I am a massage therapist in private practice, and was interested in looking at the pros/cons of getting a credit card processing machine for my home-based business.
I met with the sales guy based out of Austin, TX and explained that I wasn't ready to make a purchase yet—I was simply researching the issue to see whether it would be within reach.
He said that unlike those "bad" companies I'd heard about, N.A.B. Didn't require me to buy my machine, and the monthly fee for having it was only $25. There would be $1 a small % charged for each CC transaction, and that was it. Being a professional closer of deals, he told me I wouldn't be locked into any contracts & could cancel any time with no penalty. I asked, "So I can try this for say 3 months, or 6 months, to see if my clients even use it, and I can just cancel at any time & not pay a fee?" He said, "Absolutely."
I got a little nervous when he brought me the paperwork and I saw a long contract with complex verbiage. He joked that that's how the lawyers do it—just like when you sign up for a simple networking site online and have to agree to a long, rambling "Terms of Service" agreement. He said much of the language was to make sure merchants are not acting fraudulently / illegally—things like stealing people's CC #s—but that there were no terms of the contract that he hadn't clarified for me already. So I signed.
I soon found out that my $25/mo fee was more like $50/mo. I was being charged a fee for not hitting my pre-set "minimum." He'd explained that I would be charged a fee if I didn't hit the min. The first month, but if I felt like the minimum was too high for my business, we could either waive it or set it to a lower amount. When I tried to make good on his offer & get reimbursed, they said they could just reimburse me just once, but that in the future it would be my responsibility to hit the minimum each month, or else I'd have to pay the fee. Lowering the minimum was suddenly not an option. [They did reimburse me for 2 of those min. Penalties, b/c I e-mailed relentlessly.]
Billing was auto-draft, so instead of being sent a bill (that I could dispute) listing charges before I paid, I received a bill that explained what they had already drafted from my business acct. And I was charged $5/mo for the paper bill!
On top of this, I had nothing but problems actually using the machine. The wireless connection kept having problems and going down during transactions, so for 75% of my CC sales, I had to write the person's CC# down, call customer service, be on hold for 5-15 minutes, and have Tech Support talk me through the troubleshooting until I could finally make the sale. I complained, but they didn't send me a new machine, and insisted that "this time" the connection troubles should be fixed. They weren't, and I always had to call back, even with a client standing right there. Awkward!
So just when I'd gotten used to paying twice as much per month as I'd been promised for spotty service, I got billed for almost $130 (on a month when I'd only made about $200 on 2 CC transactions). There was a mysterious $79 charge for PCI Service Fee, which I'd never agreed to. When I called to dispute the charge, they said there had been a mention of it in the previous month's billing statement, and that it was a legal thing that all merchants have to pay. He couldn't explain clearly what it covered.
I am now in the process of trying to cancel my services with them. I got an impossible to understand letter from the corporate office in Michigan, that even the director of operations in Austin claimed he didn't understand (totally opaque legalistic mumbo-jumbo). It said my contract isn't over until 10 (I signed in 10). So my "cancel any time" agreement was actually a 3 yr contract!
I'm in the process of finding out whether they're going to try to withdraw the total of all monthly fees & minimums that would be due between now & 10, or if they're going to let me off the hook because I've been such a pain in the ass for them to deal with. I am planning to contact the Michigan Atty Gen's Office of Consumer Protection, as well as the BBB, and even the local news stations that have weekly consumer alert features, if they do not reimburse me for the $79 fee AND let me return the terminal with no further charges. Also on my way to the bank to close that acct & flag N.A.B. For malicious charges, should they try to contact my bank demanding payments from another one of my accts. Anything else I need to do or need to know?
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