Ipayments Inc. Is a "credit card processor" that promises to deposit your sales from credit cards into your account within 24-48 hours. However, at any time they can and HAVE debited money for NO reason and then "hold" your funds for an undisclosed period of time.
Here is our story - one that is not unique!
We began processing with Ipayments early in september. Everything seemed to be going very well from the start.
One of our first end of day batches (total sales processed by credit card and sent to processer for settlement) was in the amount of $3,400.00 We had not seen this deposit for 3 days so we contacted Ipayments, the customer service agent instructed me that our deposit was being held in their "risk department" and to contact them. I spoke to rick in the risk dept, he asked for the invoices and shipment tracking numbers for the sales in this batch. I faxed that afternoon every invoice with the tracking info, Because we take customer service very serious all these orders had been shipped and most already arrived to our customers. The next day i called rick and he informed me that the funds would be released that day.
I then offered to automaticly send in invoice and tracking numbers for any batch that exceeded $3,000.00 so that our funds would not be held - rick said that they would not be held and only send invoices on transactions over $1,000.00 I aggreed and over the next 60 days we followed this instruction.
The above story is only important in order to show that we were very pro-active in not only doing "good business" but also giving the processor everything they needed so as not to feel that we were a "risk".
We processed more than $37,000.00 for the month of October.
November 24th I call my bank and find that Ipayments had WITHDRAWN over $9,100.00 from our business account - I thought this had to be a mistake.
I called the risk department and talked to rick, who informed me the his supervisor was looking over our account and she alone would be able to speak to us about this.
I called Julie (supervisor) for nearly 3 hours and left more numerous messages before i finaly got her on the phone.
I was informed that the Withdraw was no mistake, they took $9,100.00 because they had received a "chargeback" from one of our customers (in the amount of $110.00)
I was then informed that because of this chargeback - and also because we had issued so many credits over the past 30 days. That not only would they NOT return the $9,100.00 that they TOOK, they also were not going to deposit the $11,00.00 that had yet to be deposited from the last weeks 5 batches.
Ipayments claims that our company is a "RISK" because we:
A. Had on chargeback in 90 days for a total of $110.00
B. Because we issued about $8,000.00 in credits to customers over a 30 day period.
Now, i need not address the chargeback issue as every business owner that accepts credit cards will tell you that chargeback's are unavoidable and you will always have a few even if you practice top notch customer service!
As far as the credits - We opperate an internet store and also a wholesale division where are inventory can change daily - if a customer orders an item online they are automaticly charged, however if this item is not instock and we are unable to ship the order within 48 hours we issue a full credit and keep the customer informed of their order status. This is a good business practice and by no streatch of the imagination could a credit be considered a "risk" risk is evaluated by the possibility of a chargeback, and since a customer can not chargeback what they were not charged there can never be a chargeback.
This situation has caused enourmous stress on our company and my families personal life, on the 24th when Ipayments withdrew $9,100.00 we only had apprx: $3,000.00 available funds. We had more than 10 checks bounce including payroll checks and checks to our suppliors. Our business checking account was in the hole and we had more than $300.00 in bank fee's because we were overdrawn.
Ipayments will not release any of our money at this time and in fact they will not committ to any date that we can expect our money. Basicly - They have defrauded us!
We have handed this case over to our attorney's and we will be pursuing this matter.
If you have experienced simular experiences with this processor please contact us.
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