Card Payment Solutions (Indiana)
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Card Payment Solutions Overview
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This review is for the Madison, Indiana based Card Payment Solutions (cardpaymentsolutions.com). If you are looking for the Santa Barbara, California based company, see the CardPayment Solutions (California) review.
Card Payment Solutions (CPS) is a small-to-mid size merchant account provider that began operations in 1999. The company is a sales organization that acts as a reseller for several direct processors including Global Payments, First Data and TSYS. Although CPS is a reseller, it handles the customer service of its accounts directly. Besides providing credit card processing services, the company also supplies electronic check processing services.
CPS is sponsored by the HSBC Bank, National Association, Buffalo, NY as its Acquiring Bank.
Card Payment Solutions Sales Tactics & Marketing Strategy | C
This reviewer found few uses of deceptive rate advertising on the CPS website. In particular, on the “determine rates and fees” pages of the CPS website, the company only quotes the “Qualified” transaction rates and fails to mention the Mid- and Non-Qualified surcharges that, on average, more than 50% of a merchants sales will experience. To learn more about deceptive rate quoting tactics and how merchant account rates are calculated, be sure to check out Fee Sweep.
CPS also appears to rely heavily on recruiting outside independent resellers to market and sell its merchant services. Normally, this practice results in numerous complaints because providers cannot control the sales and marketing tactics of the resellers. CPS currently is not suffering from the usual complaints about resellers, which may indicate that it has tight controls over the sale processes and underwriting. Therefore, the company’s use of resellers will not count against it unless further evidence arises in later updates of this review.
Card Payment Solutions Fees, Costs & Contract Terms | C
Pricing of CPS merchant accounts appears to vary depending on a merchant’s business type, processing volume and the agent setting up the account. An agent of the company stated that CPS has a standard service agreement of 36 months with one year automatically renewing extensions at the end of each term. Merchants who wish to cancel service must notify the company within 60 days of the expiration of the contract. Additionally, merchants may suffer a Liquidated Damages early termination fee for cancelling service while under contract. The agent also stated that these terms are negotiable.
Normally, the use of a Liquidated Damages clause and automatically renewing contract would result in an “F” rating in this section for a provider. However, CPS is not suffering from the type of complaints usually associated with the practice. This may be an indication that CPS rarely enforces the policy and that it usually comes to a mutually agreeable resolution during a dispute. In any case, merchants are encouraged to fully read and understand the terms of the agreement before signing any documents.
Card Payment Solutions Complaints & Service | B
Since CPS shares a very similar name with another merchant account provider, it is very difficult to differentiate the complaints filed online. Based on our research, it appears the majority of complaints filed are regarding the California based company and not the CPS we are covering in this review.
Of the complaints against CPS of Indiana, there are only a few. Most of them report high or unexpected monthly fees, unexpected cancellation fees, and difficulty getting problems resolved. It is difficult to tell if the complaints are isolated incidents or signs of larger problems. We will continue to monitor future complaints and update this review accordingly.
Card Payment Solutions Better Business Bureau Report | A
As of this update, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) is reporting that CPS has been accredited since 2005 and is awarding the company an “A” rating. The BBB is showing 10 complaints filed in the last 36 months, mostly regarding product and service problems. Of the 10 complaints, only four (4) have been resolved to the merchants’ satisfaction. The BBBs rating will not be weighed heavily in our overall score because it appears to be slightly inflated for such a low resolution ratio.
Bottom Line
Card Payment Solutions of Indiana seems to be a promising company in that it has very few complaints in comparison to other companies of similar size, business practices, and time in business. The company can improve its rating by offering month-to-month contracts, no cancellation fees, and removing the deceptive rate advertising from its website.
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2 comments
Diane Greiner says:
March 17, 2011 at 6:32 am (UTC -8 )
Received an offer from this company last year – business partner set up merchant processing with them. They started charging a service fee twice each month…one for our corporate name and the other for our dba name. Once we finally got the bank to place a stop payment on the debit they stopped one charge, hit us with a $300 cancellation fee and are continuing to charge the $69.95 one time a month. They have processed no cards and done nothing for us except charge a lot of money.
I cannot get the company to respond. Went to the bank again yesterday and are attempting a stop payment again.
Any advice as to who to contact? What can I do short of closing my account and opening a new one?
Thanks, Diane
davis says:
August 4, 2011 at 6:16 am (UTC -8 )
go to your bank and tell them you want to initiate a fraud claim. as i understand it, if the charges were not specified in a contract, the processor has no right to debit those charges. i used the words fraud claim when talking to the processor and it seemed to carry some weight.