The salesman had a very slick sales pitch and a spreadsheet that showed how much I would save. It turns out that they don't disclose many of the fees that you are charged. My $0.20 debit transactions became $0.70 or more with a mysterious fee called INTER-CHG or something (it is not listed anywere on the paperwork I signed). He kept focusing on the 1.59% rate for credit cards but there were three other teirs listed with the top being 2.59%. I asked and he said that those rates were for uncommon specialized types of cards. I believed him. It turns out that less than half of my transactions were at the 1.59% rate. He didn't mention the annual fee either, though it is on the paperwork and I missed it. They started charging me $9.95 a month for web access to my statements even though I specifically declined it. Another problem is the time it takes for the transactions to be deposited into my account. It was usually four or five business days before it was deposited. If I settled at 6:00pm with my previous processor, it was almost always deposited the next day.
Then there is the non-cancelable lease for the machine. I had reservations from the beginning on this but for some reason his reassurances allowed be to be talked into it. He kept talking about how I was throwing money away by renting a machine. I mentioned that I might just buy a machine but he said they were $800-$900. I am always 100% honest with my customers about everything so I believed him. It turns out they can be bought for $200 (I should have checked). So now I have a lease for $39.95 a month for four years. It is actually $46 and change but I get no itemization saying what the extra $6 is. Sales tax would only be $3.31. The kicker is that you don't even own it at the end of the lease (nearly $2000 for a $200 machine) and if it breaks after the warranty you are still stuck with the payment. It didn't even come with a pin pad.
When it comes to contacting them, they never answer the phone (more than ten calls) and never return calls when you leave a message when you can, since most of the time the voicemail system says it is full. The one time I got through, the girl that answered the phone said she just happened to be walking by the desk but said they are growing so much that their customer service is at a different number. I called it and of course no one answered and never returned any of my calls. Another thing is that I did not sign any paperwork that mentioned I was going to be in a contract for three years. It wasn't until I looked in the book that came with the machine that I saw the three year contract. How can they lock you into a contract when you didn't sign anything that says there is a contract? I was actually losing sleep worrying about all this. Not so much because of the fees I was being charged, but because I allowed myself to get scammed and was stuck with these guys for three years.
I should have checked the BBB first because even though they have a 'satisfactory' record, there are still 51 complaints. I should mention that I canceled my membership with the BBB because of what I read about them (the BBB that is) on this site. Now that I have dealt with WMS I am sure that BBB membership is worthless. I have been in business over two years and have never had any customer complaints to the BBB or otherwise.
I was planning on leaving another message threatening a call to the BBB but got a sales call from another merchant processer. As you can imagine I was not in the mood for dealing with this again. I mentioned that I was stuck in a contract but was not happy with the processor I had just switched to. She said they could get me out of it. After a quick explanation of what I was going through, she actually guessed that it was WMS. She had talked to lots of businesses that were unhappy with them. We talked for a few minutes and I agreed to let a salesman come and see me. This guy was very nice, very sympathetic to my situation and showed me every single fee. He wasn't a fast talker and I got a very good feeling about the company. The best part was no contract. Their reasoning is that if you treat your customers right, you don't need contracts to keep them. WMS has a $250 cancellation fee which the new company paid and is letting me pay them back in installments. They also got me a pin pad. There were a few glitches with the programming for the machine (not their fault, there was some confusion as to the version of the machine I have), but the guy stuck with me until we got it done. Also, they usually deposit within two business days (Mondays transactions are deposited Wednesday.in the end I learned a somewhat expensive lesson and with the lease will be reminded of it every month. I should have stuck with Bank of America (my orginal processor). At least I can sleep at night now.
0 comments