In the spring of we received solicitation phone calls from Michael Blumenthal from Cardex Corporation promising reduced fees and improved services if we switched our merchant services from TD Canada Trust to Cardex. After repeated calls, we agreed to look at the offer. On May 24, we signed a contract with Cardex for merchant services. Within 4 weeks we installed the new merchant services terminal in our store and activated our new account.
We encounted difficulties immediately. The terminal servers went down repeatedly and we were left with no service to complete M/C, Visa and Debit transactions at our store, our customers were doubled billed as transactions were processed twice. The cord for the pin pad was on the wrong side and cumbersome for our customers to use, not approved transactions were not clearly apparent and we lost several payments from our customers. The cord was too short and would not reach our customers. We were promised a $50.00 credit toward paper products that we never received.
It was impossible to reconcile our cardex deposits because the batch was automatically closed nightly at 7:00pm before our day ended (this is not standard practice in the industry). We encountered several out of balance problems and repeated could not properly settle our terminal. Rates promised by Michael not accurate as hidden fees negated all savings
We attempted on a daily, continual basis to resolve our issues with Cardex Customer Service. Cardex was completely uncooperative in helping us resolve our many issues. After numerous attempts to receive customer service and rectify the problems were experiencing through customer service, supervisors and management at Cardex, on July 26, we cancelled our merchant services with Cardex.
As instructed, we faxed in a cancellation notice to Cardex. Cardex took a $535.00 cancellation fee out of our bank account. We paid for 3 months of service and equipment and only received 3 weeks of horrible merchant services and it costs us an additional $535.00 to get out of the contract.
Then, we noticed on our bank statement that money was still being taken out of our account by a company called Global Payments. We contacted Cardex and were told that Global Payments was the company actually processing all of our merchant services. We contacted Global Payments and informed them that we had cancelled our merchant services with Cardex and now needed to cancel with them also. They faxed over cancellation forms to be completed and they sent us a UPS call tag to pick up our cancelled equipment. We sent back the completed cancellation forms and sent the equipment back with UPS as instructed. We put a stop payment on our merchant service payments at our bank.
In August we began receiving harassing phone calls from a company called CIT lease finance group, requesting lease payments on the merchant terminal equipment. We explained our lack of service, inadequate equipment and the necessity to cancel our merchant services with Cardex and Global Payments and how we had cancelled our services and returned the equipment.
CIT had no interest in listening to our dilemna with Cardex and strictly wanted their lease payment. It became evident to us that Cardex is a strictly a sales force established to prey on small businesses, Global Payments handles the merchant services and CIT financially backs the equipment lease. Because there are 3 distinct companies involved, no one company is held responsible to provide the equipment and service promised.
After receiving 4-7 theatening calls per week at home and at work between 7:30am and 11:00am, for 4 months, we tried to come to a settlement with CIT regarding the issue. They offered to settle with us for $1400.00. For that $1400.00 we would receive nothing. No equipment, no service, they would simply stop harassing us for equipment payments and terminate our lease on a terminal we sent back on a UPS call tag as instructed.
We agreed to the $1400.00 settlement with the stipulation that they would in writing absolve us of all further payments, terminate our lease and ensure our credit rating would not be affected. They responded that they would report the dispute to the credit bureau regardless and affect our credit rating even if we settled. We then declined the settlement. We are now seeking legal advice.
Diane
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
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