Merchant account sales

[Kev Williams]

With apologies to anyone beforehand... <<flimsy disclaimer>>

--Lately, I have found merchant account sales people to be some of the most dishonest bunch of 'holes I've ever come across.

Now, the first company that approached me, they were upfront and honest.

About 3 years later (which was sometime last year) I was hit up by another company who assured me they could save me money. So I agreed to a sit-down at our home. Some guy and his trainee lackey show up. I showed them past statements, they showed me where they'd save me some money, so far so good. We got to discussing the credit card machine, I told them I was paying $5 a month rent, or I could buy it for $500. I was assured they could beat that deal too. Then we got into "contracts". I said I would not sign up for anything where I was locked in. Oh, no worries there! We all had a good chat about cell phone and cable TV contracts and all that, what a ripoff they were...

So, I signs up. One of their guys calls me and we program the CC machine- from the other company- to run swipes to THEIR company. So far so good.

After I get the first statement, I notice no big changes in what I'm paying. So I call the first company and tell them I'm changing over. Well, sorry to hear that, you should've called us, we could meet or beat their prices, yada yada... well what's done is done. Ok, so we need our machine back. OR, $600. Ok, price went up, after 3 years no surprise. I'll get back to you...

So I call my new place, how about bringing me a machine over, how much is the rent? $24 a month???? Umm, you said... say what? You can rent me an older machine for $15 a month? Well gee, even THAT means I'll be spending more every month with you guys just for machine rent! How much to buy.... $1200???? for the USED machine? Don't even want to know what the NEW model costs...

So I call up my old company, no hard feelings, and we'll drop some of the fees and discounts, etc, and you can keep renting the machine for free... Alrighty then.

Now it's just a simple matter of cancelling the new account.... and guess what I found out after trying to do so?

THAT I'M LOCKED IN FOR 3 YEARS WITH A $500 EARLY TERMINATION FEE. :eek::mad:

The poor girl on the other end of the phone heard words I KNOW she never heard before. But-- I blame myself. I actually thought the lying thieving conniving manipulative worthless excuse for a human being sitting in our home at our kitchen table was actually being honest with us. So I didn't bother to read thru the contract. And I'm paying for it.

But I've learned from it, and I'm telling this story in hopes I save someone else from my fate...

I'm ALSO telling it because, they're still out there...

Just a few minutes ago, the phone rang. THIS was on the caller ID:

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/jordan.jpg


---Jordan School Dristrict. The district I did all 12 of my school years in, and the district I still live in...

I'm expecting a question about engraving. What I got was:

"Hello there, I assume I've reached Williams & Sons Engraving?"
"yes"

"Are you the owner, or someone that has the authority over your merchant account?"
(uh oh) --- "yes, but..."

"You have an appointment, a rep will be out there tomorrow, my manager will be on the line in a moment with the details"....
--all that while I'm trying to get a word in edgewise.... that word being N O ! !

To shorten this a bit, I had to get very LOUD and nearly offensive with the ... lets just say "manager", before she finally got the freakin' hint...

This isn't the first time I've had a phony caller ID show up, usually it's a Google computer. But this is the first time a real person was on the other end.
And not ONE bit of a surprise that it was a merchant account ******** << invent your own expletive...

How honest can you be if you're spoofing a school district's name and phone number?

I never cease to be amazed...

[Andrew Joiner]

Kev, Contact your state. Many times you can cancel a contract if you act fast. In most cases you have 3 days.

[Kev Williams]

I didn't contact them in the first place for over a month, so I'm WAY past the 3-day rule. And any complaint I can make is here-say. I took the blame, I should've read the contract. 9 pages of small print, but I should've read it.

It just kills me, whatever happened to honest business practices? Barefaced lying, spoofing caller ID numbers, telling me I HAVE an appointment, GET all my current statements together because there WILL be a sales rep coming tomorrow...

.... better not be...

[Dave Sheldrake]

Do they have "Stand your ground" in your state Kev ;)

cheers

Dave

[Chuck Wintle]

I guess it pays to always read and understand the contract before signing....but i won'y say i told you so as these "salesman" can be very manipulative.In the grand scheme of things at least it will end in 3 years.

[Greg R Bradley]

CC processor salesman are certainly sleazy. Unfortunately, it seems that almost every salesman doing cold calls, on the phone or in person, is sleazy.

With three small businesses, we have adopted a policy of not dealing with anyone that contacts us. We will do our research and contact someone that we want to use as a vendor. The best advertisements come from referrals from satisfied customers. You can't even trust those if you don't know the source. Anonymous referrals from the internet really aren't worth much.

A person trying that "you have an appointment" crap from me will get a very rude response. You have to walk a fine line between being rude/crazy enough that they are afraid to call back and being so nuts that they might call back for the entertainment of their coworkers. Make them believe that their life could be in danger without yelling too much. I usually start with asking for the name of the company, looking it up on the web, making sure that they confirm their contact details, and then telling them that they are black-flagged on our vendor list.

[David Weaver]

Greg, I use your policy, also. Lately, I've gotten a rash of calls from people who tell me that I told them last year to call me back on a certain date. I don't forget much, and I usually point out to them right away that I have never heard from them, and they usually try for a round to say that I have. Their fate is sealed when they lie to start the call, anyway, so it makes no difference, and at some point in their talking I just hang up. I've never had that happen accidentally to someone who I did intend to talk to - it's easier to get a reference or two from someone you know and then contact the company you want to do business with.

I've always read the mice type on every contract I've ever signed, at least until I get the details I want. If I haven't see the type of contract before, I will read it all. If the salesperson doesn't like it, I tell them to leave and come back for the signed contract later, I'll call them if I find something I don't like. I think a lot of them genuinely don't know the details of what they're selling because they don't care - they have a braindead spiel they want to get over your head so they can go on to the next person. In my early/mid 20s, I purchased a participating life insurance policy as a low risk tax deferral vehicle. I knew what % of my income and investment I wanted in that, and I tracked down an agent through a friend. He was actually a decent guy, but he wasn't happy when I made him wait so that I could read the contract before signing it. He took me to lunch (as I'm sure all agents do) and I had an hour to go over the contract and sign it, and I used the hour to do that. I think he was hoping for something easier, and said I was the second person in 30 years who had actually read the entire contract before signing "and the other person was an engineer".

I also never buy anything from a salesperson who can't come out of their canned spiel and talk like a normal person. I can't stand people who are in sales mode, who try to shift talk about your kids to blow smoke up your rear, or tell you what "you already agree on" to hide details. It may be my very least favorite thing in the entire world. Maybe only exceeded by friends or relatives who get on to trying to sell something, and then they hit you with their pitch because they've gotten lost in the weeds and see you as a potential customer.

[Phil Thien]

Don't even get me started on CC processing companies.

My advice: Always go w/ what one guy told me are the primes. These are the real large processing outfits like Chase Paymentech, First Data, Heartland, etc. In fact, if you google those three, you will find web pages that list all the actual underlying processing outfits.

Now, if you are dealing with anyone else, what you're dealing with is actually a reseller. And they will talk a mile a minute to convince you that they can best any other rates. But the reality is, they are a middle man. They actually run their transactions through one of the primes. They may have enough clients to negotiate a good rate with the prime(s) that do their processing, but the middle-man is absorbing any savings. You will typically save nothing or actually pay MORE.

The resellers are expert at tacking on all sorts of fees. They talk about low rates but have real high statement fees, rental fees, everything else.

Even the primes can be dangerous to people that don't know the lingo and don't know what to watch out for. For example, the rates they typically quote are for a certain volume of transactions. Fail to meet that level for a couple of months and they make spike your rates. It is all right there in the contract.

Some, like Chase Paymentech, now offer true month to month contracts. I've been very happy w/ Chase. They have aggressive rates and are very responsive if you have questions. I don't know if they will issue a merchant account to someone working out of their homes, but they may.

In any event, just watch out for the resellers.

Oh, and the resellers use telemarketing like nuts. And they do spoof local numbers. When one of them calls me, I say, "you know you've reached Visa, right? You're calling Visa. Who is this, I want your company name and phone #?" They typically get flustered and hang up and never call back. I've greatly reduced the # of calls I'm getting from resellers by using this method.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Think of how much easy money these companies make, it's another parasite industry that we'd all be better off with if we could figure out a way around it. I like Greg's approach, cold calls get the cold shoulder.

[Andrew Joiner]

Kev, You still may be able to cancel and not pay the ETF. I would still contact your state office that handles this and tell them your story.

I found this by a quick search:
Before cancelling a merchant account, there are a few things you may want to do if you are expecting to be charged an ETF. First, check your last three months’ statements to see if any of your fees have been raised. Most state laws (and many contracts) say that if your fees have been raised during your service agreement, you can cancel with no penalty within a certain time frame (usually 30-90 days). If you just signed up with the provider and want to cancel because you were deceived by an agent, gather any supporting evidence that proves that you were misled about pricing or cancellation terms.

[Mark Bolton]

First data is just as bad. We are finishing out our contract with them where the rep quoted us pricing and then all the add on and additional charges land. I fought with them for nearly a year over it and you still have to watch for the cc companies (amex in particular) who will add on premium processing fees with no specific authorization (they are authorized via the merchant account). I have had to clean them and get credit numerous times once theyve billed.


They are all shady and unless I'm doing major volume I will stick with a higher rate option like square or one of the other pay as you go options. I've been three years paying the lease and merchant fees and I'm done with it. If I were in a business where I did many daily transactions I'd have no choice but thankfully I'm not.

TheIves isn't a strong enough word.

[Kev Williams]

re: Amex: When I first started taking cards, about a year in I decided Amex wasn't worth the money I was being charged. I call my merchant people to cancel, they said I had to call Amex myself. So I did--

I explained I wanted to cancel.

Why?

Your fees are pretty high, and I don't get that many Amex cards anyway...

So, what if we eliminated all our fees to you, would you still want to cancel?

Uhh, no! -- and to this day, I pay Amex no discount fees. If I run $150, I get $150...

This trick works with other such companies, like cable and sat. TV- When our son rented our mobile home from us, we had $69 a month Dish network. Son wanted to cancel and change- When we called to cancel, we got him 2 years at $36 (total bill) a month, same exact service we were paying $69 for...

Come to think of, just about time to cancel OUR sat tv too... ;)

[Dave Sheldrake]

In the US are card handlers an intermediate?

Mine are done via Lloyds Bank and Cardnet (who process the authorisations)

cheers

Dave

[Greg Portland]

Have you run the numbers for using Square?

[Bill Cunningham]

I was doing my authorizations through my bank by phone, I never took cards over the counter so I decided to use Paypal invoices instead and cancel the visa bank processing. I had been using their service for 10 or 15 years. They told me there was a 250.00 cancelation fee. I told them that I was a customer of their bank for both personal and business for over 25 years. They could keep me as a customer or charge me the 250.. The next day the 250 was out of my account. So, I pulled everything out, business account/checking/registered retirement funds, along with several thousand in a GIC that was maturing the following week. The manager called me, and asked why? I told him the bank made a decision, so did I.. It was a blessing by changing banks I'm now saving over $1500 a year in fees and now with a much friendlier bank that even comes to me when I need them..