Complaint Review: First Data Corporation/Cardservices

We use cardservices to process credit cards at our business. We have never truly been happy with them, but 'lived' with them because we didn't want to incur the huge termination charges they threatened us with. They changed the terms of our contract and supplied us with crappy equipment.

However the latest stunt is the worst of all. The Risk Dept. called us to tell us there was fraudulent charges. So, I supplied them with all of the reciepts and signed invoices proving the customer purchased the material. They still took over $25,000 out of our checking account. Anthony from the Risk Dept. has never told me what else I need to do to resolve the issue. Of course any phone call is never returned. Well today we had another $27,000 taken out and when we called Anthony he said that it was the 'exact' amount of the disputed transactions. But they never redeposited the $25,000 they originally took out. So we are out over $50,000 for only $27,000 transactions. Anthony told us it was a mistake and that the money would be wired into our account. Of course we kept calling to make sure the money was transferred and he told us that it had been. The next day we found out that it had not been transferred. We called Anthony and he said our bank refused the wire transfer. We called our bank and they said that they do not refuse wire transfers and that there had been no activity on our account. So Anthony lied, big surprise.

He still has not informed us of what else we can do to expedite resolving the credit card issue. So a customer has over $25,000 worth of paver materials that they have used to build a customers patio, we have paid the manufacturer for the materials, but we are out the money until Cardservices decides that we should be paid.
How can a credit card user just willy-nilly say, 'I want to dispute the charges?' Just because he doesn't have enough money to pay the charges, he'll dispute it to give himself more time. Why should the small business owner suffer?

When they froze our account, none of the subsequent charges from any other credit card user was put into our account. It went into a holding account. We got penalized for one customer. How is that fair?

Cardservices sucks! I would never recommend anyone to use them. Run as fast as you can away!!

Carrie
Aurora, Illinois
U.S.A.