What they do is hook you in with that low 1.9% transaction rate, but what they don't tell you is that they have a monthly "process limit" they enforce on your account, which they claim is based on your credit rating. Nowhere on the Merchant Inc website do they tell you this, and they certainly don't tell you that they get to charge 5% if you go over that limit. You won't find that out until they send you their Welcome mailing, and if you don't really look at the page entitled "Schedule of Fees, " you won't discover it until it's too late. At the top of that page it states, "Approved Monthly Visa/Mastercard Processing Volume, " then below that it states, "Approved Average Ticket Size." At the very bottom of that page, it states, "Process Surcharge (Applies to Gross Sales Above Approved Monthly Process Limit); then off to the right it states 5%.in other words, go over your monthly process limit, they get to charge you 5% instead of the advertised 1.9%. This is where the corruption lies, because they deliberately give you a low process limit knowing that you're likely to go over it. That way they get to charge you that 5% on every single transaction you make that month, over your process limit.
My very first transaction was $1263. This woman I had the misfortune to deal with at Ipayment, Debbie, is a liar. After they received the money they refused to release it to my account, perpetually holding onto it. At one point Debbie said that as a courtesy they would release the funds the next day, but they never did. They continued to hold the funds, to the point where my customer, aggravated with the entire situation, canceled the transaction entirely and I lost the sale. That was enough for me, so I decided to cancel. I called in and told them I wanted to do that, they emailed me a Cancel Form I had to fax back. Before I canceled though, I specifically asked the guy, "Now, before I cancel this, I want to be sure there is no weird cancel fee or anything like that." He said no, so I filled in the form, faxed it back, then it took them a month just to close the account. Well, guess what? The moment I had a transfer of over $350 to my checking out, they instantly hit it with a $350 cancel fee. Boy was I pissed. I immediately called them, complained, and they confirmed that there was not supposed to be a cancel fee, then they said they would return the money. That was back on the 22nd, and today is the 3rd, so I called in again and they said it would be returned first thing tomorrow morning.
What really ticks me off is that I had checks written and that money was supposed to cover them, so I had to call those people up and tell them not to cash their checks yet. Another thing that pisses me off besides the fact that this money should NEVER have been taken from my account to begin with, is this f*ing delay that we consumers all have to put up with in getting our money back. I don't know WHY the hell people aren't complaining about this to the point where we can put a stop to this behavior. Whenever you pay for something, that money INSTANTLY comes out of your account. When you return it, that money should just as INSTANTLY go right back into your account. Why the f* they make you wait 7-14 business days to get your money back is totally UNACCEPTABLE in my book. As I said, this money should NEVER have been charged to my account, but because they did that, I've had to wait this long to get that money returned? That's bullshit, and it damn well should be illegal.
In closing, I did file a BBB complaint against this company. They only responded once, then ignored it after that. If you're having a problem with this company, you should still do the same, so as to alert others that this company is run by scumbags.
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