We are yet another small business that has suffered at the hands of First Data. All of the extra bogus charges have appeared on our bill and it became a monthly call to have these charges reversed. One scam is to charge for equipment rental. (We own our equipment!) In December they throw a charge on your bill for extra processing due to the holidays. Nevermind that they are already making money on the processing fees for all those additional charges. After I started having to make numerous calls to have these bogus charges reversed and they still weren't reversed we decided to change processors.
In addition to all the same problems reported, one of the biggest scams is to sell you a gift card program. Discover Services will contact you for this but it is owned by First Data. But buyer beware! You will buy the gift cards and when you want to change processors they will keep your data. You will have numerous outstanding gift cards out there and have no way to read them unless you kept manual records. It turns out that Valuelink (not Valuetec! -Different Company) is owned by First Data and when you try to move your gift card processing to your new processor First Date i.E. Valuelink will not move it. It's just another way to keep you from moving your business and to keep charging outrageous rates and extra fees that you won't have with other, more reputable, services.
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