Complaint Review: Merchant Industry LLC

BUYER BEWARE!!! I entered into an agreement to process my credit card charges with Merchant Industry because they identified themselves as being a Wells Fargo Bank Partner. This is a Lie!!! Beware!
 I agreed to a flat fee rate, month to month service only (no annual contract). I quickly found that I was being charged for Monthly Service Fees, Activation Fees (twice), transaction fees,.. For every incorrect charge they said the correction was forthcoming and were sincerely sorry. Needless to say, my account was never credited for the incorrect charges.

The individual (Jim Shakmeyster) who had signed us up for service stopped responding to our calls and I was left to deal with a secretary in the office. She faxed me a copy of the contract that she had. This copy of contract was totally different from the original contract that I had signed. She advised me, "You need to get a copy of your original contract", which I had.

When I tried to cancel the service I was told I couldn't cancel without an early cancellation fee. By this time I had already been incorrectly charged $394.00. The early termination fee was an additional $395.00, a fee which I had never agreed to and was not on my copy of the original contract, but only on" their copy" of the contract. I tried to cancel the service by email, by fax, and verbally on the telephone, but charges continued to be made to my business account.

Finally, I visited Wells Fargo Bank hoping to have the incorrect charges credited back to my bank account. This is when I was told by Staci Jackson, Assistant Vice President of Wells Fargo Bank, at 130 Market Place, San Ramon, CA that Merchant Industry made a false statement. Wells Fargo Bank is not Partner with Merchant Industry, and never has been. Also, Wells Fargo Bank processes their own credit card charges. Wells Fargo Bank advised me to file a fraud report with the police department and notify the Better Business Bureau.

At this point I went to my bank and closed my business account in order to stop their erroneous charges.
I filed a police report.

Finally, when I went on the internet for Better Business Bureau and saw that I could file a complaint, I contacted Merchant Industry and they responded to me saying they would in fact reimburse me $394.00 and that a check would be in the mail next week. Almost one month later, when we still had not received the check we emailed Merchant Industry and advised them that we were in fact going to the Better Business Bureau. They immediately responded with a tracking number for Federal Express and said we would receive the check in two days, which we actually did receive.

To say it was a nightmare would be an understatement. The process of reimbursement took us six months...and countless man hours. If I were to total the man hours spent on this by my employees, myself and the cost of the checks, I would say I am easily out of an additional $2500.00. But there you are. I hope this posting helps someone to not make the same mistake I did.