Complaint Review: Leaders; The Merchant Services Co. - Thousand Oaks California

To whom it may concern:

 This letter is in regards to my merchant account with Leaders Merchant Services.  I was sold on their services by their salesperson because I was blatantly uninformed of the truth, the whole truth behind their fees and add ons that were either never discussed, or were purposefully withheld and misrepresented in order to convince me to use their Merchant services over all others.

 I quickly realized after getting my first accounting statement that I was being charged many more items than were brought to my attention by their salesperson.  When I first began talking to their sales rep., I specifically prodded the salesperson; 1. if there were any other fees or upcharges of any kind that would be levied against me, outside of the .99% fees from all of my direct sales, and he repeatedly said that there were no others.  Their salesperson not only lied to me but systematically neglected to mention all of the; 2. ACTUAL extra hidden charges that I would be facing including those coming from Mastercard and Visa that they called Regulatory Fees; 3. nor did their salesperson mention all of the hidden fees associated with persons presenting Business and Corporate issued credit cards, that would be billed at 5.9% , or 500% above what  I was told was my standard .99% rate; 4.  and the salesperson flat out lied to me when I pressed him if there were any monthly fees associated with my Merchant Account, but he stood by his mantra that no monthly fees would be taken; 5. The Leaders salesperson also forgot to mention the truth that by signing a contract with Leaders, I would be committed to paying Leaders Merchant Services just under $32.00 per month on top of all the other unmentioned fees; 6. and the salesperson seemed to also forget to tell me that I would be financially obligated to commit to Leaders Merchant Services in a long term contract for three years.  I specifically told the salesperson that I hated long term contracts because I had a dispute with direct TV after only 4 weeks of using their service, and instead of them honoring my request to release my contract, that Direct TV chose to ruin my credit for 7 years due to a 2 year contract they wanted to impose on me.  I never paid them a dime and I will never Pay Leaders a dime as well.  After that horrific experience with DirectTV, I NEVER would have gotten into any multiple year contract with any company…Period,  much less a THREE YEAR contract with Leaders Merchant Services.  I truly believe that the salesperson was TRAINED by Leaders Merchant Services to purposefully mislead or to specifically withhold pertinent information that might jeopardize the sale when the potential customers became aware of the TRUTH behind their high fees and unreasonable length contracts.  I specifically chose Cricket phone services because they only go month to month with no annual contracts…period!  That is the result of the damage Direct TV did to me, and now Leaders Merchant Services will surely attempt the same ploy to manipulate me into staying with them in order to protect my credit from a 7 year smear.  Leaders can’t build their business clientele or reap the rewards of repeat customers and gain customer referrals with their outrageously high fees and charges and three year contracts etc., so instead, they have built their business model on perpetrating lies and deceptions and the threats of credit devastation on anyone who discovers they are a low brow bottom dwelling bag of bullshit company.

Leaders Merchant Services has shown me that they can sell an unsuspecting small business person a “great plan” that ends up being an “awful plan”and an incredibly “deceptive plan” just to entrap and snare would-be clients through their well rehearsed talk of low rates, misinformation and Lies. Had they chosen to uphold integrity by making their salespersons reveal all of the Actual Costs associated with their Merchant Services plans, they would have quickly discovered the reality that no sane business owner would ever want to sign up with them.  It is obvious that they have put time and effort into honing their sales pitch and business model to generate sales, through the mindset of devious manipulation in order to lure potential clients into contracts that they know would crash and burn when their ACTUAL plans are presented side by side with other competitors.  They couldn’t make it as a business if that happened!  Leaders business model must resort to lies and misinformation in order to get clients.  Leaders has consciously misrepresented their products and maliciously hidden the realities behind their awful service plan with gouging fees and unsustainable contract lengths.  Leaders should be shut down, dismantled and sold to the lowest bidder.