Complaint Review: Electronic Merchant Systems - Independence Ohio

To all agents and merchants.  Beware of this company.  Just read please.  

Electronic Merchant Services (EMS) does the following:

1.  The following people tell you they have the best system of processing in the U.S. and that they have the money and the will to invest to make the company better:

a. Matt Sheppard, Executive V.P. Sales and Marketing in charge of agent recruitment

b. Daniel Neistadt, CEO

c. James Weiland, Chairman of the Board and Founder

2.  EMS deceptively and unscrupulously increases rates on merchants arbitrarily every year.  EMS increased the mid-qualified and non-qualified rates in September 2012 by a whopping 90 basis points (0.90%), and on qualified by an astronomical 30 basis points (0.30%) in January 2013 on many merchants.  They selected which agents they would tell about this, and the language on merchant statement was deceptive and confusing so merchants would not complain.  Of course, many have.  Cleveland Chamber of Commerce pulled the plug on EMS in 2011 because of numerous merchant members who complained about rate increases and deceptive sales practices.   Just read the reviews on Web site of Better Business Bureau (BBB) of Cleveland.  These rate increases tarnish the image of agents and lead to merchants' dissatisfaction with and distrust of agents.  All the owner, James (Jim) Weiland, and Dan Neistadt, CEO, care about is enriching their own pockets so as to make the company's balance sheet more attractive for a suitable investor.  When you raise the issue, he, Dan Neistadt, and Matt Sheppard will turn the agent into a scapegoat and order every one in EMS to not return the agent's calls.  They do continue to provide service to agents if you have an agent agreement that mandates them to do so. 

3.  EMS boats of having the best agent portal and transaction reporting system in the country.  But theirs is one of the most antiquated in terms of looks and functionality.  They simply re-created an identical version of a very old system with the same boring look and tweaked it just a bit.  But it is what it is.  The numbers reported on Interchange categories are the same for January as it is for December!!  So, the reporting is not updated.  In other words, you wouldn’t know the real numbers in these categories from month to month. 

4.  EMS has different departments.  But all these departments are very "disconnected" from one another.  That will lead to un-needed aggravation and frustration because of poor or lack of service when an agent and merchant need them most. 

5.  EMS' customer service staff are very poorly trained.  Some don’t even know what month-end billing is vs. daily billing.  Nine out of ten times, you will be placed on the phone for at least 5-10 minutes for something that should take only 30 seconds.  It is not unusual for one tech support call to take at least 45 minutes for a simple matter.  And the problem may not get fixed if you haven’t had prior experience and won’t insist that there is nothing wrong with the terminal. 

6.  EMS tries to save money by not paying hosting fee.  So, it builds many files in-house, which means you cannot expect TSYS, their only platform/processor of choice, to diagnose issues with files because TSYS doesn't have access to, or doesn’t host, files that are built by EMS.  To make matters worse, EMS has a separate department for building files, whose staff leave at 6:00 pm Monday-Friday and part of Saturday, yet not on Sunday, and with NO remote access to the files.  Good luck if a file needs to be rebuilt or diagnosed after 6:00 pm.  They actually have to ask the person on call, who may not even be a tech support person!! (seriously) to come back to work!!  This is once of the craziest and dumbest things an acquirer could do: to provide NO file building capability when you need it in the evenings.  What could go wrong, will go wrong. 

To make matters worse, EMS does not cross train tech support and file-build departments staffs.  So, tech support could not help an agent or merchants if need be many times.  AND, as a result too, they will keep you on the phone for a very long time because one department has to literally grab some one from the other department, a process that could take at least 20 minutes or so on just one item.  Waiting nearly one hour for something that should take only 1-2 minutes with a well-trained tech support staff is ordinary, not just uncommon. 

To save more money, just a few pennies per call, EMS is not motivated to call TSYS, the processor, if TSYS can help with a file.  Each call costs only pennies, but EMS is more concerned about the bottom line, not realizing that they lose so much on staff time.  EMS bleeds itself and its staff and agents to death, so to speak.  That is unacceptable. 

7.  EMS debits a merchant's bank account as soon as a retrieval request is received from an issuing bank for the amount of dispute.   This will upset your merchants a lot.  A merchant should pay the amount only if the transaction becomes a chargeback to merchant.  This is a no-no in the industry by all reputable acquirers who care about merchants and agents.  EMS does this on all merchants regardless of the risk level.  EMS does this because it has traditionally underwritten eCommerce and high-risk accounts.  But it has no way of separating no-to low-risk accounts, thereby upsetting merchants and agents alike on such accounts.  This practice is considered unethical and deceptive by many merchants and agents, and it upsets merchants, which is not good for business.  The attrition rate could increase. 

EMS also charges the merchant account the chargeback fee of $25 even before a merchant has lost the amount due to chargeback.  This is wrong and upsets agents and merchants. 

8.  EMS boats of having a great gift and loyalty program called Altus, whose engine is a company called SparkBase, the owner of PayCloud service.  But this service by EMS is one of the worst in terms of file build, terminal interface, and marketing materials.  There is nothing efficient about all these three.  And its proper installation could take many, many hours.  Be very careful.  Do NOT buy into that claim and this service.  I believe you WILL regret it.  To verify my claim, install a terminal in-house, see how it works, and also review the extremely poor marketing and reference guide materials EMS has put together.  You will see what I mean. 

9.  EMS claims it provided "true" next-day funding.  And although the CEO knows full well EMS does not provide merchants' fund the very next day, he will not tell you the truth.  For funds to be posted the very next day by all banks when transactions have been settled up to even 5:00 am or so on the same day, the sponsoring bank of a merchant acquirer, like EMS, would have to pay a nominal processing fee to the Federal Reserve Bank.  Dan Neistadt, the CEO, is aware of this.  But he will never tell you the truth and does not disclose that he knows EMS has to pay that fee to its sponsoring bank.  That is deceptive because merchants expect their funds the very next day, but they don't receive the funds if they have batched out their transactions after 6:00 pm every day. 

10. Matt Sheppard, the very person who is supposed to stand up for you within the organization, does not.  All your legitimate concerns and your voice will fall on deaf ears.  You will be shunned and turned into an outcast and the scapegoat for the failures of EMS to provide what they promise. 

11. EMS keeps losing his good employees and talents due to its closed-mindedness to an atmosphere that is conducive for growth.  There is no culture of innovation and creativity due to an old-fashioned mentality that stifles such growth.  There is hardly an investment in newer technology, as claimed by the top executives.  This is truly an old company that pays only lip service to technology and its use.  Companies that do not invest in technology and human capital are the ones that are doomed in this industry.  The top executives have been there far too long and are dusty, so to speak.  And EMS is in no mood to dust off!

12. If you suspect that EMS is not paying you enough, they will ignore you at first for a couple months.  They then provide you with an explanation that makes no sense.  They hope you will just go away.  And you will! 

13.  Jim Weiland, the owner of EMS and Chairman of the Board, micromanages everything, whereas he should not.  He is impulsive and greedy.  He is predictably unpredictable.  His reputation in this industry precedes him.  My findings all point to the fact that the staff in EMS is very afraid of Jim Wieland and the executives because of his tyrannical and stifling micro-management style, which trickles down. 

In short, EMS is an “old” company with an old mentality who does not appreciate new ideas.  Its executives are not transparent about many things.  The same people have been running this company for a long time. So they think everything is perfect, which is in their own minds.   Many promises are offered, but most are not delivered.  EMS, is an enormously inefficient company that costs itself and its agents time and money.  Read the reviews by a number of EMS’ direct sales force district and regional managers and former employees as well as the ones on BBB site.  They speak volumes about EMS.  EMS may have the money especially after each arbitrary rate increase and ripping off many merchants.  But they have no will to change things for better.  No new technology or solutions that could make agents and merchants do better.  Collectively, the practices promulgated by EMS can be considered predatory and harmful to agents, merchants, and the electronic transaction processing as well.  Their own sponsoring bank, Merrick Bank, as well as Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card Associations should step up and investigate EMS seriously and objectively.