We started a small company back in and since we were a new business we wanted to give our customers the option to use credit cards. So we chose Merchant One, dba United Bank Card, because of their low rates and no minimum, as well as their willingness to work with a new business.
We received their application and 2 pages of Terms and Conditions. The contract came from Merchant One, and says "V2.0" on the lower right hand corner. It stated that our monthly charge would be $5, and our monthly minimum was $0. We knew and UBC/Merchant One knew, that we would have very low volume of credit card transactions.
Around 18 months later, all of a sudden their statements show that they are taking $30 out of our bank account. Their explanation for this is that VISA and MC have raised their rates and so now we have to meet a certain minimum in order to not be charged that extra $25. Ok, well in that case it's not worth it for us, so we request to cancel over the phone. The UBC rep doesn't indicate that there is a problem with that, and asks us to cancel in writing, which we do.
About a week later we check the business account and find that it is overdrawn because UBC has taken out $735!! They NOW tell us that we have a 3-year contract and there is a cancellation fee.
Guess what? Not on the contract they sent us! To prove it we fax over the exact contract that we signed. They respond by sending us the *complete* contract with FOUR pages of Terms and Conditions. Problem is - this contract is from United Bank Card, says "V2.5", AND states that there is a $25 fee if we don't meet a certain minimum. This is NOT the contract we signed!
However, we did notice a clause in their contract that gives us the right to cancel if there is a breach in contract on their part.By this time they have sent us to collections, and we were having no phone communication. Everything was sent by certified letter with receipt confirmation so we have a paper trail.
We let them know that they had broken their end of the contract by charging us $30 rather that $5, and by requiring a monthly minimum. So we legally had a right to cancel, and they had no right to send us to collections for this. I guess the certified letters scared them, as we received a reply from Liad Chazzan Mannino reinstating our account until it expired in April.
We notified them in writing (certified letter) in April that we were canceling our contract - otherwise the contract would automatically renew itself. A few months later they start taking $5 out of our bank account again every month! Also - get this - assigned us a NEW merchant number. We call them and they claim they will refund the money and stop the withdrawals... But the withdrawals never stopped although they refunded the money. It led us to finally close that bank account to keep their greedy fingers out of our money.
Beware of this cc processing company!
By the way... You can forget about the rebuttal. I am not posting our merchant number on a public forum. Our contract is canceled. Our bank account is closed. We are just trying to warn other small business to avoid all this hassle.
We will file with the BBB, FTC and anybody else who can take measures to take these crooks out of business.
0 comments