Complaint / Review
First Financial Merchant Services
First Financial USA Deceptive Practices to Lure Agents, Highly Suspicious Contract Terms

I got an email from Jay Abraham (I was on his email list) telling me of an opportunity, the "Deal of the Decade" he called it. Normally I'd be suspicious, and I was a little, but since it was from Jay Abraham, I felt it must be legit, though probably overhyped. To check it out, you have to sign up to attend a teleconference at one of seven time slots. All mumbo jumbo. It was a prerecorded audio that could have been made available online. Still, "the deal" sounded good...

In the prerecorded "conference" I learned that Abraham has teamed up with John Eliason and Chuck Fowler to revolutionize the credit-card processing industry — words to that effect. The idea is that merchants who sign on with First Financial for card processing get access to Jay's business building expertise at no extra charge. What they want from me is to become a sales agent signing up merchants with First Financial. On the "conference" website, they had brochures showing the bonus and residuals I would get. Damn, it looked good! I eagerly started the sign up process. AFTER giving my name, birth date, and social security (yes, I know...), I got to their contract form. Suddenly things didn't look so good anymore.

There were at least six different ways for First Financial to simply not pay me those nice bonuses or residuals. Worse, there were three different ways for them to dip into my private bank account and take as much OUT of it as they pleased. I should have stopped reading at that point but honestly I'm a tad desperate, so I looked for the termination clause. Guess what? There isn't one. Once you sign, you can't terminate the agreement for three years. They own you and they own your bank account. They can terminate whenever they wish, but not you. You're stuck. Oh, another nice thing. If you reveal what's in that contract, they can sue you for disclosing their business practices. Fortunately I didn't sign because if I had, they could come after me right now for telling you: Beware and steer clear of First Financial, Jay Abraham, Chuck Fowler, and John Eliason.