Complaint Review: Federated Payment Systems LLC - Melville New York

I own a clothing retail store where I sell Indian dresses averaging $200-$300 so one sale of $3774.72 is not a everyday thing as matter of fact my monthly credit card swiping is around $2000-$3000.

On April 5th, 2012 I had 2 ladies with a child who walked into the store looking for dresses and picked out clothes and artificial jewelry totaling $3475 with tax it came out to $3774.72 and they gave me a debit card to swipe.

Talking about debit cards, I was new to running a business so I had no idea that processing companies don't charge you interest on Debit cards they only charge you a transaction fee and I was paying a $0.20 for a debit transaction plus 1.59% per swipe INITIALLY and then on my statement I was charged an additional 1.55% on these debit transactions. When I learned that usually its only $0.10 to $0.20 per transaction and no fees I contacted them and I was told I signed a contract and I cannot change it and had to abide. 

Anyhow coming back to April 5th when I received the card instead of a name it said "A Gift for you" so that kind of made me cautious and then the lady told me that there is a password associated with the card so she had told me to press a certain button which I don't recall and then enter a numerical password and after doing all this I got a receipt and everything seemed normal but this whole process seemed fishy so I asked the customer if I can swipe the card without password and she said it wont go through but I did it anyway and yes it came declined. Since this is not a small amount, pretty much my monthly salary, I wanted to be thorough so I took all the actions I can to make sure I wasn't getting screwed. So, so far I swiped the card with pass code and received a receipt and then tried it again to have it decline and now I called the number on side on my machine which was 1-877-333-3728 for OnePay or Federated Systems LLC - Customer Service. I spoke to a person named Peter told him the whole story and I was told yes there are cards with pass codes so there is nothing to worry about. He even assured me by telling me that he sees the transaction on his side and it seems fine, and believe me I am not exaggerating when I say I at least confirmed that everything was good about 5 times. After his assurance I gave the merchandise away. 

Since this was a big amount and the whole thing was messing my head I forced a batch and then called back and spoke to Shawn K. (this time I got their last initial) and he told me the batch had gone through and everything seems fine and I will receive the money as usual. (One thing that boggles me is that every time you call a company they state they are recording the conversation so how come they cannot recall or get that recording to assure what the person said.)

Well after all this to my surprise I got a chargeback letter from ChargeBack Processing Center stating there is a charge back on this transaction for the amount $3774.72. So I called OnePay back and spoke to a person whose name I forgot to write but he told me that I had to fax the receipt and details since the charge is because the person said he never purchased the items and he also told me regardless I now have to deal with the chargeback department. So I called the chargeback dept and spoke to Malissa who advised me to write everything up and fax it to them so they can look into the case. Well after following up with them for about 2-3 weeks I was told the reversal is denied and the reason is that the card was decline and I still swiped it. After telling them repeatedly that it decline the second time after I swiped initially with a pass code they kept repeating it was declined and apparently according to them if you keep swiping a card after many declines IT WILL GO THROUGH, imagine that. Anyhow this was only one swipe and it was after it went through with a pass code. Anyhow she told me they will look into it that was the last I hear of her.

After 1 week I called back on June 13th and spoke to Lisa in charge back and told her the whole thing and she said she will contact OnePay and speak to Peter and Shawn K. I called her repeatedly everyday after that and got her voicemail finally after 4 days I spoke to her and was told she cannot reach Peter since he was off  for a few days and she will get in touch with him in a day or so. After this when I followed up with this I received her voicemail again and this time I tried to speak to other rep from charge back and was told that it was out of their hands and the chargeback has already occurred. 

Meanwhile OnePay tried to take 3774.72 out of my bank and it was reversed since I am not that rich or doing so well that I would have that much money in bank. Anyhow, now I started talking to supervisors in One Pay and spoke to Dave and after heated long arguments I was told I could never have been told it was ok to recieve a pass code from the customer. Since its OnePay who has to give me a code and then he said that they are not responsible and I should have contacted the number on the back of the card and not them. But finally he said he will look into it and tell me if they will take any responsibility. That was the last I spoke to him. 

Now finally I receive a call from Evans Bercy stating I owe them $3955.93 even though I was given 3774.72 less their processing fee of around $60 and they are holding a couple of hundred from my transactions. Well this person now tells me that regardless what happened and what their employees told me its my responsibility to know if I was being screwed. Their employees telling me that the card went through has nothing to do with the charge back and if I was not sure I shouldn't have listened to the customer service reps and its not their job to tell me if the card or transaction is good. He stated all this is in the contract. When I asked to see the contract since I have never seen the contract when I was given papers to sign, he mailed me a copy of the contract which is 4 pages font size 4 maybe and it has a small line where it says "You are fully liable for all transactions returned for whatever reason..".

So, after consulting a lawyer I mailed him a letter to get details of everything in writing I never heard from him and now I received a letter from William Chapman of Greenberg, Grant and Richards Inc. stating that now they are handling the case which is now $5538.30. I called this person and asked him to mail me all the paperwork that shows how it went upto $5538.30 and he said there are legal fees added and his words "I rather not mail you anything" being a little surprised I asked again and he said he rather not.

As of now I am consulting with a lawyer but I would love to get suggestions and any help from others. You can email me at [email protected]

Thanks for your interest.