I had already been through two prior processing companies when a representative of Transtech Merchant Services stopped by my business. At the time, Transtech had competitive rates and the salesperson was very helpful so I switched away from a company that had been hitting me with "incidental" charges of all sorts on a regular basis.
Not long after signing, a representative of Transtech began calling on a regular basis insisting that the processing equipment I was using was not compliant with the industry's new regulations and would "have" to be replaced. When I would threaten to move my business, he would find some loophole to get out of the conversation and try again later. This went on for about 3 years.
Later, in order to process debit cards, I did finally have to purchase a machine that had the triple encrypted pin pad to be compliant with the industry standards. I purchased it from Transtech without knowing that I could have possibly purchased it elsewhere for almost 1/3 the price I paid Transtech.
Recently, Transtech began sending intimidating letters and emails warning that I was facing fines of up to $500,000 and the closure of my business if I did not enroll and comply in the Trustwave program that they had partnered with. I was told that the new banking laws passed recently included laws that made it mandatory to enroll in a program like Trustwave or face fines. I enrolled only to find out that the yearly test was an additional $124.95 in fees. I also found out that there were no such laws only recommendations that merchants assess their handling of customer's personal information.
Finally, when a business customer introduced me to his rep from a competing processing company, I learned that Transtech had been gouging me through excessive charges for processing in areas only another rep would be alerted to. I have dropped Transtech and would like this to be a warning to any business needing a credit card processing company.
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