Sterling Payment technologies is the "mother ship" of a local group in Alabama called Easy Payment Solutions. Easy Payment's job is to hook the consumer and Sterling performs the business, or in my case, the "bend over and take it" method of business. Their "business" in my case was to process my customer's credit cards through the machines in my store. The purchase price would sit in their bank for a day or so then process right on through to the business's account. A supposed local rep for Sterling came to my business as I was opening and showed me how to use the credit card swiping and check reading equipment he was providing through a leasing company (who also screwed me over). I signed two contracts that day and went on about my business.
Later that year, the check reading machine stopped reading and I almost lost $475 due to a bounced check. I was told by said rep that Sterling was responsible for the equipment's replacement in case of failure. So naturally I called. The number on the equipment was supposed to be to the representative but his sister answered and said he was nowhere to be found—had been for several weeks. I was told by her that my local rep was responsible for the upkeep of any equipment. I asked could I be re-assigned a new one? She told me she had taken over the area's accounts. But not mine, mine had been given back to corporate level. So I call Sterling. At that point I got the run-around. "You need a local rep-but we're not assigning you one."
Then the money issue started. I made the mistake of swiping my own card in the machine to transfer money from my personal account to my business's. They called me within minutes to verify that the large and unusual amount of $1600 was not a mistake. I told them my intentions. They said I was not allowed to do that, that legally a purchase had to be made and they would refund the transaction. I complied and apologized for my actions. I watched both bank accounts online for over a week. They eventually did return the money to my personal account. But days later, even though the $1600 never actually made it INTO the store's account, they removed that same amount from the store.
I called them and informed them that they had no right to remove that money from my account. They claimed that they didn't. They said they simply refunded the money to my account. I assured them that they took it from my store's account AFTER it'd been returned to mine. They claimed they had no record of said transaction. I went to my bank and got the manager to confirm that the withdrawal had taken place. All with proof of routing number and everything.
I, at this point, decided to switch to my bank as the processing company and who I got the equipment from. But first I wanted to make sure all my ducks were in a row. I spent two days going over statements from both Sterling and my bank and discovered that some transactions took up to a week to process and some transactions never made it into my account. It was always random amounts and only on occasion, which is why I never caught it.
But I counted over $1800 worth of transactions where Sterling kept my money. $1800 in just a year and a half! I read over the contract to see what my options were—I was supposedly not allowed to take them to court. My only option was Arbitration but the terms were: Only for issues reported within 90 days of transaction, Only if I paid the room fees, their legal fees, etc (which added to be about $2200) regardless of outcome, and other rediculous stipulations.
I contacted my state's attorney general, they said it was not a problem that was quite up to their level, I contacted the local police, and was told it was not a problem they had jurisdiction in, and took the advice of all of the above and contacted my lawyer. He looked over it for a while and said there was pretty much nothing I could do aside from their Arbitration options.
My suggestion to anyone out there that is doing business with Sterling is to regularly check your accounts and statements. Do NOT hesitate if you find something fishy. You only have 90 days to report it and depending on what it is, they may claim fault in your situation. This situation aided in my store going out of business. $3400 is a lot to lose to a small business. I plan on reporting them to the Florida BBB. If anyone else has problems, I suggest you do the same.
Rob
Daphne, Alabama
U.S.A.
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