I own a small electronic wholesale website called www.lowbudgetresellers.com, and I am also a ebay powerseller. I sell ipods and playstation portable units. I needed a direct merchant account for my sales. I contacted a few companies and than got a what I thought was the best phone call I had got back from Joshua Harjo of Cardservice International.
I tell Josh all about my business and what I need etc, he says that there are alot of business's like me and that I will get approved and be selling in 3 days. I made sure that he understood how I needed to accept payment and he told me over and over I would have no problems with them. He said I could do 3500 per transaction and 50,000 per month. No limitations and no hold on my money. I was going to them to get away from the paypal limitations. He laughed and said they get alot of business from paypal. I assumed I would have a direct merchant account with no problems.
Anyways he keeps sales ptiching me forever and I agree and then he sets everything up. After I spill out all of my personal info including bank info for a half hour on the phone he tells me there is a 1000 dollar lease agreement. Now I had shopped around other companies and I knew nobody was charging fees like that. But I still went ahead with it because of how great he made it seem to be and how it could work so good for my business. So i faxed it all over and I was a official merchant.
I make my first wholesale buy for a customer for around 2100 dollars and I wait about a week for it to come into my account and it never shows. The problems started here, I was assured again by Josh it would be released soon and it will all be taken care of. So I kept placing my wholesale website orders as usual and I was also accepting payments for my ebay items that average around 200-300 a transaction for the portable playstation units I sell. I figured out a couple weeks later how this company really works. I refunded all of the purchases except for the items that i have already sent the product out for. I refunded over 15,000 and now the owe me almost 5000 dollars still. I faxed in all the invoices and all of the tracking numbers to prove that the customers had received their items and there are no chargebacks coming.
Couple weeks later Josh forwards me an email from Theresa at Loss Prevention telling me that in fact they can not support my business and all of my payments need to be refunded for my website purchases. And I can not get out of the 1000 dollar lease as apparently it is out of their hands as they say.
Apparently visa and mastercard will not let you take payments for items not shipped immidiately. Now how would somebody like Josh Harjo who works in this industry not know this before swaring to me up and down that I will have no problem making wholesale purchases with them. So anyways I understood that and refunded all of my website orders.
I continued to sell my ebay items and take the payment with them because I had no other way of accepting payment for CC and I put all of my time and money already with cardservice. So I figured it would be over soon, WRONG they still hold all of my funds that are not pre sales and I can not refund them because I have sent out expensive electronic goods to the customers already so I can not reufnd them customers. I have to have the funds and the profit from my sales to LIVE!
Josh Harjo also swared that once I made a transaction it would be my money and it would go directly to me no problem. Well its a month and a half later and the only response I got was them asking for my ebay I.D.!
Long story short its been over a month now and Josh has now pointed me towards a woman named Theresa Ramirez from their loss prevention department. I have called this lady over 40 times and have never heard her live voice ONCE. I finally get an email back after I have been pleading for my money and she says she needs to know my ebay I.D. Now and also more information on my products I am selling on ebay? I have already done that keep in mind, and the cusotmers have already got their items!!!
What kind of big time business asks for your ebay I.D. This is just an excuse to keep holding my money for no reason. I am now in debt up to my eyeballs and my credit is now being affected because my bills are all late now. I was lied to up and down by Joshua Harjo about how easy it would be for me to have a merchant account and also how much they are not like paypal and their restrictions. These people are even worse than paypal. If all the conversations are recorded than I would love to hear the playback where Josh sold me for my life on their service.
I told them I want out and I want to pay the early termination fee and they are denying it until they figure out what to do with my funds on hold. Meanwhile they are still debiting my account for charges. I am at a negative balance because I am a small business and rely on my ebay sales money to pay my bills.
These people are money grubbing middle men who will lie to you up and down just to get a sale for a 1000 dollars and suck you in to thier lease so they can debit your account for 12 months for services they are not providing. This company is a fraud and I dont know how they can go on doing this. I am reporting this because I dont want other people to fall in this trap and have to go bankrupt because of a company who has every right to take your money and put you in bankruptcy.
I have waited a long time patiently and they are still giving me the run around and not telling me anything. I have proved my legitimacy and now they are just holding my funds.
If I had anything to do with this company I would quit right now, there is nationwide stories on nightmares people have faced with these people.
I was mislead into a contract by a crook name Joshua Harjo, he is now probably doing the same thing to somebody else on the phone as I type. He has now pretty much told me to talk to Theresa at loss prevention. But like I said the only thing you will get from her is her voicemail. After about 40 emails and 40 phone calls she replies back that she needs to know my ebay I.D.?? THis was a month and a half later, what kind of people am I dealing with is what I am wondering now. They keep taking my sales money and holding it and at the same time debiting my bank account for fees at the same time.
Cardservice International is a middle man scam and they will not talk to you. If you call them for help you get transfered to one voicemail to the next and end up at wonderful theresa's voicemail which I have now memorized the greeting!
My business is going down the tubes as well as my credit and life, this is giving me panick attacks everyday and I tell Josh this and never get a response. He told me he was my friend in this from the very beginning. The funny part is I kind of liked the guy and the company that he said he was, too bad he is lying and falsely advertising their services which I do think is illegal.
Anyways I could go on and on but I have more places to file complaints. I have contacted the F.B.I.in my town and I am still waiting on a response. The I.F.C.C. (Internet Fraud Complaint Center) is in my town so if I dont get a response I am going to their office with all of my paperwork on this company and the names and indivduals. I want them to be able to source the audio tape of me and Josh's initial conversation, that would be all the evidence I would need to sue them for false advertisement and deceptive practices.
If anyone wants to join up with me I would appreciate it, I have a brother who is a Federal Bank Investigator and my Dad is high up in the financing industry, I will get what I deserve one way or another so If you want to join me please email. Thanks for reading this long horror story but like i said I could keep going on and on about these people so do not do business with them whatsoever and lets take them down.
Jeremy
Morgantown, West Virginia
U.S.A.
0 comments