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REPORTED IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 1672 September Term, 2002

___________________________________ B&S MARKETING ENTERPRISES, LLC., v. CONSUMER PROTECTION DIVISION

Salmon, Eyler, James R. Krauser ___________________________________ Opinion by Krauser, J. ___________________________________

Filed: November 4, 2003

The appellants are B&S Marketing Enterprises, LLC, and S&B Marketing Enterprises, LLC and the two men, who operate and control these two entities, Louis R. Seo, Jr. and Frank A. Brown, Jr.1 Using the trade names "Kash-2-U leasing" and "Cash-2-U leasing," B&S and S&B Enterprises provide "quick cash" to Maryland consumers through a contractual contrivance appellants call a "sale-

leaseback" but which might more aptly be described, under the circumstances in which it was typically presented and enforced, as a "sale-leaseback-repurchase" agreement. It is the last stage of this transaction - the "repurchase" which, according to the Consumer Protection Division of the Office of the Attorney General ("Division"), transformed what might have passed as a "sale-leaseback" into an unambiguous "loan." What were dubbed "rental payments" by appellants were deemed "interest

payments" by the Division. And those payments were paid, according to the Division, at the exorbitant annual interest rate of 730%. In due course, the Division brought charges against the appellants, alleging that they had made unlicensed and usurious "loans" in violation of Maryland's Consumer Loan Law, Md. Code (2000 Repl. Vol., 2003 Supp.),

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