally." (name with held) |
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