Complaint Review: Leaders Merchant Services - Westchester Illinois

Leaders Merchant Services is sorry for the experience the merchant has had with this account. To the best of our knowledge, in researching this case, it seems as if there was a misunderstanding and miscommunication of information. The merchant states they were being charged a maintenance fee for the credit card machine they had purchased in cash. The merchant is correct that the terminal was paid for in cash however; the fee the merchant is referring to is for our Premium Customer Care package at $10.95 a month which is documented on the signed merchant pre-application. This entitles the merchant to receive free supplies in addition to a LIFETIME warranty on their terminal. The merchant contacted LEADERS on June 1, 2007 to have this cancelled and requested a refund. A refund was issued to the merchant for the months of April and May. Unfortunately, the month of June was charged to the merchant's account simultaneously on the first of the month. This was just a timing issue for which we apologize. We will promptly issue a refund for the June charge of $10.95 for the Premium Customer Care. The merchant also states they were never aware of nor do they know what the $3.00 a month Security Fee is. The Security Fee is clearly reflected on our merchant application, a copy of which was signed by the merchant. The Security Fee was also cancelled and refunded to the merchant on June 12, 2007. The merchant states they were charged an Annual Fee of $99.00 they were not aware of. LEADERS believes in full disclosure of all fees. This fee as well as all of our fees are clearly stated in our Merchant Application, which was signed by the merchant. One of our Customer Service Representatives reviewed this with the merchant explaining this fee is on their signed contract, however, as a gesture of goodwill the Annual Fee of $99.00 was refunded to the merchant. The merchant states they also were being charged a higher rate than what they signed for. A rate review was completed by the Customer Service Representative and determined some of the merchant's credit card transactions were downgrading to a higher rate. The Customer Service Representative immediately took action and lowered the rate and also refunded the merchant $47.04 for the difference. We truly felt the merchant was pleased with our responses and would continue processing with our company. All of the rates and fees were clearly shown on the application signed by the merchant. We have endeavored to address each of the issues raised by the merchant with prompt refunds, despite the fact that these fees were clearly shown on the same page of the application that the merchant signed. But, we do not want the merchant dissatisfied and have consequently made the adjustments noted above. If the merchant is still not pleased, LEADERS is willing to cancel the merchant account with no Early Termination Fee. We at LEADERS pride ourselves in providing our merchants with quality service and regret that the merchant had an unpleasant experience with us.

I'D like to compile a file on this company for my own personal research, please contact me if you have any information on Leaders having a class action law suit filed against them or if you are finding it difficult to get things settled.