| Category Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Sales & Marketing |  |
| Costs & Contract |  |
| Complaints & Service |  |
| BBB Rating | |
Overall Rating
Overview
Authorize.net Logo
Contrary to popular belief, Authorize.net is not a merchant account provider or a credit card processor. Instead, Authorize.net is what is known in the merchant services industry as a “payment gateway provider.” This means that the company provides software and applications that route credit card payments from the point of sale to the actual credit card processor. Payment gateway providers like Authorize.net are an additional but necessary service if a merchant wishes to use a virtual terminal, website shopping cart, or some mobile processing applications.
[Related: Authorize.net Competitors]
Authorize.net is one of the biggest and most well-known payment gateway providers in the credit card processing industry and supplies several different services. One such service is the the company’s own virtual terminal, which turns any Internet-connected computer into a credit card processing terminal. Unlike most virtual terminals, Authorize.net’s can be used in conjunction with a USB card reader which allows merchants to take advantage of lower processing rates by swiping the credit card. Along with the virtual terminal, one of the company’s most popular services is a secured, hosted, and PCI compliant shopping cart. The hosted shopping cart allows merchants to easily sell through their websites by inserting “Buy Now,” “Add to Cart,” and “Checkout” buttons without going through the hassle of setting up their own self-hosted shopping cart. Merchants that have a large product selection and need a robust shopping cart can use Authorize.net’s API to access the payment gateway service, which is compatible with nearly all well-known shopping cart packages. Along with all of this, the company partners with several third party applications to provide a variety of other electronic payment solutions.
Authorize.net Video Introduction
Sales & Marketing | A
| Key Points – Sales & Marketing | |
|---|---|
| Uses independent resellers? | Yes |
| Promotes deceptive rate quotes? | No |
| Discloses all important terms? | Yes |
Authorize.net’s website provides the suggested retail price of its services, and it clearly states that resellers may alter the costs as they see fit. The company’s pricing breakdown is complete with explanations of each term and is easy to access from the main page. Because Authorize.net’s services are resold by a huge number of merchants, the figures provided on its actual site are subject to change, but the company is being helpful by offering a suggested cost for merchants to use in potential negotiations and is therefore awarded an “A.”
Authorize.Net Marketing Example
Costs & Contract | A-
| Key Points – Costs & Contract Terms | |
|---|---|
| Swiped rate: | Variable |
| Keyed-in rate: | Variable |
| Termination fee: | None |
| PCI compliance fee: | None |
| Equipment lease: | Variable |
Authorize.net quotes pricing on its website of a $99 setup fee, $20 monthly gateway fee, $0.10 per transaction fee and $0.25 batch fee. However, pricing may vary widely based on the reseller because resellers can set prices as they please. Due to this, pricing is very negotiable and many of the fees can be greatly reduced or eliminated. Many of the complaints filed publicly against the company (some of which are in the comments section below) report confusion over the the fact that a third-party reseller was actually offering the services of Authorize.net even though the merchant was under the impression that the reseller itself was providing a payment gateway. While these problems are unrelated to the actual Authorize.net contract, it is worth noting that contract terms can vary, and resellers are not obligated to disclose which figures they have altered from the original suggested retail price.
Authorize.Net Merchant Agreement
[Related: Get Matched With an “A” Rated Provider]
Complaints & Service | B-
| Key Points – Complaints & Service | |
|---|---|
| Total complaints: | 80+ |
| Live customer support: | Yes |
| Most common complaint: | Poor service |
Authorize.net offers an FAQ/troubleshooting-type customer support page on its website, and it also lists an email address and an 877 number for merchant support. It makes some mention of online chat support, but it is not clear how one might access the online chat service.
The company has a few dozen complaints on consumer protection websites like Ripoff Report, with most of these complaints due to poor customer service, feature malfunctions, billing disputes, or unexpected charges. It was also apparent that several merchants were confused about the fact that Authorize.net was not the same company as their credit card processor. These complainants were unsure which company was to blame for the problems they were having. This confusion can usually be traced back to resellers who did a poor job of explaining the relationship between the credit card processor and the Authorize.net payment gateway.
BBB Rating | B-*
| Key Points – BBB Report | |
|---|---|
| Product/service: | 51 |
| Billing/collection: | 118 |
| Advertising/sales: | 14 |
| Guarantee/warranty: | 0 |
| Delivery: | 4 |
Authorize.net has a moderate amount of complaints for its size and time in business. As of this review, the Better Business Bureau is giving Authorize.net a rating of “A+” despite the company having 187 complaints filed within the last 36 months, which is slightly up from 181 complaints as of the last update of this review. Of the complaints, 118 are due to billing and collection issues, 51 are regarding problems with products and services, 14 have to do with with advertising and sales issues, and four are related to delivery issues. Almost all of the complaints have been resolved with BBB assistance, but 17 left the merchants dissatisfied with the company’s response. The moderate complaint rate is mitigated somewhat by the strong record of satisfactory responses, resulting in a CPO-adjusted rating of “B-.” To understand why we adjust BBB ratings, please see our Rating Criteria.
* Denotes CPO-adjusted BBB score
Bottom Line
Authorize.net Review
Rated out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Phillip Parker
Reviewed on 2014-08-21
Overall, Authorize.net has a decent rating as a payment gateway provider. The company provides an easy way for merchants to accept credit cards using just their computers and through their websites, and Authorize.net is widely accepted as one of the best gateway providers in the merchant services industry. Despite several complaints by unhappy merchants, the majority of the company’s customers appear to be satisfied with its services.
It is evident by the type of complaints that Authorize.net has received that the company could stand to improve upon its customer service and reseller training. Merchants are advised to negotiate rates and fees and to thoroughly read the agreement before signing.
This review was originally published on 4/8/11 and was last updated on 8/21/14.
Leave your review of Authorize.net in the comment section below:
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DO NOT USE AUTHORIZE.NET – I have had nothing but problems with them from errors, poor transaction handling, worthless arb system, and terrible customer service – not to mention how out of date their system is. Save yourself the awful experience of authorize.net and go with some one else. I don’t know how they even became the ‘#1′ processor – don’t believe the ads its a terrible system
In December of 2013 Authorize.net began withholding funds owed to my company from completed transactions without notifying me. When I contacted them about this matter they did not even give me any reasoning or justification in regards to why they were withholding my funds. Ironically, they continued to charge my bank account for processing fees for funds they were withholding. This is basically theft in my mind. As a result, I contacted my bank and changed my account information. A few weeks later someone in risk management contacted me and told me that my funds would be released and my account taken off hold. However, this person also informed me that for some reason I would not receive all of the monies in total that were being previously held. When I asked to talk to someone in risk department management I was told that because I changed my bank account information that punitive fees were “eating up” my funds. When I proceeded to explain to them that I only changed my bank account information because some unauthorized fees were being taken out of my account when the only merchant service provider I was currently doing business with was on hold I was told by Authorize.net “we have nothing to do with that.” So as a result of Authorize.net unjustifiably putting our account on hold, fees in excess of $400.00 were stolen from my company by Authorize.net. This issue has never been addressed nor have these funds ever been reimbursed by Authorize.net.
Recently, I would say about two months ago our company was experiencing an unusually high volume of charge backs (which in any business processing credit cards on-line is very bad). What I realized was that Authorize.net had our customer contact phone number and information incorrect. When I contacted them to have it changed I was initially given the runaround by Authorize.net simply to change the customer contact number on the charge back forms received by the customers when wanting to discuss their transaction with our company. Eventually I talked to someone in customer service who transferred me to someone in “Information Update” who supposedly changed our customer contact phone number. For some reason as recent as 6/19/14 our customer service contact number has not changed. This is unacceptable! When customers are not able to contact the company of whom they have done business with, their tendency is to charge back due to belief that some suspicious behavior has taken place with this particular company. This is not the first time I have attempted to change or update my company information with Authorize.net. And in their usual fashion they lied to me stating that they had addressed the issue when in actuality they never did. This incompetence has cost my small company a considerable amount of money. I have reported Authorize.net to the BBB and am still waiting for a response. I intend to follow up on that complaint this week and pursue it to the fullest extent until someone takes the initiative to contact me from Authorize.net and not only addresses the problem but also explains to me why they are so unprofessional in their practices especially with the little guy.
Has anyone considered a class action lawsuit against this company? I’m not in business; I just tried to pay for an item through Authorize.net last September, and it took until December for me to get my money back. It was the worst shopping experience I’ve ever had and nearly ruined Christmas. My problem with Authorize.net escalated to the point that they locked the account of the vendor I was trying to buy from, resulting in lost income for the vendor and frantic efforts on my part to save the job of the salesman who’d been trying to help me out. It was a ridiculous thing. Here I am, the wronged customer, trying to keep a guy from getting fired at Christmas because his boss uses Authorize.net, which is, to my mind, a fraudulent and criminal entity.
Their SimpleCheckout function (nor their website) hasn’t been updated in decades. Customer Support is very poor, with most customer service reps having no clue about anything. E-mail support takes days to respond. It’s an antiquated system with no new features added in years.
I tried Authorize.net three times and every time I asked to myself – What The Heck? Their system is just not working! It is ridiculous! And they are Top # 1 processor? Really? Are people that naive? How in the world are people able to use them? I use LinkPoint (First Data) and it’s all good and their website is fine, just have to check every 6 months for suddenly increased discount rates. You negotiate with them for a few minutes and they usually put back rates where they should belong. Do this every 6-12 months.
Authorize.net is HORRIBLE! Aweful customer service, rude team members and poor processing. We have lot thousands by using their service!
This company is horrible and needs to work on their customer service. I started an account and cancelled it the same day due to a misunderstanding. I was told I would recieve my 100 startup fee because it happened in the same day. About 5 days after, they took the money out of my account. So when I called to get everything straightened out, the man who helped me (financial advisor) was very rude and even hung up on me. Im am very happy I cancelled the account.
At this point, I’m fairly convinced that Authorize.net has stolen about $800 from me. I’m not a merchant or reseller. I’m a guy who bought something off Ebay, paid through Authorize.net, never received my item and supposedly was issued a refund through Authorize.net a week ago. Only problem? There’s no sign of my money. I have some useless transaction number (I say useless because as far as I can tell, there’s no way for a regular guy to talk to anyone at the company) and that’s it. I have filed a disputed transaction claim with my bank. Trouble is, if that $800 doesn’t show up, there goes Christmas.
I am in an identical situation. The seller says they refunded and their money was taken, authorize.net gave a transaction ID, but no money has shown after almost 6 weeks. Did you ever resolve your problem? If so, how?
Signing up for Authorize.net was the worst business decision I eve made. They hold on to your funds even after items have been delivered to customer satisfaction. Their risk management department does not answer questions about why they hold on to your funds. Don’t use these guys if you ever want to see your money.
Authorize.net has HORRIBLE customer service!!!!! I signed up on July, and cancelled my account with them right the next day. They told me everything was fine, and that the cancellation was approved and nothing will be charged. A month after (August) I see a $99 set up fee charge on my debit card. When I called to have them return my money, they said I needed to contact my account manager “Mike” so he can refund me that money back to my account. I called him for weeks and weeks, left many many messages/voice mails, and he NEVER called me back nor emailed me. Every time I called no one was helpful, until finally a month and 10 days after (September), a manager picks up the phone and transfers me to Mike, and supposedly that money will be back in my account, but I have to wait 10 business days to get it back. So I have had to deal with this headache for two months now, and still no money back. DO NOT USE THEM!!!!! HORRIBLE HORRIBLE SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
decided to stop doing with authorizenet after 7 years because my monthly fees went from $15 at time of setup to $100-150 a month, for gateway only that is ridiculous. last few months they would keep adding those surcharges, when i had my bank do chargeback authorizenet put the amount of the chargeback on my authorizenet bill. way to loose half a million account!
Fees, fees, fees, and when you get fed up with the fees, there is a cancellation fee.
Service is poor, no returned phone calls, emails unanswered meanwhile the fee meter keeps chugging along.
I will never do business with this company again.
Used Authorize.net for less than a week . My Merchant service moved me to a different gateway. Since I no longer had an account, i could not look at transactions that I needed. Called support twice, one email, gave them every thing they needed to get me my records. Never sent the records.
They WOULD NOT debit my card either for what ever fees own, so I paid it via a check. THEY DO NOT TAKE CREDIT CARDS FOR PAYMENTS OWED. Strange to say the least. How does a business like this even survive? One bright side, I learned really fast how flakey their support and business ethics are.
Account never opens and I’m being charged for it. I had attempted to open an account with authorize.net. I had been conditionally approved and after reviewing the conditions I had decided not to open the account. I then received an email stating that the amount due was $125. I made several attempts after speaking with their billing department ad our sales rep to have the balance settled since the account was not opened. The billing department said they would be able to remove all fees aside from the $99 non refundable application fee. I was informed to contact my sales rep to have this fee cancelled. After contacting him he refused to do this and said only under special conditions would this be removed. I had informed my bank to not allow any drafts from authorize.net or cybersource I have now received a notice of collection on march 16th all since the 7th of march.
This company is bad news period!
Hi John,
I am experiencing similar things with you. They enrolled me to e-checking service without our consent. I am very mad of the practice they are using. Now I have been informed that the balance has already sent to collection agency.
Are you interested in forming a class action to sue authorize.net? Please let me know.
Sent: Mar 1, 2013 7:11:16 AM
Subject: RE: Authorize.Net Merchant Billing Notice RE: 1050309
This account was closed last year as we closed the business. What is the $20.00 for if no service was provided from your company.??? Looks lie a rip off to me.
Sent from Windows Mail
From: [email protected]
Sent: March 1, 2013 12:55 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Authorize.Net Merchant Billing Notice RE: 1050309
Your Authorize.Net ID is: 1050309
Dear Authorize.Net Merchant,
According to our records, we are unable to collect fees for your payment
gateway services. As a result your account is now closed and a 25.00 USD
fee is required to reactivate your account.
The total amount due on your account with us as of the date of this e-mail
is: 20.00 USD.
We hope to avoid any further action. Please contact our Customer Support
Department immediately at 1-877-447-3938 to make arrangements to pay the
balance due.
You may also send a check or money order payable to Authorize.Net to:
Authorize.Net
Accounts Payable
808 East Utah Valley Drive
American Fork, UT 84003
Please include your Authorize.Net ID (listed at the top of this e-mail) in
the memo of the check or money order.
Should your account remain unpaid past the end of the month, the total
amount due will be transferred to a collection agency and may be reported
to credit bureaus as an unpaid collection item. Your account will remain
closed until your account is paid in full, including the 25.00 USD
reactivation fee.
If you have any questions regarding this notice, please contact Customer
Support.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS E-MAIL WITH SENSITIVE ACCOUNT
INFORMATION.
Thank You,
I do online commerce since 1997. Since then I used CCNOW and LINKPOINT/FIRSTDATA. I also tried AUTHORIZE.NET three (3) times! Everyt time I would get mad with LinkPoint/CardService raising their rates I would try Authorize.net and every time I would think to myself “what kind of idiot would use Authorize.net”. To me, Authorize.net is confusing, user-unfriendly, difficult, strange, creates unnecessary complications to use it, is illogic, just unacceptable. Every time I tried to use Authorize.net by signing up with them I would quickly cancel and think to myself: “What the …?” and go back to Linkpoint because I had limited time to investigate other providers, but I did try some providers and all I settled on was Paypal and LinkPoint. And no, I do not recommend LinkPoint, cause it may be more expensive, but because of lack of time i just use it and it works for me. Authorize.net? What a joke. Perhaps Authorize.net is for ignorant morons or for corporations that have unlimited money, man hours and time to waste? I’m sorry if I insulted anyone.
I had a very bad experience with Authorize.Net. It has very bad customer service. The worst part is there are not many alternatives available. Different brand names are marketed but they all are owned by Wells Fargo. So in the end your payment gateway will be Authorize.net. My account was closed for no good reason, whereas Authorize.net screen would display general error. Call their customer support, if you get lucky to talk to a real person, all they tell you is to talk to the payment processor. Even though there was not a single transaction took place, Authorize.net has charged me hundreds of dollars in fees using automatic deduction from my bank. Especially this is very hard for small start-up business like ours. Small business stay away from this Highly-Publicized business.
I wish I would have found these reviews before trying to use Authorize.net. They misrepresent themselves as a processor when they are just an additional middle-man. Their setup process is ridiculous compared to PayPal and their setup fees are outrageous. I am cancelling service with them before even getting the setup process completed.
i am kind of surprised to read these comments. we have used authorized.net for years and way over 10 million in charges..i do not remember a single instance when we had to call them for anything. all i know is that each day the money appears in our checking acct and is always correct and each month they take their fee.
i wish all our relationships with partners were as good as them. i dont write reviews and i dont work for them but i felt the need to post our experience.
Common decency dictates that if a client of mine has no communication with me, nor does any business with me over a certain period, I would reach out to them and find out if they still required my services. Not Authorize net. As many people who do not fully comprehend the intricacies of merchant card service processes – this small business did not comprehend that the $20 per month charge taken out of my business banking account was NOT part of my current Merchant Service provider. In fact, it was well over 4 years of no activity and still Authorize net did nothing to communicate to me. THey did however – continue to remove $20 from my account…that’s $960.00 I feel that they have stolen.
Authorize.net will rob you. Find another processor (one that does not require a setup fee) For you to do all of the work in setting up an account they will charge you $99.00 to which they will not inform you that you only have 48hours to cancel…. Furthermore, you will also be told that another application process will take longer then the prescribed 48hours, so that you are not locked in to the setup fee.
Update: Good thing I blocked them from charging me any more fees on my bank account. I was just notified that they had attempted to withdraw the monthly service charge fee in December for no services rendered and an inactive account! They sent me a letter stating that I needed to update my bank account or they were going to submit my charge to a collection company if I did not pay them by the end of the month. Don’t hold your breath! I notified them again that there was no account and that I was going to report them if they continued with these bully tactics. What a shady company. Please do not waste your money on their fees. Do your homework. You can get better service at better prices elsewhere. I did with PayPal.
Our company recently had a phishing problem and Authorize.net would not cancel our account, would not provide assistance to us that we needed and continued to consider us a customer even though we requested cancellation. OUR ACCOUNT HAD BEEN COMPROMISED and they kept us Up and Running…geez, how retarded is that? Glad we went to the bank and put a block and fraud alert on.
STAY AWAY FROM THESE GUYS.
I contacted Authorizenet.com per a recommendation from my ipage consultant. The customer service people were not knowledgable and kept giving me erroneous information. Every person I spoke with gave me a different story after I filled out the application. At that point, I was confused and afraid to use their services. As my application got over to the eonline service people, who actually set you up, I decided to cancel my request for services. I spoke with Brad Diamond, who was my sales rep, and notified him by phone and email. I requested an email confirmation but never received one from him. I did receive a cancellation confirmation from Jameson at eonline services. Brad never responded back to me.
I noticed this morning that Authorizenet has charged my account $139.92 for a set-up fee and additional fees. I notified my bank immediately and filed a claim.
Please do your homework. Their charges are extraordinary and the service is below par. You are trusting these people with your money and your financial information. Buyer beware. I am now going through PayPal.
i was with a company called piviotal payments and authorize.net was the gateway company i used and still do. anyway pivitol hit me with a $99 complaince fee with out telling me. just took it out of my account. you don’t do that with me ever. no second chances either..
they cried and said they could fix the problem if i would stay.
pissed me off it’s not the money is was how they did it. i fired the company. then after i let them go they kept my account with authorize active. 5 months later all of a sudden my account is inactive.
i contacted authorize .net to see what happened and was told other company closed the account so no
longer active. i explained i had fired them 5 months ago and there just now closing the account.
very incompented company as far as i was concerned.
anyway authorize said i would need to pay $99 fee to activate account and get new account number.
i called chase paytech they took care of the $99 charge and life goes on. and that company now has my business until i retire unless they make a mistake and try to charge me something they should not.
don’t play games and don’t steal from me. do it once and your gone. long term relationships are very important. but i don’t give a damm if you go out of business by stealing from the very people who give you your job.by doing business with your company.
They did such a mess out of my account that I can not even explain. Basically they have two other companies processing and doing the under writing for them and so the people that you will have to deal with is the credit card processor (powerpay.biz for example) and terminal processor authorize.net. someone i dont know who mix my merchant account with someone else’s account and you can only imagine the mess… one whole batch went to my account inlcuding one charge back process by the way my account was brand new.. also they charge fees for each transactions and these transactions are not even mine. After the smoke clear I had to start closing my accounts because they were fast pulling money out my bank account but they are taking their sweet time to put it back .
in the end.
setup fee $99 dollars Gone!
$17 dollars for other fees! Gone!
$18 dollars a month flat rate fee Gone!
$70 dollars chargeback (not mine) Gone!
$23 dollars for fees that are not even mine Gone!
After start calling people I would like to believe that some day I will get my money back. But too much stress and too many hours by the phone wasted and I only tested the terminal ONCE!!
Let me know if you want me to tell you how I feel about this companies…but you can only guess that I have a mouth full of words that I will rather keep since children are around.
One would think a business that’s in the credit card processing business would let you pay your bill by credit card. That’s not the case with Authorize.Net, I guess they don’t want to pay the fees associated with accepting credit cards. I too have had unsatisfactory communications with their customer service department.
This company is the worse one I have worked with; charging me outrageous fees each month for the new laws that took place regarding the credit cards. I was being charged $86 a month or more even when I had no purchases on the website. I cancelled my account in May and the customer service guy was very rude. I have been charged every month since then $75 +. I have proof of cancelation and I am dealing with my back to get my money back. This is very unprofessional. I would rate this company an F for sure. They are not helpful at all; they charge you extra fees that are more than what I have made in that month. I have lost money in my business because of them. I do not recommend them, use Paypal!!!
When I hire Auhorize.net services they provided me an incorrect ID number and now authorize.net wants me to pay them 99.00 dlls. I wasted 1 month trying to use it making changes to my website thinking there was a problem with my website and never could because the number Authorize Net gave me was incorrect. After 1 month of a hassel, I got an e-mail from them saying they were sorry for the inconvenience and gave me the correct number. This is unfair and I will file a claim against Authorize.net. Their sale representatives are rude as well and told me I have to pay, they do not care I could not use the service. DO NOT HIRE AUTHORIZE.NET. It’s a problem!
I had the worst experience ever with Authorize.net, their staff is rude and unhelpful. Plus they only allow direct pull from your account or they actual want you to mail in a check!!! Its 2012 and the company that processes credit cards doesn’t except them for payments??? Authorize is the biggest scam/ripoff on the planet, so don’t waste your time or money. First Data is cheaper and way more professional!!!
PS if you call Authorize’s support and get Luara Li just save yourself the time and kill yourself the girl is completely useless.
I work as the General Manager for a banquet hall. We process all types of transactions from small $10 ticket sales to a couple thousand dollars towards a client’s event balance. At first we didn’t have a problem with Authorize.net until the past 2 months.
First, they would hold funds stating that we hadn’t paid our fees, when they could easily take the fees out of the transactions like PayPal when they are processed. It was also odd that this had never posed a problem before. We decided not to complain, and just requested that they continue to just take the fees from the transactions. After that was fixed, things got even worse.
Our owner decided to change the checking account associated with the credit card transactions for ease of banking. He called and completed all of the required paperwork and was told we’d receive our funds in 3 business days. 3 business days come and nothing is in the bank. Unlike Paypal which offers a free debit card so you can have instant access to your funds even if they haven’t been transfered into your checking account, with Authorize.net if the funds haven’t been released to your checking account there is no way to access them. So of course this is causing issues, since the money that is in that account is there to pay for the catering for the events, not to mention payroll and maintenance of the property.
He calls the first time and is told it’s okay, that it should be in the account tomorrow. There was no money transfered the next day. 2 calls later {almost 3 more business days later} finally someone notices that the billing address doesn’t match. Instead of just updating the billing address he has to re-file the paperwork again. 2 weeks into this the bank calls and informs him that they are changing the routing numbers {I believe it was due to a merger or take over at that bank}. Again we have to resend the information. 3 weeks have passed and still no funds. To add insult to injury when we call the next time they are now holding our funds again over the transaction fees, which we have already told them to pull from the transactions in the first place. Now we’re into 4 weeks.
We finally get our first few transactions and I get a call from a couple that wants to go ahead and pay for the bulk of their guests’ plates for their wedding in July. This is pretty normal, since it’s tax time, and a lot of the time brides and grooms want to pay off their event as soon as possible. Or they like to pay it in portions that they can handle over time. So I send him our authorization form. Our authorization form is very detailed including the billing address for the cards they’re using, phone number, what they’re paying for, what amount, a copy of the card and matching id, and they have to sign off stating everything is correct. It’s made rock solid so that a client can’t decide to dispute a charge in order to get their money back since we don’t do refunds.
The gentleman made payment with a debit card for $5,000, and most debit cards have spending limits on them to prevent fraud, so his card declined twice. I gave him a call, and he took care of the situation and within 10 minutes the card ran perfectly.
We receive a call the next day saying that since it was such a large amount {although we’ve done charges similar and larger than this before} and since there were two previous declined transactions, they would need proof that it wasn’t fraudulent. I honestly didn’t mind, I thought this was good, and would help prevent those bad people out there from running credit cards online fraudulently. So I gladly faxed over the information expecting it was a 2 minute fix.
Alas, it was not ment to be that easy. The authorization was concrete, they were no longer worried that we were running fraudulent transactions, instead they decided to question our billing practices. “What if they cancel their event?” With the authorization form they can’t dispute the charges even if they cancel their event, and if they did and we needed to pay them their deposit back we would handle that on site. Just like any other normal business. If I return a shirt to JC Penney’s I don’t call in and dispute a charge with VISA, I go in and hand them a shirt and they hand me some cash. It’s really pretty simple. She didn’t stop there though. “Their event is in July why would they be paying now?” Because they want to. Are you really expecting that a business will turn down revenue because it’s not “due” for a couple more months? I bet if I called my electric company and said I wanted to pay towards a bill that wasn’t due yet they wouldn’t say a word. So why would we?
It only got worse over the day. They requested to speak to the client to verify the transaction. Again, that’s not a problem, the problem began when the representative decided to tell him “You shouldn’t pay this early. Most event venues don’t collect payment until after the event is over.” I didn’t know that she also managed a banquet hall. Not just any banquet hall but ours, obviously. Not only that, but she must know where we are going to get the revenue to pay for the catering for the event that we have to order BEFORE the date of the event, since we’re just going to wait to receive funds. Or maybe she knows a caterer who is willing to purchase food supplies for 200 guests, cook, serve and watch us eat and then send a bill. Since I can’t think of any. Thankfully our client was not swayed by her obvious lack of knowledge. He is now taking time off to get a cashier’s check and we are switching to PayPal. Nothing should be this complicated.
Authorize.net put a “hold” on my account without letting me know, which resulted in part of December and all of January transactions not being deposited into my account. I was not aware until I received my January bank statement. Upon calling them, they fixed the problem that day and deposited the funds into my account. When I received my February bank statement, I noticed that I was still short funds. I called them again and they had “missed” some transactions. They immediately resolved it. How can a company “hold” funds I have collected for up to 60 days? That can’t be ethical. My statement showed that they collected the funds, which led me to believe they had been deposited. It was an accounting nightmare and could have caused me a great deal of financial problems.
In short, we attempted to use Authorize.net services and we were not able to process transactions. The problem was not solved and we had to close our account, nevertheless, we got charged a bunch of fees. Our business would not recommend using them. If you are looking to run your business flawlessly, then think twice. We would give F rating.
Authorize.net and its affiliate companies are horrible. $99 fee just to see if your ‘eligible’ for their services. No particular advantage on rates VS paypal.
Sales/Support is awful, they disconnect you when trying to transfer from one department to another, and you on hold in the middle of your call several times in a few minutes!
I never used the service once, and I yet was billed. Never logged to a control panel even once. When you create an account, you get other companies that handle part of service. It’s a mess. I thought I was waiting for approval for weeks when the sub company was requesting more financial information, even though my ‘gateway’ account was approved. Now of course you can get a refund because you’ve exceed the 48 hour mark. I was told my account was approved but locked. Meaning that I couldn’t withdraw anything from it till I supplied the paperwork, but I could only put money into it.
Even though you’ve signed up with one company you’ve got to track down the scraps of your account that are located else where. They continue to bill you, but pretend not to know about the sub accounts. I had to ask over and over to cancel my merchant account.
When is the last time you bough a car, but the lug nuts were from a different company and that company had separate billing? And because you didn’t ask for a refund on the lug nuts they wouldn’t let you return the car? That’s the kind of service you get with Authorize.net.
In my opinion their signup process is a nice little scam. Who else wouldn’t offer a refund to you if you didn’t use the product, and the account was locked so you couldn’t withdraw any money from it.
I’ve had a paypal account for years and never any any issues like this. I can only imagine what kind of hell those people have had that trust them to manage their sales.
Stay away from Authorize. Net at all costs! Terrible Customer Service!!
Authorize.net double charges our customers without admitting their mistake. Several of our customers got charged again by Authorize.net two weeks after the original charges were processed. We only have one on-site accountant to manually input credit card information when it comes to charge customer’s credit card; however, Authorize.net keeps accusing us for having two accountant submitting charges at the same time. Their customer service is very awful or virtually non-existed. Below are the brief conversation logs with Authorize.net:
5 May 2011
When we first contacted their customer service representative, named Jessie, we were told that Authorize.net will never and ever initiate a duplicate charge without its customer enrolls in the payment reoccurrence program. We never enrolled in payment reoccurrence program in the past. In addition, our own investigation indicated that the duplicate charges were not the errors caused by our own employees.
6 May 2011
The next day we contacted Authorize.net again in seeking for an explanation. The call was handled by a person named Gunner. We requested to speak to his manager or supervisor, but were rejected. We told him we have had several customers who got duplicate charges by Authorize.net, but he was only willing to take one set of duplicate charges. We wanted to give him more information about other duplicate charges, but he refuses to take them. A ticket number (29063597) was issued by Authorize.net as the result of this conversation.
9 May 2011
Monday, 9 May 2011, customers have kept calling us and questioned the pending duplicate charges. We called again and were helped by someone named Brandon M. At the end of the conversation, we were told that both the original and the duplicate charges came from the same IP address: 10.1.186.51. However, we did our own research and found that the IP address given is inconsistent with the IP address we use. IP address stating with 10 indicates that the address belongs to a private network. Authorize.net has been telling us that the case has been escalated for the review of its management. They still did not have a conclusive answer toward this incident.
10 May 2011
Called Authorize.net again and spoke to their supervisor, named Ben D. He kept insisting that the duplicate charges were caused by two accountants submitting payments at the same time. This time, their supervisor said the charges came from 208.57.144.25, which is the different IP address from the address they told us yesterday. Ben mentioned that 10.1.186.51 was authorize.net IP address, but had no idea why this IP address was given to us yesterday. However, based on our record, the duplicate charges are submitted at least one credit card information every second. In some cases, the two credit card numbers were submitted instantaneously. In other words, this is not likely to be submitted by a human being since the average processing time to input credit card numbers takes about 45 seconds or longer. We have urged Authorize.net to get back to us with a solution before 5:00pm PST or we will file a lawsuit against the company if no results are given before deadline.
To Authorize.net Management:
The duplicate charges made by Authorize.net without our consent are illegitimate and have severely damaged our company’s business reputation. We do not mean to leave this negative feedback online; however, we have no choice. We have been using your service over three years and we know how to use your virtual terminal when it comes to charge customer’s credit card. Your customer service representatives have failed to address this critical issue in a timely manner, talked to us with a terrible attitude, refused to take immediate action for further investigation, and accused us of submitting duplicate charges. We hope the management of Authorize.net will call its own customer service number at 1-877-447-3938 and get a feeling from its unhelpful customer representatives. We hope for those who have viewed this message to think twice if they decide to use Authorize.net as their payment processor.
Our company has saved both regular and irregular transactions processed by Authorize.net. Any person who has questions about details of this incident can email us at: [email protected]
Tim Lin