National e-payment (Merchant Solutions, parent company) is a merchant processing company that processes credit cards. If I told the whole story, this complaint would be many pages in length. I will try to give the short version. I signed with them several years ago with promises of lower rates and with the promise of them paying off my early cancellation fee from my then current processor up to $650, against my better judgement.
I should have listened to that inner voice that was telling me something was wrong. I have used several different processors over the years and they were the only ones who asked me for my social security number. My companies federal ID number is all they should need. The other problem was, every time I called my salesman back, he never answered the phone professionally saying the company name and then identifying himself.
I signed with them with the understanding that they would cancel the old service and pay the early cancellation fee. I was told and it was in my contract, I was under no obligation to stay with them for any length of time, but they would ask me to stay at least a year for them to re-coop the fee paid. I thought that was fair. Well, they never cancelled my old service and I was getting charged $40 a month for several months and I only found out after signing that they were only going to pay me $50 a month towards the early cancellation fee, so I had to have the hit of $595, which for a small business was a lot.
I told them before signing that I had my own equipment, which they said they would re-program. They were unable to re-program my equipment so they sent me the same model I already owned and told me I would not be charged for it, that all I had to do is return the equipment when I left their service.
I stayed with them for almost 2 years. I decided to go with a local company that pointed out where I was being overcharged, under the title of "Other charges". My new rep advised me to call them before cancelling to make sure there would be no unexpected charges. I did. I called my sales rep Louie, who told me that there was no cancellation fee and just to send the equipment back, there would be no fees.
I cancelled my account and sent the equipment back. Much to my horror they charged me 3 separate charges totaling $1018.46. I called my sales person and he told me that shouldn't be, if anything there should only be 2 charges for the equipment that would be refunded after they received the equipment back and that he would look into it and call me right back, which of course he didn't. I called him back and he passed the buck to his "financial Person, Daniel" who he said would know when the equipment came back.
I called Daniel and he had a very thick accent, hard to understand, but I understood this, one of the first things he said to me was he knew my social security number! He said one of the charges was a cancellation fee. When I told him my contract showed no cancellation fee, he told me to fax it over. Now why wouldn't they have a copy already? I faxed it over and they did eventually refund me for the amount of $495.16 for the early cancellation fee. They refused to this day to refund the other 2 charges for the credit card machine and the pin debit machine, over $500. They have their sales person say anything to get you to sign and then when you try to leave they have your banking information and they take what they want with no apologies.
I have lodged a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and went back and forth and at one point someone from the BBB called me with a question. It turns out I am not the only one who has had trouble with Daniel Shamail and National e-payment. This person didn't have a high opinion of him. Nothing got resolved and I've called many times. I've had other merchant services companies look at their contract and they all tell me it's the standard contract and it does not say anywhere in the contract that I would be charged for the equipment. If I was responsible for paying for the equipment, there should have been a cost attributed to the equipment, otherwise they could put whatever price they wanted on it.
No one at National e-payment will call me back and Merchant Solutions the parent company is no better. At one point when I called them to talk about my contract, it was apparent someone was working out of her house and didn't have a copy of my contract. Very unprofessional. Stay away from these companies. There is no one policing this industry, sad to say.
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