Credit Card Processor = Legal Theft

[fresh]

Does anyone have a bazooka I could borrow?

My merchant account (The Merchant Solutions) loves to scam me out of money every month. Without fail, every month I have to call them about random charges they assess my account. This month they charged me $149 for some ******** PCI compliance lies. They have charged me this in the past, and I've had it refunded each time.

The past few months I haven't even received a statement from them, so when I noticed the higher than normal charge on my bank account, I disputed it. Like an idiot, I used my terminal again the next day, thinking "They can't steal my money."

Wrong, they can steal my money. They refuse to release the funds, even though they have not yet refunded the original amount that was disputed through my bank. So right now, they are holding over $1000 of my money.

Also, I quit smoking on Monday, so I seriously would like to blow them up, which is why I need a bazooka.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I only have a tank I can loan you...

For that same reason your going through is why I got rid of the processing service I use to have and gone with Pay Pal and Square plus it's a lot cheaper, NO monthly charges!

 

[tomence]

Only cash here. I don't trust no one, not even my mother.

 

[jayhawksigns]

Paypal, Square, know there are others.

We dealt with this and this year switched to processing cards through PayPal. No monthly fees, easy flat rate, actually two, but they were both lower then the regular swipe rate from our old machine. No problems yet, and now we can accept payments in the field after we finish a job.

We had a $300 termination fee to quit our old processor. It was past our contract date but the fine print states that they automatically re-enroll you, unless you send them a letter in a specific timeline before your contract is up. Gotta love card processors, and now we are getting multiple calls a day about companies wanting to do our cards.


Always thought that word of mouth/referrals were the best marketing you can have done for your company. Like Chicago, we won't go back to "traditional" card processors anytime soon. If PayPal would offer a referral program for Here signups we would of been making a bit of extra money by now too. Know that I have been promoting it to every business customer that comes in our door.

 

[premiercolour]

We use paypal merchant terminal. The larger company you use, sometimes, they dont want to mess up their reputation.

 

[Pat Whatley]

I went through that with my last processor. I was on a system where they charged my service fees/discount rates all at one time, once a month. I had gotten in the habit of just verifying that the daily charges got deposited but not checking the statements every month so I went a few months before I noticed the ridiculous charges.

The PCI compliance problem was a damn questionnaire that I was supposed to fill out.

I raised enough hell that they refunded half of what they'd STOLEN. It probably took 6 hours of phone time to get to that point.

As soon as the money was back in my account I dropped them and went to Intuit.

 

[2B]

We have tried paypal in the past and it was HORRIBLE

have been with intuit for years and no issues (knock on wood)
Plus it really helped to have QB/intuit act as one so no manually entering the payment information back into QB.

The only issue we are currently having with intuit is the lack of E-commerce sites that support Intuit with a ridiculous "plug in fee" one place was wanting over 900.
We are wanting to stay with Intuit for the E-commerce since there are no gate way fees and the only fee is a monthly 9.95 plus my 1.37% processing plus the information is automatically entered into QB from the site.

 

[fresh]

We got a SQUARE up and running, and as soon as they deposit the money they've stolen, I'm closing that checking account. Every month they change the terms to my contract...

"Continued Use of this account indicates acceptance of these terms." So I tell them I do not accept those terms, so my contract is now void. Their response? "OH, If you close your account we charge you $495." (Never mind the fact that my contract says $395 early termination fee.)

I do not think they understand how contracts work.

 

[fresh]

I raised enough hell that they refunded half of what they'd STOLEN. It probably took 6 hours of phone time to get to that point.

I'm on at least 10 hours. Its now become a game... Still waiting on the bazooka.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

It's like any company that uses your money. Charge a couple million people a hundred bucks (usually for a service they already cancelled); some will never notice others will take time to complain and get redunded. Couldn't everyone use a couple hundred million for 60 days? If the bank won't loan, the people will. AOL was famous for this for decades.

 

[Border]

Pat, how do like Intuit??? I have been considering going to them and/or square.

 

[David Wright]

Yep, was the last straw for me, now just use Square.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

PCI Compliance lies? I thought it was an unavoidable yearly charge

 

[slipperyfrog]

Have been using Evalon but they just screwed up 2 AMEX charges for $2k a piece. I'm done talking on the phone with them about it. I'm looking to just move on to either Intuit or my actual bank.

 

[jayhawksigns]

Our last processor was our bank, not any better then others.

 

[fresh]

PCI Compliance lies? I thought it was an unavoidable yearly charge

Nope, its all bull-poop... Merchant Solutions charges me $149, I call and complain, and they refund me $74. They were charging me $4.95 a month for something else (that had been refunded in the past,) so now they owe me that fee back for all of 2012. For three months they were charging me $35 because they said I wasn't PCI compliant... But they had my paperwork proving I was the entire time.

They all lie about these fees, and we are too naive or lazy to call them out on them. As I look back, I never signed anything saying I agreed to any of these additional fees, and they word things to make you think you have no option but to pay. They have access to your accounts, so you are their prisoner.

 

[jayhawksigns]

Thats the nice thing about the Paypal/Square setups. No PCI stuff to worry about, no fees, no contract.

 

[rjssigns]

For the little bit we do with charge cards we use Square.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

Thats the nice thing about the Paypal/Square setups. No PCI stuff to worry about, no fees, no contract.

What about no card present transactions in which you must key in the card info? Same deal? When I looked into Paypal there is a fee in order to use the virtual terminal

 

[jayhawksigns]

You can key the number in manually at a slightly higher rate + fee(3.5%+$.15) or they can pay through their paypal account(2.7%).

Canada is the same rate for those who it effects.