MONTPELIER, Vt. (Legal Newsline) - Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell reached a settlement Wednesday with a credit company that financed vacuum cleaners sold door-to-door.

The agreement says Beneficial Credit Services will have to provide partial rebates even though Revolutionary Cleaning Systems was the allegedly offending company.

RCS is now out of business. Beneficial will have to provide partial rebates and offers of full refund totaling more than $244,000 to 205 Vermont customers and pay $35,000 to the State.

The settlement was filed in Washington Superior Court and says RCS used telemarketing scripts to arrange home meetings with consumers, and three of the scripts were deceptive.

One call claimed to be a survey on household appliances, another said the potential customer had won a free gift package and the third said the company was dropping off a gift and wanted to get the consumer's opinion on a new product.

Beneficial financed many of the vacuum purchases, which averaged $2,050 per cleaner. The company will offer consumers who didn't receive a full three-day right to cancel a chance to cancel the purchase and receive a full refund, while other consumers will be entitled to a partial rebate of $750.

From Legal Newsline: Reach John O'Brien via e-mail at john@legalnewsline.com.