Joshua
Scottsdale,#2UPDATE Employee
Sat, October 20, 2007
Hello to all who choose to read this: Jeremy **** of Morgantown West Virginia, the individual who is understandably upset with Cardservice International has omitted a few facts. In entering a contractual agreement both parties have clearly outlined responsibilities. Unfortunately when one side "goes against the grain" and is penalized it is never a happy situation. The merchant upset with our company is correct on several of his points however not all of them. The problem that came up with his account was not the type of business but more so how he was running his business. When setting up a merchant account there are very specific guidelines that must be followed in order to assure that we are not processing cards for a fraudulent merchant. How are checks and balances are put in place is with what's referred to as a "marketing method". This is an outline on what the merchant projects his/her business to be taking in transactions. E.g. we set and average or estimated transaction amount. This helps us to understand what a usual transaction amount for a business is and what is unusual for that individual. Along with this we set monthly caps and estimated high transactions. With all this being said, the individual upset with our company went way outside the clearly defined guidelines and was flagged in our fraud dept. The merchant made it very clear to me what his average transactions were going to be as well as the possible highest transaction he could run. With in 3 weeks of setting up his account he ran a transaction for well over $3,000.00 when he had clearly explained to us that he would never have a transaction larger than $1,500.00. Now understandably any business owner does not want to refuse any customer's business regardless of there purchase either being very large or very small. However this does not supersede any agreement. When the merchant ran this particular transaction we approved it but held the funds to assure that there was no fraudulent activity. The merchant was contacted directly by our fraud department to be sure that he was aware of the situation. Obviously being a company that makes its money by its merchants credit card processing we want to resolve the issue swiftly. We simply requested the merchant provide us with written details regarding the abnormally large transaction. This is done so that we can verify the transaction being legitimate and that both the card holder as well as the merchant is protected from fraud. The request made by us was very simple. Since the merchant is an internet based business which ship products we requested the shipping information and the invoice from the customer. The merchant said he would be happy to provide us with those details to assure to us the legitimacy of the transaction. Several days went by with out any of the requested information being provided. The merchant was contacted again by us to be reminded that we had still not received any of the requested information. At this point the merchant became very irate demanding that we give him his money regardless. Various other colorful words were used in which you tend to hear from a gangster on a T.V. show. When we explained to the merchant that in order to assure that there is no fraudulent activity on his account is simply needed to provide us with the information he promised to send. Again, several more days had passed, as well as several unreturned calls, still without any communication from the merchant. Within this time we received a chargeback notice from the card holders bank. For those that are unfamiliar with what a chargeback is: When a consumer has a fraudulent charge on their credit card they dispute it with their card issuing banks help. When the merchant that charged the card does not rebuttal or try to resolve it with there customer he/she is charged back the amount and the money forcibly refunded back to the consumer. The cardholder in which had been charged by the merchant claimed that the charge was unauthorized, or in other words fraudulent. At this point our company had no choice but to close the merchants account as every person's card he had charged started disputing the transactions. Indicating to us that the merchant was not running a reputable business and is too high of a risk to take a chance on. This is the part that gets ugly. Every Visa/Mastercard merchant on the planet has a contract to do business for a period of time which also has penalties for early termination whether the merchant goes out of business or receives too many chargeback and the account has to be closed or 1 of several various reasons. Regardless, the merchant was then charged early termination fee's which totaled to about $400.00. Understandably no one likes to lose money but this is why we clearly outline everything before doing business. Along with this the merchant was leasing software through our company as well, which is a separate agreement entirely. Neither of these obligations void just like any other contractual agreement. The merchant was then left with a negative balance in his bank account because of the early termination fees as well as still being in a lease with no merchant account to use it with. All these "facts", "statements", "arguments", or what have you, are never a pleasant situations and are avoided as much as possible. Understandably when a merchant goes out of business or decides that they no longer want the services they are still contractually obligated to the fees outlined at the being of application process. In closing, most of the complaints on our company and other processing companies have a lot of similarities. Either they went out of business and are upset that they still have to pay. Or they did something they were not allowed to do, whether they claim to have not known better or not. Ignorance is never a valid excuse; regardless when rules are broken a penalty is always implemented. This is not just indicative of credit card processing but every aspect of day to day living as well. I hope that this will help future merchants understand how things work and whether you are large business or small business the rules do not change. Respectfully, Joshua Harjo