Mercer Trailer Lease – What Happened After They Took My Trailer Back

Yes — I’ve filed. The case is real, active, and in the public record. I’ve chosen not to post the case number or jurisdiction here because I’m not giving Mercer’s defenders or trolls a road map to dox me or twist filings out of context.

But make no mistake: the lawsuit exists. The filings exist. The exhibits exist. And I’ve already spoken to others who’ve had similar experiences with Mercer’s lease-purchase program.

This thread isn’t about spoon-feeding Mercer’s legal team. It’s about exposing a pattern of abuse that many drivers have lived through but stayed quiet about. If this hasn’t happened to you, good — but if it has, now’s the time to speak up.

 

Let’s walk through your errors, one at a time — because your confidence is wildly outpacing your legal understanding.

1. Misrepresentation / Withholding
“Mercer didn’t misrepresent material facts or withhold key information.”

You don’t know what Mercer did — you weren’t in the contract negotiation, the dispatch conversations, or the termination communications. I have the records. When a company creates a lease that’s functionally impossible to fulfill after they terminate the dispatch side, and then refuses further payments, that’s constructive bad faith — especially when they file inflated post-repo legal claims.

Bad faith enforcement is actionable — even if the contract terms exist on paper. Texas recognizes both constructive fraud and abuse of process under civil doctrine.

2. False Filing
“They filed a claim based on the contract you signed.”

Wrong again. They filed a Texas abstract of judgment with a handwritten amount that no court ever adjudicated. That’s not “enforcement” — that’s a false lien instrument, and it’s covered by Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 12.002, which explicitly prohibits filing a fraudulent claim “that is not authorized by statute or court order.”

They used that fake judgment amount to cloud title and pursue enforcement. That’s a felony in some circumstances.

3. Collateral vs. Ownership
“The trailer wasn’t collateral because you never had equity.”

This is where you fully expose yourself. Under a lease-purchase agreement, the trailer is personal property subject to conditional sale, governed by UCC Article 2A (leases) and in some cases Article 9 (secured transactions) if there’s a security interest — which does not require equity.

Once Mercer took back the trailer, they were required to account for the value of the asset and offset it against the claim. You can’t take the asset back and sue for the full balance — that’s the definition of double recovery, and courts across the U.S. have found that to be unlawful. See In re Boulders on the River, Inc., 218 B.R. 528 (D. Or. 1997) as just one example.

4. Statutory Protections for Lessees
“That applies to renters, not rent-to-own.”

False again. Many states — including Texas — provide statutory protection under consumer leasing laws and general contract doctrine where a lessee is an individual and not a business entity. And where lease-purchase agreements are structured to appear as leases but function as disguised installment sales, courts often recharacterize them as security agreements and apply UCC and common law protections accordingly.

This isn’t about “I rented an apartment.” It’s about who had control, what enforcement was used, and whether the process complied with statutory obligations and fair dealing.

Bottom line? You’re not helping anyone here — not drivers, not even Mercer. You’re just repeating contract boilerplate while ignoring how companies weaponize that fine print once they know the driver’s out of options.

You can keep pretending this is just about “reading the lease.” I’ll keep documenting how it’s being abused in courtrooms and filings across multiple states.

 

Exactly. What happened to ScottieD is almost a blueprint for what a lot of us have gone through — and I’ve seen that JCT video. They let him get 90% through his payments, then pulled the plug, reset the balance, and gave him the illusion of a “choice” to keep the truck. That wasn’t a contract — that was a leveraged trap.

Mercer pulled something similar on me. I was near the end of a brand-new trailer lease-purchase, made consistent payments, then they terminated my trucking lease, refused to take any more payments, repossessed the trailer, and then sued me as if I had defaulted — for the full trailer value plus $60,000+ in legal fees. No credit for what they repossessed. No adjustment for what I paid.

They even filed a Texas abstract of judgment with a handwritten amount that was never adjudicated in court. Just invented a number and ran with it.

So yeah — these FLEECE Purchase programs aren’t just bad deals. They’re designed to milk drivers until the final payment is close, then yank the contract and cash out.

Appreciate you posting that — every example helps drivers see this isn’t about one guy who “didn’t read the contract.” It’s a system. And it’s broken on purpose.

 

Totally get that — and yeah, a lot of us do walk in knowing these programs are “broken on purpose.” But what Mercer pulled wasn’t just the usual fleece job or the lease falling apart.

I didn’t walk away. I didn’t default. I was almost done. Mercer terminated the contract, refused further payments, took the trailer back, then sued me for the full value plus over $60,000 in legal fees, and filed a handwritten, unauthorized dollar amount in a Texas abstract of judgment — without any court order backing it.

That’s not just a raw deal. That’s fraudulent enforcement and abuse of process.

So yeah, some drivers still sign these deals thinking they can beat the odds — maybe they’re desperate, maybe they’ve got a plan. But when a carrier uses termination as a financial weapon, and the courts as a collections arm, that’s not just on the driver. That’s a system that needs to be exposed.

If nothing else, maybe this thread makes someone think twice — or helps someone else who’s already caught in the same trap.

 

Good point — and you’re absolutely right about OOIDA. They’ve done some solid work exposing shady lease-purchase practices and fighting back against abusive contracts.

I’m actually in the process of contacting them now — along with getting legal support for my current suit. The issues here go way beyond a tough lease — we’re talking about abuse of process, fraudulent lien filings, and termination that blocks any ability to cure the lease. That’s a pattern drivers can’t handle alone.

For anyone else in a similar spot, definitely consider reaching out to OOIDA if you haven’t. They’re one of the few national groups that actually understand how lease-purchase scams work and aren’t afraid to take it to court.