Complaint Review: Elavon Merchant Services - NOVA Information Systems - Internet

I am in a similar vortex of hell with Elavon.  I signed up with them only because my company for years (Payment Tech) was bought out by Bank of America and I used the opportunity to try and get a better fee structure, thought Costco was reputable so since I had to change companies anyway, went with Elavon.  Boy do I regret it. 

I upgraded to the pricey Executive Membership with Costco to avoid certain fees with Elavon before I even applied for service.  When I received the application, the fees to be avoided were listed on the application (app fee and monthly fees for svc).  My rep (in writing) instructed me to simply cross off those fees before sending back the contract which i did.  A month later my first statement arrives and yes, I've been charged those fees.

Thus begins the nightmare of attempting to get them reversed and not charged to me in the future.  You will wait an average of 20 min. to even get a young person on the phone who knows nothing about your situation and you have to retell the entire thing to...often being just randomly cut off while waiting on hold (multiple times).  it's good to only communicate in writing anyway as the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing at Elavon.

I've been told multiple stories by Elavon reps, from me having to fax them MY bank statement to "prove" the funds were taken out (uh, I found out by THEIR statement to me and they have access to only ONE acct of mine, of course they know they received the funds...they HAVE them!).  Thing is, my bank doesn't issue a statement until 3 wks.  So then I send in the copy of the portion of my online banking page which shows the fees removed and am told I will receive a refund in 72 hours.  Then days later an entirely new person contacts me telling me I need to fax the bank statement and wait 7-10 days for "approval".  In the last 2 days, I've heard from 4 different reps with 4 different responses of how this is going to handled each apparently having no idea someone else has contacted me.

I have no idea how if or when I will receive the refund for the ERROR Elavon clearly made with my account, if I will keep being charged fees I am not to be charged, if they will up my rate randomly because of my complaints and/or if they will randomly remove more "necessary fees" (which is what one of the reps referred to these fraudulent charges as...I have a CONTRACT which shows these fees removed and the POLICY from costco stating they will not be charged).  I've complained to Costco on this and they have gotten back with me several times and apparently contacted Elavon on my behalf and got one of the 4 stories I got back yesterday.

So we'll see.  If I could, I'd cancel this horrendous service and start over with my previous merchant acct again and change back my membership at Costco but I'm stuck in a contract with them now and they have FULL ACCESS to my bank account.  I'm watching it like a hawk now to make sure they don't pull more fraudulent fees out of my account which believe me is not the fear state I want to be living in with my MONEY.