Canadian Payment Services LL.C. Steven King American company not registered to do business in Canada, ripping off sales commissions, fraudulently charging merchants on behalf of First Data New York, Nationwide
Canadian Payment Services LL.C. told me that they have been in business since 2003. I found out that they incorporated in Ontario, April 2011. Steven King the Vice President of Sales and Marketing refused to pay me, without notice, on 20 plus deals, which is over $11,000 in commissions. I submitted the deals and he took them. I will sue them for breach of contract. While I worked for them, I taped three sales meetings whereby he encouraged sales representatives to commit fraud on First Data applications. He told the sales representatives to tell the merchants that CPS will charge the merchants a $20 statement fee that in addition to the cost of the leases for the terminals, thereby the merchants will be charged $49.99 per month for the machines. When in fact the machines were $29 per month. Most of the sales representatives refused to engage in this fraud. I contacted First Data to advise them of the fraud, and First Data states that they do not know Canadian Payment Services. I was advised by my lawyer that it was a waste of time suing them, as they are located in the United States, and it would be hard to enforce a contract with them. Several of my merchants called me and told me that First Data was taking money out of their accounts before they were received and had their machines installed. They called Canadian Payment Services and left multiple messages, and nobody returned their calls. I told them they had 30 days to cancel their contract. When they did, Canadian Payment Services then took the liberty to call them, and threatened to withdraw thousands of dollars from their accounts.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
HonestCreditCardProcessing
158 Park Home Avenue,Ontario,
Other Dishonest Activity by CPS
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, April 15, 2013
I was an agent for Canadian Payment Services (CPS) for about five months, and I learned the hard way that CPS was not honest to their agents or merchants when signing new merchants up under Pivotal Payments, the second processor company that CPS uses.
With First Data, I found that everything disclosed to the merchants was truthful, and had no issues with misrepresentation. However, with Pivotal Payments, the rates that were told to me and that I was instructed to communicate to the merchant were not the same.
For example, if I was signing up a merchant under First Data with a Qualified Rate of 1.59% and NonQual rate of 0.6%, then these numbers would be written on the applicable lines on the application form. However, with Pivotal Payments applications, all the agents were instructed to write the Qualified rate as 1.49% and then ADD the Qualified and NonQualified rates together for the NonQualified line.
The reason is that the low rates that were approved under First Data would not be approved with Pivotal Payments. So merchants being signed up under Pivotal were paying a combined Qualified rate of 1.59% + NonQualified Rate of 2.19% (1.59%+0.6%) for a total rate of 1.59%+2.19%=3.78% before even adding the other fees (transaction costs, assessment fees or card brand fees, etc.).
I started receiving phone calls from those merchants that I signed up to say that the rates on the statement were much higher than what they had been told, and when I investigated more closely, I found out what I just explained above.
I had these merchants contact Pivotal Payments and ask for a Rate Review and corrections were made, but I was very displeased with being lied to and I quit working for them. During training, we had been told that this addition had to occur but we were not told the real reason why - we were simply told that the underwriters at Pivotal process the figures differently from the underwriters at First Data and we were reminded several times during our first appointments with merchants being signed up under Pivotal to remember to add the rates. I even questioned the VP Sales, but was simply told the same reason as provided in training - the two companies process the numbers and applications differently.
I also am familiar with the scam mentioned by the first review about the equipment leasing, but what I was taught to do was to explain to the merchant that the monthly lease was $35.99 per month plus we had a regular monthly lease maintenance fee of $15 per month (this maintenance fee was over and above the regular monthly account maintenance fee of either $5 or $10 per month). This higher lease payment would result in several hundred dollars in commissions for the agent.
Given the severe competition for pricing in the city, I found that there was no way that merchants were going to accept this extra charge so I never applied it on any applications that I did, but one of the best agents on the West Coast was able to successfully implement this extra fee on almost every application and he was earning at least $10,000 in commissions each month as a result.