Press release - January 14, 2004

For Immediate Release

Last Echo, LLC says, “We’ll pay you to recover your NSF checks”

Summary: January 14, 2004 Keene, NH – Each year merchants lose billions of dollars processing and recovering bounced checks. Because of this, the President of Last Echo, LLC announced today that the company will temporarily override their Free NSF Check Recovery service and will pay merchants to process their NSF Checks. The payment will come in the form of a $5.00 rebate on each recovered check. This offer will expire on March 1, 2004.

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According to a 2001 study conducted by the Federal Reserve Board, 17 billion checks were written in 2000, – more than twice the number of credit-card transactions. The study goes on to report that approximately 176 million checks (about 700,000 per business day) were returned because an account had been closed, funds in the payer’s account were insufficient, or for some other reason. These are generally referred to as NSF Checks (Non-Sufficient Funds). The American Collectors Association, Inc. estimates that in the year 2000, 85 billion checks were processed and 731 million bounced.

An informal study conducted by Last Echo, LLC, found that, on average, merchants spend up to $35 to recover just one check. “Without the efficiency of electronic processing, we’re wasting up to $6.2 billion a year recovering bounced checks,” says Matt Zakrzewski, company President. “Frankly, when I saw those numbers I was astonished. That’s over $23 million per working day – up in smoke. How many extra sales are needed to cover that waste?”

Mr. Zakrzewski went on to say, “We’re here to help. Our electronic NSF Check Recovery process is so efficient that we can help businesses cut the cost of recovering one check to $15 or less. With our special rebate for qualified customers, we can further cut those costs to less than $10.00 per recovered check. By letting us process their NSF checks – instead of wasting valuable money chasing down bad checks – merchants can focus on what they do best: making their business profitable.”

About Last Echo

Established in 2003, Last Echo uses innovative technology to simplify and improve the recovery process on returned checks. The widely used system helps businesses nationwide increase their collections on returned checks, while lowering associated transaction fees. All transactions are governed by NACHA's operating rules and regulations established by the Federal Reserve Board, UCC Article 4, The Electronic Funds Transfer Act, and other applicable laws. Our affiliates have been in business since 1990 and are currently processing over 250,000 checks per month.

Our mission is to increase your profitability by reducing non-productive overhead and costs.

For additional information, please visit www.LastEcho.com or call 888.277.3027.

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