TransFirst Overall Rating
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TransFirst Overview
TransFirst Logo
TransFirst Merchant Services (transfirst.com) is a one of the largest privately held direct processors in the credit card processing industry. They boast processing volume upwards of $30 billion thanks to a relatively large merchant customer base. TransFirst not only markets merchant services under its own brand but also under an Independent Sales Organization (ISO) they own called Merchant Accounts Express, and possibly others.
The company was founded in 1995 and its corporate headquarters is based in Hauppauge, NY. TransFirst is sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank of Walnut Creek, CA and Columbus Bank and Trust Co., Columbus, GA as its Acquiring Banks.
TransFirst Sales & Marketing Tactics | C-
TransFirst does not appear to use any deceptive rate advertising on its website or any obvious misleading rate quoting tactics. Evidence suggests that the company does, however, rely heavily on recruiting independent agents in a “hiring mill” type fashion. Additionally, a few agents have reported receiving poor training. This is a common marketing strategy among merchant account providers and often results in a high number of complaints from merchants. In the case of TransFirst, the company appears to be suffering from the typical complaints associated with the practice.
TransFirst also appears to use alternate business names (DBAs) in order to apparently sell its services under unsoiled brand names. As mentioned earlier, one of these companies is “Merchant Accounts Express” and another has been reported as “US Merchant Services.” This practice negatively impacts TransFirst’s rating because it is our opinion that using alternate DBAs is a deceptive marketing tactic. Aside from the use of alternate DBAs, TransFirst’s services are also marketed by other independent companies (sub-ISOs) that operate under their own brand names.
TransFirst Fees, Costs & Contract Terms | D
The pricing, rates and contract terms of a TransFirst merchant account will vary based on several factors including a merchant’s business type, processing volume, agent setting up the account, and the sub-ISO reselling the account.
TransFirst is receiving a low grade in this section for a couple of reasons. First, the company’s policies appear to make it possible for merchants to be set up with expensive accounts and long-term service agreements, whether or not the practice of doing so is condoned by TransFirst’s management. Secondly, merchants are reporting that TransFirst’s standard contract has a 36 month service agreement that automatically renews for successive one year terms if not cancelled within a slim window of opportunity. Additionally, the fee for cancelling service early is $495 but may also vary in cost in some circumstances. Some merchants even reported what sounds like a “Liquidated Damages” cancellation fee. Normally, a Liquidated Damages clause in combination with an automatically renewing contract would earn a provider an “F” in this section; however, this reviewer was unable to verify it prior to publishing this update.
TransFirst Complaints & Service | C
TransFirst has a moderate amount of complaints for a provider of its size and time in business. The common themes in the complaints are merchants reporting unexpected and hidden fees, expensive terminal leases, poor customer service, and that an agent didn’t verbally disclose important contract terms such as the service length agreement and cancellation fees prior to setting up the account. As mentioned earlier, these are the types of complaints often found with providers that use independent agents and resellers to market their services. However, the ultimate responsibility rests with TransFirst since its policies allow resellers to set up accounts that cause problems for some merchants.
TransFirst BBB Report | C
As of this update, the Better Business Bureau is reporting that TransFirst has been “BBB accredited” since 2009 and is awarding the company an “A+” rating despite 132 complaints filed within the last 36 months, which is up from 106 complaints as of the last update. Of the complaints, 60 are due to problems with service, 45 with billing/collection, 25 with advertising and sales issues, and two with delivery issues. 109 of the complaints were resolved to the merchants’ satisfaction while 23 were not.
It is our philosophy that “A+” ratings should be reserved for companies with zero complaints. Therefore, we have adjusted the rating of this section to a “C” for the purposes of this review. You can learn more about why we adjust BBB ratings in our rating criteria.
Bottom Line
TransFirst is an average merchant account provider in the credit card processing the industry. Many of its business practices and policies are common and can be found among several of its competitors. The company can improve its rating by removing policies that allow merchants to be set up in expensive accounts, removing its cancellation penalty and eliminating future complaints.
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18 comments
Mark Worthington
May 10, 2012 at 10:19 am (UTC -7)
Throw my hat in with unhappy customers. This company sucks and I regret ever partnering with them to handle my merchant services!! They act like I should be lucky to get such problems with them.
AVOID TRANSFIRST AT ALL COST!!!!
The salesperson lied to me even though he sent me an email indicating what the terms were. My fault for not thoroughly reading the lengthy contract. I was busy establishing my business and thought an email from him stating all fees was sufficient. WRONG!!
I’ve found other merchant accounts that I will select from when I dump this company.
David KAbel
April 15, 2012 at 12:29 pm (UTC -7)
In the last 6-12 months your service has become abominable. I received phone call after phone call when my service was due to expire last year and your company wanted to sell me new equipment. Since then, nobody answers phone calls. I was promised a rebate for resigning and received only half of it. I called your customer service line and was told a refund would be processed. Several months later, I’m still waiting. Most importantly, the equipment and the card processing service literally doesn’t work most of the time. Anywhere from 33%-50% of all card transactions FAIL — I get a message that says “Please try again”. It doesn’t matter which phone line the machine is attached to or whether it is a card swipe or a keyed-in transaction.
Best of luck maintaining your business with this kind of service!!!
Merchant
May 1, 2012 at 3:45 pm (UTC -7)
Merchant Express / TransFirst Merchant Services ARE NOTHING MORE THAN SCAM ARTISTS! The name of their game is to suck as much money away from their merchants as possible. This whole company hides behind other company names to hide the fact of what they really are SCAM ARTISTS.
The second you sign the contract, they start hitting you with fees left and right that no other processing company would do. The will nail you with another chargeback fee if a customer continues to dispute the item, called preabritation. They try to con you into signing another piece of paper that says they are debit your bank account $100 for them to represent you for the prearb, and thats ontop of the 2 $25.00 fees they charge you for one chargeback.
They try to make nothing but excuses to hold you money for weeks at a time, and they lucture you about their company being out funds because of fraud. ALL THIS TIME ITS THESE A-HOLES casing you to get chargebacks!
They will know that buyer’s falsify chargebacks and regardless of what you say, they dont care. Their whole scam is to like we said, to steal as much money away from you as possible and find any excuse they want to steal it!
STAY AWAY FROM THESE CONS! You’ll see alot of other complaints filed against them on ripoff report.com
Current Merchant
March 27, 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -7)
Until this day Transfirst is still continuing to hold funds. Their Risk Department clearly knew the chargebacks were not caused by our company. They were buyers that wanted to get merchandise for free. They purposely held days of transactions purposely. They made us complete some redicicolous paperwork and when we submitted to them the response we got, was that they didnt care about our company and didnt care that holding funds would result in more chargebacks due to their holding of funds. They gave every excuse possible to steal money. We had a chargeback ratio of 1.03% which is well within tolerable standards to visa mastercard. But they still did wantever they wanted. I would stay clear from this shaddy company.
Current Merchant
March 19, 2012 at 3:13 pm (UTC -7)
Transit First are a bunch of paranoid, incompetitent idiots. Some of the employees are nice, but the fact is they screw things up left and right. The idiot who signed us up placed my home address on the application instead of my business address and we started getting calls at my home from customers! They do absolutely nothing whatsoever to help you. They give you less than 5 business days to respond back to any type of chargebacks, where as everyone else gives you 21 days. They attempt to scare you into not responding to 2nd chargebacks filed by fraudulent buyers and try to make you sign a $100 filing fee for 2nd chargebacks. If you get one chargeback they will cut your funds off immediately without telling you.
They will make you sign document to get money that should be yours. They consistently ask you how many chargebacks you’d receive in the future and its like you’d actually know that. Whether dispute is your fault or you can prove it was mail order fraud, Transit First aka Merchant Express doesnt care. They are extremely paranoid and will put your company at a finanical loss in a second without your knowledge.
We wish we never signed up with these crooks! We are in the process of finding someone else.
Joe Green
March 15, 2012 at 7:11 am (UTC -7)
The sales guy never mentioned the three year contract. He told me he would waive the $59 yearly fee – but did not mention that he was waiving it only for the first year. He never mentioned an early termination fee of $500. This is not a very good way to do business. They added fees to the contract, claim that they notified me (I never saw it) and now the contract has changed – but I can’t change the contract – only they can. If you bother to read the terms document, not only will you never sign anything with these sharks, but you will be amazed how they can have the audacity to even write such an unfair document. I am actively going to spread the word as much as I can to help prevent innocent people for getting scammed like I did.
Adrienne Buskard
December 14, 2011 at 6:01 pm (UTC -7)
This is the worst vendor ever.
Transfirst is one of the incompetent vendors I have ever dealt with. Let me first say that their fees are beyond exorbitant. As it turns out, I was being double billed for I don’t know how long which I couldn’t detect because the fees are so numerous and confusing even at best. When this came to my attention, Transfirst acknowledged the double billing but would do nothing beyond a 90 day period even though it was their fault and they admitted the error. Then, when I questioned their normal unreasonable fees (almost 30%), they suddenly changed the fees for no reason as if they had been randomly made up in the first place. Not that the new fees were particularly reasonable either as they’re now at least 10%.
Then I made the big mistake of thinking they could competently handle a straightforward request to change merchant banks. My new merchant bank account was already set up and running. However, in this transaction, Transfirst somehow managed to close my payment gateway account, which contained all my historic account information stored, altogether so that none of my transactions could occur and I couldn’t access any of my information. It took me countless numbers of phone calls to straighten this out and, in doing so, I missed a whole cycle of billing.
I went to adjust my recurring billing amounts this month in order to recoup the missed billing of last month and, amazingly enough, Transfirst again screwed up and had closed my gateway account for no reason! Transfirst didn’t even have a record that the account had been closed again! The payment gateway support had to tell them!!! Because of their gross incompetence, I’m going to miss another billing cycle.
They don’t know what they’re doing!
I’m going to report them to the Better Business Bureau and get rid of them as quickly as possible.
Do not use this company.
Savant
November 15, 2011 at 12:06 pm (UTC -7)
I was not told of any of the fees, the contract, etc. I have been stuck paying these idiots because I could not afford the termination fee which I was told is a percentage of the time you have left. $90 quarterly PLUS $30 a month PLUS some phanton $7 fee from AmEx. The worst part? My business crashed and burned before it ever got started, so I’ve been paying this out of my personal money. Being a single mom, I feel so totally taken advantage of and wish I could get my money back.
Deanna Hickson
October 11, 2011 at 6:10 am (UTC -7)
I also wish I had never signed up with this company. My cancellation fee is $495, what a waste of hard earned money. Was never told about the “contract”, and there are always additional fees. I have never had a processor that was soooo slow! They claim to be cheap on their fees, but I find them to be a lot higher then other companies. DON”T USE THIS BANKING SERVICE!I also find that they LIE!
Mark Patterson
October 10, 2011 at 12:44 pm (UTC -7)
Avoid this company at all cost. They pitch a good game on lower fees etc, but shortly after you get started they they start raising them. They then falsely claim the card companies have raised their fees. You have 15 days to dispute the fees from date of increase to avoid being locked into a long term contract. I cancelled my contract and paid the $495 cancellation fee, and to add insult to injury, they would not credit the annual administrative fee (never disclosed and paid forward). This is an unethical business. If I did business and treated my customers this way, I would be out of business.
Transfirst Merchant Services Scam Artist Review
October 10, 2011 at 6:36 am (UTC -7)
Transfirst Merchant Services are the BIGGEST scam artists and liars in the merchant account processing arena. I have emails from scummy sales rep that sold me lies and when I signed up fees were way higher than what I got in writing!
To make things worst there so behind in technology and don’t have a single Android app or intergrate with RoamPay. Last straw was for the last month we couldn’t as a company run any transaction on ANY mobile device, iphone, android, blackberry and we process 80% of our credit cards in the field.
So we changed processors to great local company [CPO Redacted] and told Transfirst by a NOTARIZED termination letter that we faxed and emailed to various emails/numbers we found and told them we are going to sue them in small claims court for breach of contract if they try to screw with our credit or pursue come BS cancellation fee.
Of course last week they have the audacity to think were goingto pay a cancellation fee to them after they lied and costs us a bunch of money.
Also did I mention our new merchant processor has ZERO long term contract only month to month and they show you exactly what there mark up is. We found them on feefinders.com great site.
P.S I should add we got lucky, we were in the midst of changing business bank accounts (getting raped by Bank of America) to awesome credit union and closed our bank account. So lying dogs at Transfirst Merchant Services can’t try to keep debiting our business account or try to stick us with some BS cancellation fee. :D
I’ll keep everyone updated on this pending situation with this lying bastards.
But seriously checkout [CPO Redacted] the guy that owns it actually drove to an iHop by my house to hand deliver the RoamPay swiper (that’s freaking service) and worked with Firstdata merchant processor to get everything done in 3 business days for us.
Guy has amazing service and well known nationally. NO setup costs, NO cancellation fees, NO long term contract, $10 a month minimum fees total. Lowest I’ve seen. Plus, instead of getting two different merchant statements every month and having to wait 72 hours to get paid from AMEX like with scum bag Transfirst Merchant Services. They set it up so you only get ONE statement per month and get paid in just 24-36 hours with AMEX just like you do with Visa/Mastercard.
Paul maguire
September 23, 2011 at 12:58 am (UTC -7)
The saga w transfirst continues and its a negatice story. First not that the original post says ” transfirst appears ” to be good That poster has no experience w the company. My experience is that the company wants to take as much of your money as they can to minimize downside risk. They had an analyst who clearly had never been in business and was making up senerios which hadnt happened in 6 years.
If you re with this company get a back up bc the day may come as it did with me where they grab all your money with no timely notice and your scambling to stay in business.
Do not trust thus company- do not think you have a “relationship”. You dont .
They are all about the money in my experience and opinion – they are not fair nor are their business practices reasonable in my view.
Many other options – both chase and wells have been good
Avoid transfirst. Not to be trusted with your money, your business, or your relationships.
Sorry to have ever found this company
September 22, 2011 at 12:55 pm (UTC -7)
Stay away from this company!! Bill Gavin was full of lies and did not disclose ALL the other fees. I have emails from him stating all the fees, which was not even a small fraction of what they really charge. I regarded this email from him to summarize my contract. LIES, LIES, LIES, LIES. And every time something comes up, the snotty reps always say, “according to your contract”. NO personal service what so ever.
Basically these thieves take 5-10% of my sales!!!! Again, STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!!!
There are many others with good reviews.
Jason Schuck
September 20, 2011 at 6:09 pm (UTC -7)
I have to agree with a few of the posters. This company is pretty horrid. I’ve tried to get ahold of the guy who signed me up and he never emails me back. I have random charges coming out of my account on different dates every month. I’m going back to cancel with them and go back to payquake.com. They at least know how to treat their customers and not steal from you.
Spine Doc
September 16, 2011 at 1:04 pm (UTC -7)
I signed up with Transfirst in June 2011 when I opened my Chiropractic business, I spoke with Bill Gavin who told me that I was not entered into any contract and that there were NO monthly bills and I could leave anytime I want!! He rushed me along to sign up and oh boy was I a fool (this was my first dealing with merchant accounts)!! I had $5.00 monthly fees, $30.00 Quartely fees, a percentage minimum to reach in total sales otherwise I was charged $25.00 and I would have to pay $500 to leave before 3 years!! These people are the ABSOLUTE WORST business I have ever dealt with, they are scammers and their customer service is terrible!! Please DO NOT sign up with them!!!
Will
September 1, 2011 at 2:11 pm (UTC -7)
My experience with Transfirst was extremely negative. They sales rep was very friendly and helpful, but outright lied about the terms. When the bill showed up, I rebutted the bill and cited the emails from the sales rep showing the conflicting terms. The made a ‘correction’ for one month and actually increased fees the following. When again I pointed out the error they basically said they didn’t have to abide by any terms that were agreed to via email. At this point I had not processed a single charge through their system, so I offered to just close our relationship accept the loss as a lesson in which companies not to use. They then tried to debit my account for a ‘cancellation’ charge’. The issue is that there rep lied about the recurring charges. When called on it they basically indicated they were ok with his actions, because they didn’t count email descriptions of their charges as binding.
Paul Maguire
July 21, 2011 at 12:08 am (UTC -7)
This provider kept 125k dollars of my money for a 8k dollar chargeback, which we won. They reviewed the account and cancelled me with very little notice, screwing up my business tremendously. They are in my opinion and inexperience a company to avoid. Thier contract involves clauses that allow them to do whatever they want . AVOID THIS COMPANY, They are NOT TRUSTWORTHY!
sharon freeman
March 23, 2011 at 9:25 am (UTC -7)
Transfirst complaint: I had a contract with transfirst since Jan 2008. They kept adding charges with they did not inform me about. When I notices the extra charges on the billing, it was too late to recind the charges. They couldn’t guarantee that no more charges would be made in the future. Finally after putting up with this for 2 plus years, I cancelled my account. Oops…early cancellation fee $195.00 right out of my checking account. They did not inform me of this fee when I cancelled. It is written in the contract. One section states that the original contract signed is for 3 years. Another section states that early cancellation is $195. You would have to have a great memory for finite facts over a 2 plus period to remember these facts and connect them. Expecially when frustrated by all the extra charges they add. DONT USE THIS BANKING SERVICE