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

You’re right — “Trust but verify” is one of Gibbs’ rules on NCIS, and Reagan used it too. Good advice in theory — but it assumes the other side is operating in good faith.

I verified everything I could. The contract was tough, sure — but I made every payment for years, took care of the equipment, and was almost done when Mercer cut me off, refused further payments, repossessed the trailer, and then sued me for full value plus inflated legal fees.

As for your question — yes, I signed the lease-purchase contract, but it was tied to the trucking lease. Once they terminated that (on bogus grounds), I had no way to continue making trailer payments. The contract didn’t allow for alternate payment methods. They structured it that way on purpose.

So this isn’t just about “reading the fine print” — it’s about a company designing contracts to trigger defaults and abusing the legal system to extract money after repossession. That's not just business — that’s a racket.

 

Actually, I did verify what I could — and I made consistent payments for years. This wasn’t about “getting something for nothing.” I earned that trailer one load at a time.

What people like you overlook is that predatory contracts are designed to look like opportunity until it’s too late to walk away. Then, when the company pulls the plug near the end, keeps the trailer, and sues you for the full amount anyway — suddenly you’re supposed to just shut up and “own your mistake”?

I’m not b*&^%ing. I’m exposing. Mercer isn’t just enforcing a contract — they’re using it as a weapon after they repossess the asset. That’s not normal business practice. That’s strategic exploitation. And if you can’t see the difference, maybe you’ve never been on the wrong end of a rigged game.

 

You're right that most lease-purchase agreements are stacked in the company’s favor — and I knew that going in. What I didn’t expect was Mercer terminating my ability to finish the contract, refusing to accept further payments, then repossessing the trailer and suing me anyway — not just for the balance, but for full trailer value plus $60,000+ in inflated legal fees.

And to top it off, they filed a fraudulent abstract of judgment in Texas with a handwritten number that no court awarded. That’s not just “tough contract terms.” That’s abuse of process.

So no, I’m not mad that it didn’t work out. I’m mad — and taking action — because Mercer used a setup that lets them extract full value after taking the equipment back. That’s not failure. That’s fraud.

 

Caveat emptor? Sure. I knew the contract was written to favor Mercer. What I didn’t sign up for was termination without cause, refusal to accept payment, repossession, and then a lawsuit for full trailer value plus inflated fees, using a fabricated judgment amount in Texas that no judge ever awarded.

That’s not a carnival game. That’s a company exploiting procedural loopholes to create paper judgments against former drivers after repossession. Even most of the drivers who “saw it coming” didn’t realize they’d still be held liable after Mercer takes the trailer back.

So yeah — people should read the fine print. But we should also be calling out companies that use that fine print to manufacture defaults and abuse the legal system for profit. That’s what this is really about.

 

So let me get this straight: you're claiming that fraud can’t exist if the contract “spells it out”? That’s legally and factually wrong — and anyone who's dealt with real-world litigation knows better.

Let me make this simple — and cite actual legal principles so the rest of the drivers reading this thread don’t get misled:

1. Fraud can occur even when a contract exists
Under Texas law (and in most jurisdictions), fraud is not negated by a written contract. If a party misrepresents material facts, withholds key information, or manipulates enforcement in bad faith, that’s actionable.

See: Italian Cowboy Partners v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 341 S.W.3d 323 (Tex. 2011) — even sophisticated parties can be defrauded where conduct departs from contractual expectations in deceptive ways.

2. Filing a fraudulent lien or abstract of judgment is illegal
In Texas, filing a false lien or claim of judgment is a civil and potentially criminal violation under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 12.002.

Mercer’s abstract listed a handwritten judgment amount that was never adjudicated. No court awarded it. That’s a fraudulent instrument — full stop.

3. Repossession + full-balance lawsuit = double recovery
Even under contract law, you can’t repossess the collateral AND sue for the full balance without accounting for the asset’s value. That violates basic UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) rules on secured transactions.

See: Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 9.610–9.615 — proceeds from disposition (like a repo) must be applied to the debt, and the creditor can only sue for any remaining deficiency — not the whole thing again.

So when you say “you signed it, so it’s not fraud,” what you’re really doing is waving away the entire concept of contract abuse, fraudulent enforcement, and statutory protection for lessees. That’s not smart. That’s Mercer’s legal strategy in disguise.

Here’s the truth:

• I made every payment.
  
  
• I was close to the end of the lease.
  
  
• Mercer cut off dispatch, refused to accept payment, repossessed the trailer, and sued me anyway.
  
  
• Then they filed a fraudulent Texas abstract with a number never awarded by any judge.
  

So this isn’t about regret. It’s about holding a company accountable for weaponizing the legal system against its own drivers.

You can keep throwing slogans around — I’ll keep posting filings, statutes, and facts. Let’s see who truckers trust in the end.