I contacted First National Processing a year and a half ago about credit card processing and spoke with one of the Steven Ballanabout their merchant services program. He seemed like good guy.
I was interested in buying a used nurit 3010 wireless
credit card machine, but after talking with him he said that the 3010 was going to be obsolete and didnt have as good of coverage area as the new nurit 8000gprs and they had a special deal on them of $699. It was a more than I had intended to pay as the older 3010 units can be picked up for about $300 on ebay. But I decided to get the newer unit fearing that the 3010 would become obsolete soon and have poor coverage as Steven told me.
I recieved the unit and after two days on the phone with their tech support dept. They had me return the unit and sent me another. I spent another 6 hours or so to finally get the unit working, but when I would take the unit to a event to use it it would almost always work fine in the morning and then lock up with error messages in the afternoon.
I have spent hours and hours of my time trying to get the unit working with various patches and downloads from their tech support dept. But finally gave up after over a year without resolving my problem.
I finally told Steven Ballan my sales rep. That I was fed up with their promises and I would like to send the machine back to for a refund. He said that wasn't an option but if I sent the machine back at MY expense! They would test it, but, in the meantime they would send me a loaner terminal. I told him once I recieved the loaner
I would take it to my next event to make sure it was working before returning mine for repair. He said no problem.
They began calling me almost every day after I recieved the loaner unit asking when I was going to send my terminal, and again I told them my next show was in two weeks and as soon as I had used sure the loaner unit was working I would send mine back to them (my terminal was still working in what is called off line mode witch does not get aproavals for transactions and costs more in transaction fees and requires downloading via telephone line).
When I took the loaner unit to my first show it worked for an hour or so and then failed. I called thier tech support and they said the battery has failed. So, they put Steven Ballan on the phone. I was angry that they sent me a bad unit to replace my bad unit but, to my astonishment he was upset at me that they had sent a loaner unit out three weeks ago and I had not returned my unit to them.
Him and I went toe to toe over the phone for thirty minutes about it. He was telling me His boss was angry with him because he didnt have my unit in hand (Steven is co Owner) and now he had to send out a thirty dollar battery. Then he told me that he could charge my credit card account if he didn't get his loaner back, after many many unpleasant words he finally agreed to send a battery.
After three weeks I had not heard from them so I called
and they told me there was no problem with my machine.
But, after talking with lipman nurit myself several times I finaly talked to Joseph Cosello the nation tech guy, and he told me that "possibly there is a problem with the celluar towers in California have trouble processing information with these units in the middle of the day due to high cellar trafic witch takes priority over data traffic").
After hearing this I called first national to talk to steven about this, but he refused to accept or return my call.instead I got Micheal DiGiovanni and, after talking to him he said I could keep the loaner terminal, a used Nurit 3010, it had worked flawlessly for two months. I told him okay, but your unit is many years old and has no warranty going rate for them is $300 so credit my account $250 - $300 and we'll be square, He laughed and said that I was actually coming out ahead on the deal.
We have been at odds ever since and nobody at first national will return my call only E mail me.
They have made me many promises and not kept them. They have told me many lies. They told me that there were no contract or commitments (they actually print this in thier add in Craft Master News) to them or the bank but, when I tried to discontinue my service they said there was in fact a two year contract with the bank and the bank wont release them as my agent, so I am stuck with them.
In closing Lipman usa Nurit knows they have a huge problem with these 8000 gprs and non gprs units, they will not openly admit it because it could lead to a huge class action lawsuit and they are still selling these in the California marketplace by the thousands. Also be aware Micheal Digiovanni and Steven Ballan are both sweet talking con men and when they reply to this they will tell you that I am actually the bad guy in this situation and they value every customer and do everything in there power to keep their customers happy.
Avoid the problems, Avoid the lies, Avoid the hours and hours of frustration, Avoid Micheal DiGiovanni Steven Ballan and 1st national processing. Liars! Criminals! Con men!
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