After the death of my son's father last May, my son's and I decided to resume the business that they had grown up in and had worked in since their teens. Because it was a sudden death and he unfortunately didn't leave his son's in a position to just take over, we had to scramble to start a new company, hence a new merchant account.
Unfortunately, one of my boys came across Merchant Warehouse. After being in business for 6 mos. All of a sudden they siezed funds from my account in the middle of our largest show to the t
une of $63,000. The reason they said was because we were "a risk". We then had to spend the next 5 m0s. Jumping through hoops faxing reports, turning over customer documents, basically assuring them that we were a legitimate company. They released in dribs and drabs all but $20,000 over a period of 5 mos. After all was said and done they said we had passed our test and assured us that we would never have to go through anything like this again! Well, foolish us! 3 weeks ago, in the middle of our 2nd busiest show...$47,000 plus disapeared from our deposits!!! This time, they have decided that we are a risk and they are keeping our money! In one year's time we had only one chargeback, which got resolved, the customer is very happy with his purchase. The only difference between this time and last time is we can't hold on. That $47,000 plus (plus the $20,000 that they are still holding) is going to wipe us out. We have no merchant anymore, we have show contracts that we nrrd to honor, we have customer product that needs to be paid for so that we can deliver the product that we took their money from in good faith.
First Data is the "risk management" team that we have been crippled by. I asked Aida Marr, the representative that I had to fax 90 pages of documents to, what I was supposed to do... She said "get yourself another merchant"!! I said that she had stolen not only our money, but our customer's money... She said it was not her fault that our company did not have a big enough bank account to continue on with our business! I'd like to know what types of small business' out there could survive having a total of over $100,000 being taken away from them in just a years time. She said she would review our company in 6 mos. From now to see about the $67,000 plus that they are currently holding to talk about the possible release of those funds. 6 mos from now there won't be any more company, we will be in huge debt, our credit ruined, and my son's father's business that he and I started in the early 70's will be nothing but a sad memory.
These companies that have ruined my life must be stopped from ruining other people's lives.in this economy today, with all the bank bailouts and giant corporation bailouts... Is anyone paying attention to what they are doing to small business behind closed doors? I begged them not to do this to us and I could hear the sarcasm in her voice as she said "too bad, you've created this situation yourselves" how can she sleep at night? If anyone out there has any advice I would love to hear it. As I'm sure is part of their plan, we don't even have any money to hire a lawyer at this point. Thank you for any advise that may be offered... We need help, desperately.
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