Microfinancial/Centerpoint

We approved deal and forwarded documents to customer, however, in the process I pointed out that he was going from a telephone answering machine to and elaborate phone system with 22 handsets, sort of like going from a\

skateboard to a new Rolls Royce. why? I also informed him that we were

sending someone out to inspect the equipment and check

S/N's, etc. That's when he disappeared. This customer was even more glowing

than Total Control Trucking, Inc.

I wish to thank you and your newsletter for the responses we received since

your posting on 10/21/02. the responses are:

Greg LeFebre of Rochester Leasing-stated he passed on this deal as he

suspected fraud. He wished he had immediately posted with

you, possibly have saved us from our own carelessness.

Barry Reitman of Keystone Equipment Leasing, Inc. responded. He also had

passed on the Total Control deal, suspected attempted

fraud. He is most interested in the final outcome of this.

Bob Bell of Independent Leasing Associates responded offering help,

asserting fraud is "our worst nightmare".

Eric Gross of Portfolio Financial Servicing Co. responded with an excellent

idea. He stated we should pursue the Insurance agency

which agent issued the fake Insurance Certificate for Errors and Omissions

coverage.

Bob Arnowitt of First Capital Equipment Leasing Corp. responded stated he

was a victim of a similar scam, and the Law Authorities

in that area are worthless.

Charlie Lester of LPI Financial responded, stating that when he was at First

Sierra they were victimized for more than $600M in 1998

and 1999, all frauds in the Atlanta area.

We may never recover a cent, but all concerned can be assured that we are

not just going to chalk this up to a sad and careless

experience and forget it. We are and will continue to vigorously pursue,

utilizing all options. Anyone with advice or suggestions, please

email them to me at larrys@dlease.com

It’s Official!!!---Mogilski, Sillas, Taylor—New CLP’s

The Certified Leasing Professional Foundation Board of Directors would like to congratulate each of the following new CLP's for their hard work in achieving this designation and their to desire, as new CLP's, to help raise the professional standards of the leasing profession:

Edward T. Mogilski, CLP, a Manager with California First Leasing Co. located in Santa Ana, California

Ray Sillas, CLP, a Vice President with C Leasing Company located in El Paso, Texas

Jeffrey Taylor, CLP, Founder of ExecutiveCaliber - Global Lease Training, located in Bountiful, Utah.

We would like to welcome each of them as our newest Certified Lease Professionals.

For further information about the CLP Program please call Cindy Spurdle, Executive Director, at 610/687-0213 or visit our web site -- www.clpfoundation.org .

Thank you,

Cindy Spurdle

Executive Director

CLP Foundation

Cindy@clpfoundation.org

PH: 610/687-0213

FAX:610/687-4111

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Former GE Capital Vice President Pleads Guilty to Insider Trading

By Colleen DeBaise

Dow Jones Newswires

NEW YORK -- A former General Electric Capital Corp. executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to tipping off a kung fu instructor ahead of GE Capital's purchase last year of Heller Financial Inc.

Anthony Chrysikos, 39 years old, of Edgewater, N.J., a former vice president of finance in the aircraft services division of GE Capital, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to conspiracy and securities fraud.

Mr. Chrysikos, who was a member of the GE Capital team that worked on the Heller Financial deal, was charged in July with passing inside information about the planned purchase to Michael Martello, 35, an American martial-arts expert and Web page designer living in Taiwan at the time.

GE Capital, a unit of General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - News) , announced a $5.3 billion cash tender offer for Heller Financial's stock on July 30, 2001.

That same day, Mr. Martello made about $157,300 in illegal trading profits by selling call options of Heller Financial that he had purchased July 27 based on Mr. Chrysikos' information, prosecutors said. The two men shared the profits, according to charges.

Mr. Chrysikos faces up to 10 years in prison on the most serious charge of securities fraud, although he will likely receive less than that under federal sentencing guidelines. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff scheduled sentencing for April 3. An attorney for Mr. Chrysikos couldn't immediately be located.

The criminal charges are still pending against Mr. Martello.

-Colleen DeBaise, Dow Jones Newswires, 212-227-2017, colleen.debaise@ dowjones.com

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Attack On Internet Called Largest Ever

By David McGuire and Brian Krebs

washingtonpost.com Staff Writers

The heart of the Internet sustained its largest and most sophisticated attack ever, starting late Monday, according to officials at key online backbone organizations.

Around 5:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, a "distributed denial of service" (DDOS) attack struck the 13 "root servers" that provide the primary roadmap for almost all Internet communications. Despite the scale of the attack, which lasted about an hour, Internet users worldwide were largely unaffected, experts said.

FBI officials would not speculate on who might have planned or carried out the attack.

David Wray, a spokesman for the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), said the bureau is "aware of the reports and looking into it."

DDOS attacks overwhelm networks with an onslaught of data until they cannot be used. According to security experts, the incident probably was the result of multiple attacks, in which attackers concentrate the power of many computers against a single network to prevent it from operating.

"This was the largest and most complex DDOS attack ever against the root server system," said a source at one of the organizations responsible for operating the root servers.

Ordinary Internet users experienced no slowdowns or outages because of safeguards built into the Internet's architecture. A longer, more extensive attack could have seriously damaged worldwide electronic communications, the source said.

Internet Software Consortium Inc. Chairman Paul Vixie said that if more servers went down, and if the hackers sustained their hour- long strike a bit longer, Internet users around the world would have begun to see delays and failed connections.

Chris Morrow, network security engineer for UUNET, said "This is probably the most concerted attack against the Internet infrastructure that we've seen." UUNET is the service provider for two of the world's 13 root servers. A unit of WorldCom Inc., it also handles approximately half of the world's Internet traffic.

DDOS attacks are some of the most common and easiest to perpetrate, but the size and scope of Monday's strike set it apart.

Vixie said only four or five of the 13 servers were able to withstand the attack and remain available to legitimate Internet traffic throughout the strike. "It was an attack against all 13 servers, which is a little more rare than an attack against any one of us," he said.

The server Vixie operates was available throughout the attack, he said.

Internet addressing giant VeriSign Inc., which operates the most important server from an undisclosed Northern Virginia location, reported no outages.

"VeriSign expects that these sort of attacks will happen and VeriSign was prepared," company spokesman Brian O'Shaughnessy said.

Vixie said he was unwilling to compare the attack to others he has witnessed in more than two decades of involvement with Internet architecture, but said it was "the largest in recent memory."

The root servers, about 10 of which are located in the United States, serve as a sort of master directory for the Internet.

The Domain Name System (DNS), which converts complex Internet protocol addressing codes into the words and names that form e-mail and Web addresses, relies on the servers to tell computers around the world how to reach key Internet domains.

At the top of the root server hierarchy is the "A" root server, which every 12 hours generates a critical file that tells the other 12 servers what Internet domains exist and where they can be found.

VeriSign manages its servers under contracts with the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers (ICANN), which manages the DNS.

One rung below the root servers in the Internet hierarchy are the servers that house Internet domains such as dot-com, dot-biz and dot-info.

The DNS is built so that eight or more of the world's 13 root servers must fail before ordinary Internet users start to see slowdowns.

"There are various kinds of attacks all the time on all sorts of infrastructure, and the basic design of the Internet is such that it is designed to withstand those attacks," said ICANN Vice President Louis Touton. "We're not aware of any users that were in any way affected.

"Obviously the prevalence of attacks does make it important to have increased focus on the need for security and stability of the Internet," he added.

Most often, the computers used in the DDOS assaults have been commandeered by hackers either manually or remotely with the help of automated software tools that scan millions of computers for known security holes. These computers often belong to unsuspecting home users.

Little can be done to insulate targets from such attacks, and some of the world's most powerful companies have been targeted in the past. In February 2000, Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo, and a host of other big-name e-commerce sites came to a grinding halt for several hours due to DDOS attacks.

"Only the richest can defend themselves against this type of attack, and most of them can't withstand a concerted attack," said Alan Paller, research director at the SANS Institute, a nonprofit security research and training group that often works with federal investigators to track computer virus writers. Paller also was the lead expert witness at the trial of "Mafiaboy," the Canadian teenager who was ultimately convicted of the February 2000 attacks.

"The only way to stop such attacks is to fix the vulnerabilities on the machines that ultimately get taken over and used to launch them," Paller said. "There's no defense once the machines are under the attacker's control."

Vixie said he kept the server at Internet Software Consortium operating by "pushing" the flood of data far enough away from his servers that legitimate traffic could flow around the obstruction. Such clogs still affect some Internet users by gumming up Internet communications somewhere else in the network.

UUNET's Morrow said it is too early to tell what the attack bodes for the Internet in coming months. "This could be someone just messing around, but it could also be something much more serious. It's too soon to say," Morrow said.

washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Robert MacMillan contributed to this article.

Co-op Entrepreneur Makes

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Leading economic index off in September

"The economy shrank for the first three quarters of last year, meeting the measure of a recession, which is at least two straight quarters of decline."

By Associated Press

EW YORK - September's faltering stock market and increasing unemployment claims dragged down a widely watched gauge of US economic prospects, a research group said yesterday.

It was the fourth consecutive monthly decline, but economists downplayed the possibility that it portended a second recession in as many years.

The Conference Board reported that its index of leading economic indicators fell 0.2 percent, matching Wall Street expectations.

The leading index, which attempts to predict the strength of the economy about six months ahead, stood at 111.6 in September. It stood at 100 in 1996, its base year.

Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh, said the decline would ''make some people nervous,'' but there was no real reason to conclude that the economy would go into a ''double-dip'' recession.

The index was affected mainly by the depressed stock market, which is not necessarily an accurate predictor of the economy, Hoffman said.

The economy shrank for the first three quarters of last year, meeting the measure of a recession, which is at least two straight quarters of decline.

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Irwin Financial Corporation Announces Third Quarter Earnings

*Earnings Decline Due to Transition Off Gain-on-Sale

*Securitization Accounting Strong Mortgage Loan

*Originations and Rising Commercial Banking Net Income

*Recession Reflected in Increased Credit Costs

*2002 and 2003 Earnings Forecasts Reaffirmed

COLUMBUS, Indiana -- -- Irwin Financial Corporation (NYSE: IFC), an interrelated group of specialized financial services companies focusing on mortgage banking, small business lending, and home equity lending, today announced net income for the third quarter of 2002 of $9.0 million or $0.32 per diluted share. This compares with net income of $11.5 million or $0.50 per diluted share during the same period in 2001, a decrease in earnings per share of 36 percent. Net income has totaled $26.9 million or $0.99 per share year-to-date, compared to $33.4 million or $1.47 per share for the first nine months of 2001.

Sites of Reference:

http://www.irwinfinancial.com/

CONTACT:

Suzie Singer

Phone Number: (812) 376-1917

_______________________________________________________________________

A Business Out of Discounts—Co-Ops, Leasing, too

By JEFF BAILEY

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Co-op Entrepreneur MakesKit,

“I thought you would enjoy reading this. David Leppert is my partner in MainStreet Cooperative Group and is intimately involved with OneWorld Leasing.

“All the best!”

Rich

Richard Selby

OneWorld Leasing, Inc.

1553 W. Todd Dr., Suite 110

Tempe, Arizona 85283

tel. (480) 203 8350

E-mail: rselby@oneworldleasing.com

URL: www.oneworldleasing.com

Sometimes the little guy doesn't even know he's getting a bad deal.

But David E. Leppert knew. As a salesman for big manufacturers of drywall, the gypsum sheets used in housing and commercial construction, Mr. Leppert charged little drywall distributors as much as 7% more than he charged his biggest customer, an operator of about 100 drywall yards.

Volume buyers, of course, usually get a discount. And Mr. Leppert didn't much think about the price disparity until 1996, when he decided he'd like to become a drywall distributor himself. Talking to some of his smaller customers, he discovered that their profit margins were razor thin, and that many of them didn't know that bigger distributors were buying at such drastically lower prices.

"I rethought my plan," Mr. Leppert says. Indeed, rather than become one of those disadvantaged smaller distributors, Mr. Leppert decided to help them eliminate the 7% disparity. He formed Amarok Inc., a cooperative of smaller drywall distributors. And today, the co-op's 151 members, with combined sales of about $1.5 billion, "get industry-best pricing," Mr. Leppert says.

Big Rebates

They got it by banding together and using their combined size to wring concessions from manufacturers. D. Jay DeFoor, chief executive of DeFoor Drywall & Acoustical Supply Inc., a Macon, Ga., Amarok member, says he received $250,000 in rebates from drywall and other manufacturers for the year ended June 30, because of improved pricing the co-op has secured. "There's no way I could have negotiated that on my own," Mr. DeFoor says. In a thin-margin business, "that's a huge part of our bottom line."

Mr. DeFoor, whose firm has annual sales of about $20 million, figures he has saved even more by swapping management tips with his fellow Amarok members. He would never share a valuable secret with a local competitor, Mr. DeFoor says, but co-op members across the country, who don't compete with one another, freely help each other.

After encouragement from co-op colleagues, Mr. DeFoor says he put satellite-tracking systems in his 24 delivery trucks, raising driver productivity by closely monitoring their work habits. "It's stopping the guys from taking two lunch breaks," he says. And he also overcame fears about opening a second location after consulting with Amarok contacts, and that helped him boost sales. "It would have been a much more difficult move to make had we not been able to draw on the experience of others who had been very successful with multiple stores," he says.

Purchasing co-ops have spread rapidly, doubling to represent 50,000 U.S. businesses over the past decade, according to the National Cooperative Business Association, a Washington trade group. "You can form [a co-op] in about any kind of business you want," says Bob Cropp, a co-op specialist at the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives in Madison.

Typically, co-ops are started by a group of smaller players in an industry, hoping to reap purchasing or marketing economies of scale. But many entrepreneurs are too busy running their own firms to put together a co-op. And many -- like some of Mr. Leppert's former drywall customers -- aren't even aware of the price disadvantage they operate under, so forming a co-op wouldn't occur to them.

So, with the drywall playing field leveled, did Mr. Leppert decide to finally start up his own distributorship? No. Instead, he has in recent years become a co-op entrepreneur, identifying other industries in which smaller players could benefit by banding together. He helped start Nemeon Inc., a co-op of smaller roofing-supply distributors; Sphere1 Inc., a co-op for tool and fastener dealers; and YaYa Bike Inc., a co-op for independent bike shops. He is currently researching possible co-ops in the office-equipment leasing field and among gravel-pit owners.

Initiation fees range from $800 for the bicycle-shop co-op to $6,500 to join the drywall co-op. Members also buy stock over time by leaving a portion of their rebates, or dividends, in the co-op: $1,500 in stock for the bike shop owners, $12,500 for drywall distributors.

Mr. Leppert, 41 years old, makes money by charging the co-ops fees for management services provided by Cooperative Solutions LLC, Tempe, Ariz., where he is chief executive officer.

Punitive Power

Manufacturers, of course, don't just roll over and pass along lower prices. Co-ops have to reach a critical mass in size and then be willing to withhold business to show some companies the punitive power of shared buying. "We had to demonstrate there would be ramifications," Mr. Leppert says.

The co-ops he has founded don't actually do the buying, take possession of the materials, or operate warehouses, as do many of the largest U.S. farm, grocery and hardware co-ops. Rather, these newer co-ops negotiate a price and their members then buy directly from manufacturers. That holds down co-op costs and allows faster growth.

Write to Jeff Bailey at jeff.bailey@wsj.com

Larry L. Summers

LarryS@dlease.com

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New President at CapitalStream as Leasing News Predicted