- Report: #413483
Complaint Review: Total Merchant Services - Nationwide
-
Author Confirmed
Why?
Total Merchant Services
255 Gold Rivers Ct, Basalt, Colorado 81621 Nationwide, U.S.A.
Phone:
888-848-6825
Web:
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Total Merchant Services scam artists, poor lousy customer service, incompetent, do not do business with them Basalt Colorado
DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE PEOPLE!!! EXTREMELY UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES!
If there are any lawyers reading this, i would like to know what I can do to get my money back from them.
This is the worst company I have ever had the misfortune of doing business with. Wish I had read Ripoff reports before i started doing businees with them!
I owned two retail stores - closed one location over two yrs ago. After a routine audit, i learned Total Merchant Services has continued to deduct $30 a month 'minimum fee' charge from my business account up to this day!
When i called, they said i never closed the account. I had told the local rep to close my account at the time i closed the store. I also sent a fax to Total Merchant Services. They claimed they never got the fax. I said it was obvious there had been no activity on that store's account for over two years - the person on the phone kept saying over and over that i didnt close the account and had no interest in hearing my side of the story.
I sent another fax, a 4 paragraph letter explaining this. 4 weeks later, after not getting a response, i called them again and they said they never got that fax either. HOW CONVENIENT! I can prove the fax went through to them.
Even though this was a different CSR on the phone, she did the same thing to me - quoting policy ad nauseaum and telling ME i never closed the account. She kept interrupting me and didnt want to hear my side of the story. She told me I had to fax them a letter. yeah right!!
I sent a certified letter to them. Surprise - they finally respopnded. They closed that account and charged me an early contract cancellation fee of $99. This is for an account that I had closed, following THEIR procedures, TWO YEARS AGO!
They won't even consider giving me a refund.
I should have known this company was screwed up from the beginning. My first week's credit card charges disappeared - the money was never deposited into my account. I was told by them that I had to re-enter all the charges. Fortunately for me, my business is a high-end, low-volume custom design services company. I had every customer's name, address and phone. I spent two days re-entering the credit card charges and calling my customers to tell them what happened. I didnt want my customers to think I was ripping them off.
A week after I re-entered all the charges, the ORIGINAL transactions went through!! I had to go back and issue refunds, because Total Merchant Services REFUSED to take any responsibility for this. And then I had to call my customers back AGAIN, telling them they were double-charged and I was fixing the problem. If I did not have my customer contact info, this would have been a nightmare and destroyed my reputation as a legitimate business.
I have wasted over 40 man-hours on this company trying fix problems they have caused.
They owe me over $700 in bogus charges. I am filing complaints with my state's consumer protection office, the better business bureau, my state's chamber of congress and my local small business organizations.
This is the first time I have ever written a complaint about a company. Their practices are so unethical, their employees are so poorly trained (of perhaps well-trained if you are the owner) and they have angered me so much, that I had to write this complaint.
Phillip
Jersey City, New Jersey
U.S.A.
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Merchant Services
CLICK HERE to read about Credit Card Scams... find out how to get your money back. Consumer makes harsh but accurate statements. *Rip-off Report Investigation follow-up provides valuable information.
If there are any lawyers reading this, i would like to know what I can do to get my money back from them.
This is the worst company I have ever had the misfortune of doing business with. Wish I had read Ripoff reports before i started doing businees with them!
I owned two retail stores - closed one location over two yrs ago. After a routine audit, i learned Total Merchant Services has continued to deduct $30 a month 'minimum fee' charge from my business account up to this day!
When i called, they said i never closed the account. I had told the local rep to close my account at the time i closed the store. I also sent a fax to Total Merchant Services. They claimed they never got the fax. I said it was obvious there had been no activity on that store's account for over two years - the person on the phone kept saying over and over that i didnt close the account and had no interest in hearing my side of the story.
I sent another fax, a 4 paragraph letter explaining this. 4 weeks later, after not getting a response, i called them again and they said they never got that fax either. HOW CONVENIENT! I can prove the fax went through to them.
Even though this was a different CSR on the phone, she did the same thing to me - quoting policy ad nauseaum and telling ME i never closed the account. She kept interrupting me and didnt want to hear my side of the story. She told me I had to fax them a letter. yeah right!!
I sent a certified letter to them. Surprise - they finally respopnded. They closed that account and charged me an early contract cancellation fee of $99. This is for an account that I had closed, following THEIR procedures, TWO YEARS AGO!
They won't even consider giving me a refund.
I should have known this company was screwed up from the beginning. My first week's credit card charges disappeared - the money was never deposited into my account. I was told by them that I had to re-enter all the charges. Fortunately for me, my business is a high-end, low-volume custom design services company. I had every customer's name, address and phone. I spent two days re-entering the credit card charges and calling my customers to tell them what happened. I didnt want my customers to think I was ripping them off.
A week after I re-entered all the charges, the ORIGINAL transactions went through!! I had to go back and issue refunds, because Total Merchant Services REFUSED to take any responsibility for this. And then I had to call my customers back AGAIN, telling them they were double-charged and I was fixing the problem. If I did not have my customer contact info, this would have been a nightmare and destroyed my reputation as a legitimate business.
I have wasted over 40 man-hours on this company trying fix problems they have caused.
They owe me over $700 in bogus charges. I am filing complaints with my state's consumer protection office, the better business bureau, my state's chamber of congress and my local small business organizations.
This is the first time I have ever written a complaint about a company. Their practices are so unethical, their employees are so poorly trained (of perhaps well-trained if you are the owner) and they have angered me so much, that I had to write this complaint.
Phillip
Jersey City, New Jersey
U.S.A.
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Merchant Services
CLICK HERE to read about Credit Card Scams... find out how to get your money back. Consumer makes harsh but accurate statements. *Rip-off Report Investigation follow-up provides valuable information.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Victim Of Fraud
Long Beach,California,
U.S.A.
Pay their bill, or else..............
#2Consumer Comment
Tue, January 20, 2009
Philip, I am sorry all this happened to you. One word of advice, if you owe them money, pay the bill! If you do not, you will see them reporting your debt to the 3 credit bureaus and will ruin your credit. So if you owe the $99 cancellation fee, and refuse to pay it, they will report you to the 3 collection agencies as a derogatory account. I owed them like $67 and did not know about this. They did not even just pick up the phone and call me which would have been easier than them sending the report to the 3 collection agencies. Once i saw that they added this to the collection agenies and on my credit report, I simply called and paid the $67. That simple! REGARDING THEM CHARGING YOU FOR 2 YEARS If they deducted $30 per month for 2 years, and did not notice that charged from your bank account, then that is your own fault. You cannot blame anyone else like you are the victim. if you do not know what is being taken out of your bank account each month, you have no business having a checking account. I am sorry for being hard on you, but this is the truth. if this happened to you, I wish I would have known you and had your checking account info as well during this time, because I too could have been deducting $30 from your account for 2 years as well without it being noticed. My loss! But don't you get the point! With any bank account or merchant account, you can NEVER just tell someone to close your account. You have to go into the bank and show them your ID and close the account, and with a merchant account, you have to write a letter and sign it and fax it in to them. and you have to followup with EVRY company you do business with and make sure the account was closed. THIS IS WITH EVERY COMPANY Today, it is not easy doing business with any company. Any cell phone company like t-mobile, ALL banks, all utility company, local phone company like Verizon, if you have an AOL account, DirecTV, car insurance, health insurance, they ALL have deceptive sales tactics and require you to sign a contract and lock you in a 2 year contract. With the cell phone companies, if you change something on your account, they renew your account for 2 more years. They all have cancellation fees that you are SCREWED to the max and must pay or it ends up on your credit report. Even the local phone companies tell you if you cancel with them, you have to pay a certain amount each month left in your 2 year contract. And all these corporations have extremely POOR customer service and make it extremely hard to cancel. AOL has been sued in the past for not letting their clients cancel with them. I had to call them 3-4 months in a row because they just kept billing us. And the banks, they like to add 5-6 new rules to your bank account just to hit your bank account with 5-6 different NSF fees, customer service call fees, and so on. TODAY, IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO OWN AND OPERATE A BUSINESS. THE FEES ARE TOO HIGH AND YOU GET LOCKED INTO LONG TERM CONTRACTS AND CANCELLATION FEES. TODAY, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CALLING A VENDOR AND SAYING I DON'T NEED YOUR SERVICE ANY LONGER. THEY WILL SEND YOU A LETTER AND SAY WAIT, YOU WILL OWE US MORE MONEY TIMES THE REST OF THE MONTHS IN YOUR CONTRACT IF YOU WANT TO CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT. WTF! I CALLED TO LEASE OFFICE SPACE, AND THE MORTGAGE AND PROPERTY MANAGERS ARE JUST AS BAD. EVERYONE WANTS TENANTS TO SIGN 3 YEAR LEASES AND FORCE THEM TO PAY THE REMAINING MONTHS OF A LEASE IF THEY DECIDE TO MOVE OUT AFTER 1 YEAR. WTF! And credit card processing companies are bad as well. I have been processing with my company for 6 months and they raised their fees on me 2 times already, and added a yearly fee, and then a PCI compliance fee, it just never ends.
