Merchant Account Provider Reviews

See what others are saying about the Merchant Account Provider(s) they've dealt with. Find out the good, bad and ugly before commiting to a provider. It's important to deal with an honest and reputable company who is truely interested in helping you get set up to accept credit cards in a manner that is efficient.

Most recently added reviews...

Avoid Card Service International
CardService International
by Dale
Rating: 1
AVOID AT ALL COSTS--Intentionally hidden fees, rude and arrogant, outsourced tech support to India, they are especially likely to rip you off if youre a small to medium sized business--they think they can get away with it since we have neither the time, nor resources to drag their sorry carcasses into court. Horrible Horrible Horrible!!!!

Watch Out for Fifth Third
Fifth Third Merchant Services
by Jeff Wogan
Rating: 4
I recently got out of my franchise and was no longer forced to deal with the designated merchant service provider, Fifth Third. Although they have decent enough POS service, they are not able to do monthly electronic funds transfer (at least not at this time). So I needed to find another provider. Severing ties with this company has been a nightmare. Although they had my verbal request to cancel, they require a written request. Not unreasonable, until they can\'t find my fax. They received the equipment back, but continued to bill me each month for service I wasn\'t using. It took 5 month of batttling these people to finally get the account closed. Now five months later, in December, I see another draft from my checking account for $55. They\'re explanation, its an annual fee for the PREVIOUS 12 months of service. In my opinion, its just another nickel and dime charge that most of us just pay because its not worth the fight. My advice, in addition to your operating and payroll accounts, set up a third bank account (at a separate bank) to use with your merchant service. That way when (not if) you move to a new merchant service provider you can close the bank account and be done with them. Trust me, if you\'re in business long enough, you will change merchant services eventually. It must be a separate bank or else the charges will be applied to whatever open accounts your have.

DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE! They can turn nasty fast
Pipeline Data
by Keith Nordstrom
Rating: 1
I had an account with these guys for 5 years, with no chargebacks (1 attempted). They were expensive, but I didnt have any hassle with them and the online business was not doing a ton of volume so it wasnt a big deal. One day they informed me I was being \"audited.\" At first I thought one of my recent transactions had been flagged, so I reassured them that I knew all of the cardholders. I did, in fact, all were repeat customers, and some were members of a group my store was sponsoring. It soon turned out that I was the one under suspicion. I still dont know why this was the case, but they started making demands. The first was shipping records and supplier receipts for 4 transactions. When I explained that there were no such documents, a. because there was no shipping and b. because the money was for a custom clothing order, everything fell on deaf ears - including my assurances and the assurances of the cardholders themselves that there was nothing untoward going on. Finally, I asked them if cancelling the 4 transactions and getting checks for the money would fix my audit status, and they said it would. I did this. In the meantime, ~$6000 of my money was being held up in my merchant account. A week+ later I received a call and another email. It seems 20 more transactions were now flagged. Rather than screw around, I did the same thing with these. Then 3 weeks went by. Pipeline data and Merchant Express had now held up $6k of my money for about 2 months, and bills and interest were piling up. I hadnt heard a thing, but I read around and discovered that they reserved the right to hold my money for up to 12 months while they deliberated. So I contacted all of my customers with orders on the missing batches, waited until I received assurances for checks ... and cancelled all of the orders for the remaining $5000 by hand over the weekend. That monday, I changed my bank account info and set up with a new processor. Pipeline came back asking me why I had cancelled the remainder of the transactions. I told them I had received checks and no longer required their services. This morning I got email that they had cancelled a further $550 of my transactions from 2 months ago - and that I was being sent to collections for not paying it back! I will fight this, and if it gets as bad as I think it will, Im going to report them to the Better Business Bureau. Im also going to ask my customers to see if the refunds to their cards have come back in under Visas guidelines, and if not Im going to ask them to lodge complaints. Im guessing they are careful enough not to have done anything explitly illegal, but one can always hope. Ive been in business long enough to know that there are ways you treat customers and ways you dont. After 5 years in a business relationship in which my record was basically perfect, I expected slightly better treatment. Im giving them a 2 for the many years in which I didnt have a problem with them. But in the past few months, there arent enough negative numbers to express how poorly theyve treated me. And if you read around on the web, mine is not the only story like this.

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