We stared our services with Federated Payments in 2008.in 2009 an unknown individual made a personal refund using my processing machine. The next day I noticed the refund and called Federated Payments to stop the refund. A police report was filed, which was sent to Federated Payments by fax. They were notified with enough time to stop the refund, however, they did nothing to stop it and I lost $450.00.
That same summer, I was charged $70 dollars correspoding to an "administration fee" which is separate from the Annual fee and not disclosed in the contract. The following year the same was charged.
Various companies offered better rates, however, I knew I needed to wait until after the 3 years of the contract were up. When the 3 years had passed, I called the company to verify that my account was now on a month to month basis and I asked them if i could chance to another company without paying the penalty fee and the employee told me I could change and there would be no problem.
Months later, I found another company that gave me better rates, so I called Federated Payments again and confirmed that there would be no problems to change.
The following month I noticed that from my business account they withdrew $35.00. When I called and spoke with a supervisor, she told me the only way they close the account is by filling out a form and sending it back to them. I told her I didn't know that I needed to fill out a closing form, she said that I had been notified and I then asked her why they hadn't sent it.
She then told me that it was my resposability to ask them to send me the forms.in other words, she let me know that I was the one in charge of making sure that people in their company did their jobs correctly! By the way, no mention of such Account Closure Form is made in the contract that I have next to me.
After she verified my email and sent the form to me, I printed it out and filled it out and mailed it back to them. A month later, I noticed the Penalty Fee of $295.00 taken out of my account. I called them and the first person I spoke with couldn't tell why they withdrew that out of my account so they sent me to their supervisor.
He first told me that since we hadn't called to cancel after the 3 years were over that it automatically renewed (again not in the contract!). He then said that in the Service Agreement which was sent in the starter packege (not in the contract) it states that they need to be notified 60 days prior to a cancelation, otherwise the fee would be charged.
We have kept every statement and letter we have recieved from Federated Payments and we don't have a Service Agreement. I asked him if it had to be signed and returned to them and he said no. I told him no one told me the first time I called of the 60 day cancellation notice and he said it was not their responsability to verbably notice us of that policy.
It is very unfotunate that small businesses like mine are in the hands of people whose first objective to get money instead of being reputible businesses. And I am sure that I am not the only business which was had these type of experiences with Federated Payments.
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