1st National Payment Solutions Review

Two Merchant Account Types

The 1st National Payment Solutions website provides a number of important documents, including the company’s contracts and equipment lease. 1st National offers two kinds of merchant accounts, which can last for one, two, or three-year terms. This 1st National Payment Solutions contract is an agreement through iPayment, includes an early termination fee that can range from $250-$350, an iAccess fee of $9.95-$14.95, and a variable PCI Compliance fee. The second agreement, which is through Woodforest National Bank, is an automatically renewing contract with a Liquidated Damages early termination fee. Although neither document lists the company’s specific rates, it is reasonable to assume that these figures may vary based on a merchant’s size, business type, and time in business. Additionally, 1st National’s standard lease agreement is non-cancellable.

Virtual Terminal and Payment Gateway Pricing

In addition to its storefront payment processing services, 1st National Payment Solutions also dedicates a portion of its website that advertises its virtual terminal and payment gateway services. However, pricing on either of those services is not disclosed. Additional rates and fees, including gateway fees, technical support fees, batch fees, and additional transaction rates typically apply to these e-commerce services.

Liquidated Damages

The primary factors lowering the company’s grade in this category are its use of iPayment’s services and the inclusion of a Liquidated Damages clause in its Woodforest Bank contract. This clause states that the merchant’s early termination fee will be either $250 per location or a total equal to the merchant’s average monthly fees multiplied by the remaining months in the contract, whichever is greater. This figure has the potential to be very high. Although 1st National scores points for providing these contracts for all merchants to see on its website, the actual terms therein are worthy of a “C” grade at this time and do not compare favorably to the cheapest merchant accounts.

1st National Payment Solutions Contract Terms

A company representative has stated in the comment section of this review that the company’s early termination fee only applies to merchants who receive free equipment upon signup and it can be waived for other merchants. In addition, the same representative stated that the company’s contract through Woodforest only charges a flat $5 monthly fee and does not include any other monthly, annual, or PCI compliance fees.

Low Complaint Total

We are currently able to locate a handful of negative 1st National Payment Solutions reviews, two of which accuse the company of being a ripoff or a scam. These complainants report difficulty cancelling service, poor customer service, fund holds, and equipment issues. Two of the complaints are over three years old, while another complaint was posted in 2011 and referred to issues that took place even before then.

Complaint Responses

The president of 1st National was active in responding to several complaints and appeared to resolve the customers’ issues after an extended period of time. He attributed the delay to organizational holdups related to the need to have multiple higher-ups sign off on a refund. He also appears to have posted on numerous other reviews filed against 1st National Processing for the sole purpose of clarifying that his ISO of the company was not the party in question.

1st National Payment Solutions Lawsuits

We have not found any outstanding class-action lawsuits or FTC complaints filed against 1st National Payment Solutions. Dissatisfied merchants who wish to pursue a non-litigious course of action against the company should consider reporting it to the relevant supervisory organizations.

1st National Payment Solutions Customer Support Channels

The 1st National Payment Solutions website lists a dedicated customer support phone line, but this channel is not sufficient to qualify the company as a top-rated payment processor for customer service. After taking into consideration the age of the complaints, their delayed resolutions, and the effort made by the company’s CEO, we have awarded 1st National a score of “A” in this category.

Under 10 BBB Complaints

1st National Payment Solutions has been accredited with the Better Business Bureau since 2006. As of this review, the company has an “A+” rating with the BBB and has had 4 complaints filed against it in the last 36 months. All 4 complaints were related to billing and collection and were either resolved to the dissatisfaction of the merchant or did not receive a final response from the merchant.

What Merchants Say

In addition to the 4 complaints posted to the company’s BBB profile, 1st National Payment Solutions has received 1 negative informal review. The review details difficulty closing the merchant account:

Run away as fast as you can. We just got hit with a brand new, unannounced $99 annual fee. The money has already been taken from our bank account and they refuse to return it. There was no letter, no email, no bank statement announcement notifying us of the new fee. They say they sent out a letter a month ago, and that’s the end of it. The fact that we never received such a letter means nothing. They say that they looked at their costs and decided that they needed to charge a fee, so they just did it. The guy was quite nasty about it, and told me there was nothing I could do about it, they have the money and they’re not giving it back. The service rep stated that they have received many calls of complaints about this and they will not be refunding these fees to any of the customers. When I called ********** Bank, whom they use, the bank transferred my call right back to 1st National’s office. I got the same jerk on the phone. In the past, I’ve never been treated this way by them, and their reps have behaved decently. This guy was over the top nasty. 1st National Processing targets artisans and microbusineses in their advertising, which is we how came to use them several years ago. They have since changed the “Processing” to “Payment Solutions”, but they’re still the same people. At the end of each year, we did cost comparisons of total annual charges, to see what we would have paid had we run cards through PayPal or Square. 1st National always came in higher, but with human customer service, we stayed with them. That changed this past January. It is now mid-November. We kept 1st Nat as a backup, but have not used them more than once or twice since January. There were just too many times when we had to call because there were unexpected and confusing charges. Those were generally resolved, but we got tired of it, and when they mistakenly charged us for one of their other customer’s fees, we were done. We saw that customer’s info on our statement. It’s a security breach. It’s cheaper to let our contract die off than pay their extortionate $295 kick-out fee.

Merchants in similar situations could benefit from researching how to cancel a merchant account without paying a fee.

An “A” Rating

1st National Payment Solutions also has not received any informal reviews, although it should be noted that these reviews may ore may not be subject to verification by the BBB. Given the company’s complaint total, we agree with the BBB’s rating at this time.

Independent Sales Agents

1st National Payment Solutions appears to utilize a referral program, strategic partnerships, and independent sales entities to market its services. The use of independent sales agents is usually tied to high complaint rates for a company, but we are currently able to locate only one National Payment Solutions complaint that describes misrepresentation of pricing. This review is found in the comment section below and could simply have been a misunderstanding.

No Deceptive Advertising

As an additional point in the company’s favor, it does not appear to engage in deceptive advertising strategies in its official materials. We will therefore assign 1st National Payment Solutions an “A” rating in this category for the time being.  If you suspect that 1st National Payment Solutions is charging you undisclosed fees, however, we recommend seeking a free third-party statement audit.