Authorize.net Payment Gateway
Contrary to popular belief, Authorize.net is not primarily 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.” 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. Authorize.net also powers e-check payments, phone payments, and monthly billing.
Though the company specializes in gateway services, it partners with resellers to provide merchant service accounts to businesses. Working with resellers makes rates, fees, and other facets of a contract negotiable, which is an important consideration for any merchant considering Authorize.net to set up those services.
Authorize.net Location & Ownership
Authorize.net was founded in 1996 and acquired by CyberSource in 2007, and then both CyberSource and Authorize.net were acquired by Visa in 2010. Michael Walsh is the CEO of CyberSource, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Bob Donahue is the CEO and Alex Burgin is the vice president of Authorize.net.
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Authorize.net Review Table of Contents
- Costs & Contract: Offers variable contract terms that depend on the reseller’s pricing for its payment gateway and…
- Complaints & Service: Has received more than 100 public complaints in regards to…
- BBB Rating: Has been accredited by the BBB since 2009 and has an “A+” rating but has received 69 complaints and 23 reviews regarding…
- Sales & Marketing: Partnered with a large number of resellers and has received some complaints about its…
85 Responses
After a few years of using Authorize.net without notice or warning, they disabled our eCheck feature and still allowed clients to pay via ACH. They accepted the payment from our clients and then froze our funds for what they said would be 90 days after the last transaction via ACH. You would think it would be 90 days per transaction but they kept pushing the date to 90 days from the latest transaction. They claimed they sent an email to notify us that we can no longer take ACH and we can only use credit cards. No such email was received and they didn’t disable the feature until we called to question why our funds haven’t been sent. If you are going to use them to accept payments, keep a close eye on your funds as they will try to hold them without notice and features may or may not work depending on how they feel. And to top it off they will NOT give the reason that they took away ACH. We have been in business for over 17 years with a spotless record with D&B and have only once in those 17 years had a chargeback. Avoid this company if you like transparency!
Stay out of politics, (second amendment) people don’t need big business to police their purchases.
I’m trying to buy Ceramic wax product from Torque. When in put in all my credit card info and select complete sal I get this response “your purchase was refused by authorize.net (Error code 251).” I’ve tried several times on different dates but get the same response. What’s up????????
Authorize.net has been holding $8097 in customer payments for more than 56 days and refuses to release the funds to me for 90 days. All customers have had the funds withdrawn from their accounts and have signed written agreements to have the funds transferred via ACH. I have never had one customer cancel a check or credit card payment, and I have excellent credit. I’ve already paid for and shipped all the products to the customers, and they’re satisfied with the products.
This is a painful dent in my small business cash flow. Business is hard enough without someone suddenly keeping your money for 90 days!
I first signed up for authorize.net as a payment gateway because I needed both credit card and ACH echeck services. I entered the first customer check payments as instructed, and the funds were withdrawn from the customers’ bank accounts.
Then authorize refused to give the money to me and said it was on hold for 30 days. I asked if there was a problem with the customers banks being able to pay, and they said no. I double-checked with the customers and they confirmed the funds had been withdrawn from their accounts and they were satisfied with my products.
After 40 days, I checked with authorize and they said authorize was now keeping my money for 90 days. Still no explanation or justification. I sent written signed agreements from each of the customers showing they had agreed to have the funds withdrawn from their accounts.
Getting desperate because of this painful dent in my cash flow, I called and emailed support, involved my payment processor and asked my bank for help. Each time, was told the funds remain on hold for 90 days.
Thankfully, I’ve found another gateway and payment processor and will avoid authorize.net like the plague.
They are currently withholding a little shy of 25k from me with the same 90 day hold and zero notification. Did you look into taking legal action?
*********READ THIS FIRST BEFORE YOU USE THIS COMPANY ************
This is with our merchant credit card processing company Authorized.net
On Aug 21, 2019 we hired them for the gateway/credit card processing company that works with our Dispatching software Service Fusion. We have been using them for about a week now and there has not been a problem. The below email was sent at 11:36 am 8/28/19.
After reading the email I called them and asked them what this meant.
They told me there was a team of analysis that reviewed our account with them and decided to terminate the Credit card processing part. We can still use them as a gateway.
They did not call or give us a 24 hr notice and was told they did not have to. So in the meantime, I have service technicians calling and asking why they cannot accept payment on their pad.
We have done in a week around $7000 in business and the deposits are with Authorized.net. They are holding all the money for 120 days to make sure there will not be any charge backs. We are talking November! I asked them how they can hold my money for that long and was told they can. They just sent this email. Really???
I asked them since they were going to hold our money for 4 months if they were going to pay me interest and they said no. I asked them what if I needed the money you are keeping to make payroll and had to use a line of credit would they pay interest for the loan? They basically told me we do not payout interest.
DBA:
GID:
MID:
Dear Merchant,
Authorize.Net is dedicated to supporting your business needs and we work hard to deliver the highest quality financial products and services. Unfortunately, a business decision has been made to close your merchant account immediately. Closure of your merchant account in no way impacts your access to or use of the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway.
Closure of the merchant account does not affect your access to or use of the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway.
Based on our review, all processed funds may remain on hold for a minimum of 120 days from the last processing date.
Sincerely,
Matt
Authorize.Net Merchant Services | http://www.authorize.net | 855.477.1190 | [email protected]
Hours of Operation for Risk and Underwriting: Monday-Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm MST.
This post will help: How to Make Your Payment Processor Release Your Funds
-Phillip
Do not use them! Horrible customer service!! It’s been over 2 months since we got approved for Authorize.Net but my account is still on test mode. I have tried to call to get help to activate it over 6 times no one HAS EVER PICKED UP!!!! Each time I have waited over 45 minutes! It was easier to find another company and do another application than waiting for someone to help from Authorize.Net!!! I do not recommend them at all!!!
This post will help: Best Payment Processors for Great Customer Service
-Phillip
At the very onset I disagreed with the terms. They wanted to dictate my return policy and wouldn’t allow me to refuse American Express (online payments). So I didn’t process one single solitary transaction. Not one. No service was ever provided. They proceeded to steal $25 from my bank account every month for almost a year before I noticed. The flat out, straight up, STOLE hundreds of dollars from me.
This post will help: Best E-Commerce Merchant Accounts
-Phillip
I had used Authorize.net as my gateway account for 10 years and was thrilled when I learned they had full merchant processing capabilities and I was excited to expand the relationship.
Conversely, they apparently didn’t see it as a business relationship at all. From the beginning I have been treated as an unknown and untrusted merchant. They have questioned the “quality” of my charges, placing me on an extended deposit plan without informing me. They have out hold after unfounded hold on my account. For example, 3 days after they told me everything was set to go, I got an email saying there was a funding hold because they wanted a copy of my business license and a couple of other things that could have been provided the day the account was opened. I provided it the same day, but then there was some other hold, that I was not informed about and then another and then another – none of them for any good reason.
It has been nearly a month since signing with them and to date I have received only 14% of the charges I have submitted – all of which they claim have “settled.”
They have used excuse after excuse and promise after promise telling me the funds will appear in 3 days. It is now nearly 3 weeks since the first of these promises. Every time I talk to them they say the hold is lifted and the funds will “pushed today.” The funds never show.
Every time I call I get the same runaround and every rep says they are a manager. The one today (David), said flat out, “Too bad. I’m the highest you’re going to get.” He said the release was sent today, but because it is such a big amount, it needs a manager’s review (apparently he isn’t the right kind of manager). Once the manager’s approval is received, it will take 3 days to receive the deposits. Remember, the amount is this big because they have held all the money. The person I talked with 2 days ago (Austin) said it would be pushed that day.
At this point, they have completely stopped my cash flow, strangling my business, and none of their phone “managers” seem to have any comprehension of the impact their deeply flawed process has on a merchant.
My advice to anyone considering working with them is to think twice. This is not an ethical or competent, or customer-oriented merchant processor. I’ve worked with several and have never experienced anything like it. The last deposit I received was on 3/27 and it only covered charges made between 3/15 and 3/18 – so 9 days to get the first 2 deposits, then nothing for the last 14 days.
Any other merchant processor would have been up and running on day 1. Authorize.net is a big mistake!
This post will help: How to Make Your Payment Processor Release Your Money
-Phillip
I have not used my authorize.net account at all, as I was not able to qualify with any card processing companies. Customer service was awful. I had never set up an account like this before, so I had No clue what I was doing and apparently neither did they. It’s taken me 2 months to try and get qualified with a processor for my website and I am officially giving up, because I honestly don’t have time to run around all day going back and forth with these “companies” and back and forth to and from the bank for multiple letters that needed to be signed by Chase Bank. I spent a fraction of the time in a dealership and walked out with a new car. This has been a total and complete joke. not to mention that the processing companies Insisted on having someone do an in person inspection of my work place, aka My home. even though I run an online print on demand business…. so, there is literally nothing to look at, besides my laptop. And well, I’m not gonna just let some company look through my laptop because they say so. Oh and apparently they “needed” to know my address history for the past 10 years? Wtf? Why? Just run a friggen credit report, look into my business via the website and verify my bank account info! You’d think I was being vetted to board Air Force One, with all of the information they “needed”.
I will say that the customer service was pretty good when I needed to close my account and they refunded me for April’s charge.
This post will help: Best E-Commerce Merchant Accounts
-Phillip
I have been in business for over 7 year and have never dealt with a company so corrupt and dishonest like Authorize.net. I opened an account with them and they approved the account after making several transactions. I received an email from them saying that my merchants account will be closed with absolutely no explanation. I requested in writing the reason for why the account is being closed and they couldn’t even give me a reason. They said all funds may remain on hold for up to 120 days from the last processing date. This corrupt company wants to keep my customers money and not refund them back. We requested a refund to our customer and this company also denied to do that. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY THEY ARE SCAMMERS.
This post will help: How to Make Your Payment Processor Release Your Money
-Phillip
No Way to stop billing
From The Editor
This Post Might Help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee
The rates changed so I had to cancel my account – however, they TOLD me it was cancelled, but they didn’t cancel it. They were charging me monthly for NOTHING for a while before I noticed. So keep an eye, they are very shady.
From The Editor
This Post Might Help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee
Absolutely disgusting. They closed my account, refuse to release funds and tell me that doing business with law enforcement and the Federal Government does not align with their policies.
Anti American Trash!
From The Editor
This Post Might Help: How to Make Your Payment Processor Release Your Money
We are going to quit Authorize.net soon, Because:
We signed up with Authorize.net for our online processing and later learned that Evo Payments handle our online processing. We sold some products on our website and expected the funds to be in our bank account and sent a check to a University at which we are holding a summer camp. While we were comfortable with our payment to the university, the money processed online on our site has never showed up in our bank account in over a week. But, in the meantime, Evo deducted it’s own commission from our bank account for these transactions as if the money was already transferred to our bank. Finally, after waiting long, I called them 4-5 times. I talked to different people including supervisor Jess (or James) and Melissa at Underwriting Dept. First they asked me for our bank statements. Since this is a new business, I sent bank statements from my old business as they told me to. I did. Then, next day when I called, they said they need me to email them credit card processing statements from my old processor. I did that too. Then, they asked me to email invoices for a split payment on our site. I did that too. Next two times I called, they were not able to locate some of the files I sent them earlier (either bank statement or invoices, etc. something different every time.) And finally today, Melissa promised me that she would call me and get this handled before she leaves for the day. They are now closed and she didn’t.
After that:
I spoke to three different departments (Customer Service, Underwriting and Lost Prevention) many times after my initial complaint. They don’t call me unless I call them and they continue putting a hold on our funds. They keep requesting new documentation, coming forward with new terms. Eventually, they said, they are going to hold on to our funds because some of the payments was for a trip and they said they don’t process travel payments because we were approved for only classes. I told them it’s not for travel, it’s the east coast trip for students coming from far and oversees and it’s a product that we sell. After pressuring much, they eventually agreed to release the funds other than the trip payments if I sent them an email confirming that I agree to their terms. I did and requested an email confirmation of what they told me. Melissa at underwriting rejected sending me a confirmation email. Melissa also told me that they would keep 10% of our funds since our classes are in summer, in 5 months. I told her that we were never told about that. She just said it’s policy. Then I was referred to the Lost Prevention Department. I told Meghan what I spoke with other departments again. Meghan told me that she will connect me with a supervisor today. I told her that based on my previous experience, I don’t believe that he would get back to me. After an hour, she sent me an email that the supervisor will review and will do his best to get an answer by the end of the business day to me.
This is the last email I got from EVO. Yet, they came back with a request for more documents. I asked them to refund the entire split payment and release the remaining payments , they said no to that too. One of the documents (Cross Corporate Guarantee) is asking for my old company to accept responsibility for all the debts of my new company, which is impossible considering there are different shareholders at two companies (I am no longer the owner of my previous company). Why would another company guarantee another company’s debts?
Hello Omer,
Per our conversation, please respond with the below requested documents and answers to questions:
Documents:
– Completed the attached Cross Corporate Guarantee so that bank statements and processing statements for …. can be accepted
– Documentation tying …. and ….. and yourself together
Questions:
– The application was submitted requesting a monthly volume of $5k which as we can see is not correct. Please provide an accurate monthly volume estimate for the credit card processing portion of your business.
– I found that you are listed as the previous president of ……… Are you still involved with this company? If so, how?
– Please confirm once the travel portion of the sales have been refunded. Per the invoices provided, this will be in the amount of $11,700 – $3900 x 3 back to your customers card. If you need assistance with the refund process, please contact Authorize.net at 877 447 3938.
Please respond quickly with all requests to that we can expedite the finalization of your account. Thank you.
Regards,
Jessica Gastin
I asked her again to release the funds other than the split payment and that we will quit them. She said, they would refund all payments and we would have to process cards on our own.
i recently signed up in authorize.net, oh my god, this is the theft on steroids, I barely used their platform, they said please wait for an account review, and you gonna hear from us within 48H, I waited for 13 days , I finally got an email from them, stating that I need to provide a supporting documents , honestly, because of the way they answered me and the duration for their reply, I’ve already lost interest in them, so ignored their email, but today, I checked my Gmail account to find a mind boiling email, saying they tried to charge me for a $75 ( set up fees+ monthly fees) for a service I didn’t have the chance to use it not for once, and threatening me that they gonna close my account, charge me an additional $20 for late fees and hire a debt collection agency. well, I’ve seen a lot in my life but this is what’s called a COMBO !.
again stay away from these burglars (they shouldn’t be called a company), and hell no! they can dream about their $75 because I’m not going to let them rip me off with my consent!
be aware!
The same exact thing happened to me however, the tried to charge me over $400 for I don’t know what because they were not able to process any of my transactions. Additionally, the super kind sales person has not returned any of my calls since he signed me up for this great service which was nothing but lies. Unbelievable they can remain in business.
It took them 1 he to answer there phone. What a joke. There customer service sucks. I’m still pissed I waited that long.
Stay away from Authorize.net! For the past month, I have been dealing with a nightmare situation in which they managed to merge my business’s account with another business’s account. They have the wrong owner information and tax ID number. I’ve had three phone calls with them trying to explain the situation. All three times I have been advised to fill out and submit the same form online (an application to update the tax ID number). However, the form keeps getting rejected because they don’t have the correct company information in their system. I’ve tried to explain this, but their customer service is terrible and incompetent.
It’s a blessing that they’re just a gateway provider and my merchant processor is depositing the funds in the correct account.
Firstly, the company doesn’t allow you to have one account for online and POS sales, so you have to pay the fees twice a month. Most of our sales are direct, so the monthly online sales fees are exorbitant, sometimes as high as 10%.
Secondly, as I said, you have to set up two different accounts for online and POS sales and pay the monthly fees twice – in our case, $37 – $40 plus the percentage of sales they take.
Thirdly, they send you three emails every time there is one online sale. Consolidating this information would go a long way to saving room in the inbox.
Fourthly, you can not generate sales reports or download .csv or quickbook information, so you must do it all manually.
That’s about it. We are going through the time consuming process of switching our online credit card processing to another company, but we thought others should know the nitty gritty, after all is said and done, with this company.
The worst customer service. when I asked them to explain to me about the monthly charges on my credit card they responded ” I don’t know” when I asked for refund they said “we can’t refund you and we will make a thicket for the billing department”
I called after 3 days and they said that my thicket got rejected. I asked if I can talk to someone about that and they simply said No and hung up.
Be careful, they charge you for the service you never asked for or used without your permission, and if you contact them they will say “it is your responsibility to check your card and make sure no one stills your money”
AUTHORIZE.NET ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A BUNCH OF THIEVES THAT NEED TO BE SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY! AUthorize.net are the biggest con artists around! Never supply these thieves with any banking account information. They will debit your account immediately after approving you for 30 seconds. They will approve you and a matter of hours later they will close your account just to debit your account $50. Make sure if you give them a checking account make sure you give them a personal account so you can immediately dispute the charges.
What makes Authorize.net bigger scumbags, is that they will distribute your application along with all your personal information (bank account, social security number, etc) to everybody. Then in a matter of weeks you’ll see your bank account being debited from different sources including Authorize.net.
Got a demand for money owed by EVO Merchant Services that these scumbags gave our information to without our permission demanding that we folk over 4 months worth of fees, for an account we didnt even know we had. They never emailed us, they never sent us anything, the fact is we even documented calling Authorize.net demanding they shut everything down and we even got written statement from these lying scum. It turns out these theives will send your information (social security the works) to every scumbag processing company around. No signed contract, no terms, no phone call, they just start debiting your account.
I feel for everyone of you who have posted here. I was to look into another avenue of payment on eBay; after reading thee reviews and how I see the same thing repeatedly, there is no way I would do business with this company.
I am NOT happy with PayPal about a few issues, but reading this makes what I have gone through look like nothing. The generic (if any) answers, the rudeness, the insane fee’s!
They work for you not the other way around. I would suggest if anyone ever continues with them, do not give a REAL SS#. To save your credit and reading the one where they sell off your info, there HAS to be a lawsuit waiting to happen and NOW for giving your SS# to ANYONE. That is ILLEGAL 100%.
Question, can you go directly to a Credit-card company and have them do this, or do places say like Sears, Wal-Mart have to use scams like this too. There MUST be a better way. I have not seen any resolve other than a couple saying PayPal, who lately gives refunds to buyers with ZERO proof and MONTHS after the delivery. I just had one yesterday (2nd in 1 1/2 months) where I dont even know what the item was, and they dont either yet found for the buyer. Are you kidding me. They ALL $UCK if that is the case. You get as high up the food chain there on disputing it and best they can say is, yes we should have done a better job and we will train our employees better. But nothing we can do now. BULL$HIT!
There if you happen to use to buy, it is open season on sellers to be ripped off just by making a false claim. Robot employees, management that KNOWS they screwed up but tough attitude.
I dont sell 10K a month but it is item to either drop selling on eBay (2nd income) or figure I have to add another 20% to my prices to cover for the thieves and it is growing.
The answer is simple. Since the biggest fear is these companies losing money because the way the laws are set up. Buyers more and more commit fraud because credit card companies encourage it and they do nothing to stop it. The merchant is the one that gets screwed every single time. When a chargeback happens, the only thing these merchant processing companies worry about is the loss. Regardless if the merchant is right or wrong, these merchant processing companies will always screw the seller over every single time to protect themselves. Their moto is we have a lot of customers, so we dont need you petty account. What can the seller do, there are so many enemies against the seller that your only course of action is to sue everyone involved. Chase is the worse one of them all, they promote fraud and do nothing about it. All our chargebacks this year, no joke, was all from Chase card holders. So we now block cards from chase. But the bottom line is that if you do everything right when taking business online, is that everyone is out to screw you over – including your own processing company!
I set up an account with Authorize.Net last November (2015). I agreed with their sales person on a set fee. When I was reviewing my stats and charges (which I did not do often enough), I discovered that they had duped me and more than doubled my fees. Someone indicated that in the small print on the top of page 4 of their application I checked a box which permitted them to charge me over 6 % in fees. When I explain this was obviously an error, then promised to make it rightt. It has now been over two months… they should over me @ $5000 in over charges. Last I heard, they wanted to offer me $45. My next step is to file a complaint with not only the BBB but the any state regulators where they are doing business. Boo-Hiss on them.
authorize.net needs to be shut down. I received several thousand spam text messages from them on behalf of Rent in Marin, neither of which are companies I have ever done business with. I contacted authorize.net and told them to stop spamming texts on my cell phone several times and they gave me the response “We don’t do that here, you need to contact the vendor who is our customer.” I contacted Rent in Marin who are apparently a derelict company with no way to contact them via email or phone. Subsequently, Rent in Marin vanished from the internet and their website disappeared while the text messages continued. Authorize.net continued to give the mentally incompetent, robotic response “This is none of our business, contact Rent in Marin.” I finally figured out to start a profile with my phone service online and changed my text settings to stop the thousands of receipt spam texts from authorize.net. No thanks to you authorize.net
I’m a consumer and purchased vitamins through Dr. Mark Hyman and Authorize.net charged my credit card twice. I complained to Hyman’s customer service, they denied responsibility and said it was all Authorize.net’s fault and that they were working on the issue (apparently it happened to a LOT of transactions. Two weeks later, the charge is still on my card. Seems like it could be solved by now. To not fix a “glitch” like charging someone’s card for something they didn’t buy just seems like theft. I hold Dr. Mark Hyman and Authorize.net both responsible. It’s not a huge charge, but it pisses me off.
This company is TERRIBLE. They are owned by Cybersource which was purchased by VISA. Their corporate office telephone number on their website is disconnected. I am a merchant who uses this company (but not for long). They have double billed my customer now twice in less than 4 months. It is impossible to get to someone who can actually help you. My customers are n=being double billed and they told me their support group is too busy to assist me. STAY AWAY FROM THESE GUYS!!!
AUTHORIZE.NET IS A SCAM. Authorize.net uses the same $49.00 gateway setup fee to scam merchants out of money. Authorize.net will approve you for an account, just so they can debit your account $49 even when they haven’t provided you anything. They will approve you for an account, and then immediate the same department will close your account. They do this so they can obtain your bank account and routing information so they can illegally debit your account the $49 gateway setup fee. When you call them you have to talk to sales and immediately these scumbags will say no. They say they will refer you to 3 other processors they deal with and these processors are bigger scam artists than Authorize.net. Authorize.net sent us one so called merchant provider that when you Google’d their 800 number, it came up with a bunch of complaints of telemarketers and other things. When you looked up their domain it was nothing more than a website that looked like a 2 year old bought it. Authorize.net knows that if you have a business checking account, there is no way to dispute a non authorized transaction, only for personal accounts. So that’s one reason why they ask for your banking information immediately when your not even approved. DO NOT GIVE THEM THIS INFORMATION UNTIL YOU KNOW AFTER A FEW DAYS THEY DIDNT CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT. AUTHORIZE.NET ARE SCUM!
Read the fine print of your contract with them carefully. To Cancel your account you must call on a specific day of theyear, Wait on hold for an hour, and then pay a $250 cancellation fee. Otherwise you have to pay the monthly service fee $42 for another year, and then remember to call again to cancel your account, or pay it in advance to be allowed to cancel your account.
These guys are crooks!!!
I have signed up for gateway and completed the application however they were asking for documents that I couldn’t provide. The representative emailed me that I have to provide the documents otherwise they will not provide the gateway service. After a month they wanted me to pay for the gateway that they didn’t provide. They emailed me mutliple times and I called them multiple times to resolve the issue and told them that I am willing to pay for it – I got tired of dealing with them. The representative told me that he will email me the amount to pay and I agreed to mail them the check. I have waited for the email but instead later on they sent the bill to the collection agency. I decided to just pay the collection agency because I no longer wanted to deal with Authorize.net – worst customer service ever!!!!
These are really far out there complaints.. I have used Auth.net since 1999. I have ran millions of dollars through Auth.net with FIVE different corporations… I have NEVER ran into a single problem logging in, refunding transactions, or getting customer support.
It seems like if there is a “freeze” on your account, then you have had too many chargebacks or complaints against you.
Hi John,
Please reply to this comment with your business name and location in order to authenticate your testimonial. Thanks!
Maybe your considered a valuable client. However…us “pee-ons” were treated badly.
Authorize.net Scammers! Don’t use them, you’ve been warned. Authorize.net IS NOT a merchant provider, is just a gateway services provider. Even PayPal with all the horror stories still is 100% better.
Their hamburger flipping customer service is terrible, They can’t tell from a simple credit card transaction to how to transfer funds.
Stay away!
Authorize.net are unprofessional in their business dealings and utilize a cunning business model. They let you sign up and pay $49 set up fee. Then after you make one business transaction they reject YOUR business model, terminate your account, and pocket your $45 plus another $25 for other processing. They let you make one business transaction so that they don’t have to refund your $45. They just say that you “used their services once for a business transaction” so you cannot get a refund. How cunning is that? Why can’t they be like Paypal who first assess your account and business model and only charge you if you’re cleared? If Paypal can do it, so can authorize.net. The difference is, authorize.net WANTS to take away your money. F***ing piece of s**t company. I suggest you go with Paypal Pro (2016 version). When I went with them, they had a personal customer service professional discuss my company over the phone with them, and since I was opening 2 companies even waived the monthly subscription for one of them! How customer friendly is that? Good on Paypal!
The Absolute Worst Customer Service!!!
Absolutely one of the worst customer service providers I have ever encountered. I have a small business and you are allowed one free card reader…Make the right choice because they are non refundable and not exchangeable. I have an iPad I was going to use for my business so I choose the one the inserts into the iPad (I did look to make sure my model was workable with the system) For some reason the card reader would not work on my iPad but did work on my iPhone (I wanted to use a bigger device). I talked to technical support, their conclusion…My speaker jack did not work. However when I would put headphones into the jack it would work. I tried to just exchange it for the computer version and they would not. $75.00 for the device. I chalked it up on sometimes things just don’t work out. Then I was trying to close out the bank account the I original set up with Authorize.net, I needed two items to complete this process, an application and either a letter from the back, an online summary page with the bank logo with full account and routing numbers or a voided check. I did not order checks, because I do not need them. My bank does not give out letter like they were requesting so I printed and send the summary page (with my banks help) and the application. Summary page was not good enough. The customer service rep said that “IF, it came from my bank it basically was not good enough. So I was told to take a screen shot which I did from my phone, the phones screen shot is not good enough. The run around and the words that were in the emails from the service rep was by far the most unprofessional I have encountered! I wish I would have read up on the reviews before this headache began.
The worst payment processor on the planet. Their Automatic Recurring Billing has been charging my customers on a daily basis for monthly subscriptions since their ARB on April 9, 2016. DO NOT USE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are a nightmare to work with. I have not received a callback from management for 7days.
I have been with Authorize.net for about 5 years, in my opinion, these people are truly bad news and their practices are questionable. Do yourself a favor and look into other options, you will be very happy you did. Please note the following:
1. Their technology and options is outdated.
2. Most of the newer system will automatically update a credit card expiration date, however as far as I know, this is either not an option on Authorize or they don’t appear promote it.
3. Their in-house merchant bank charges significantly more than the competition.
4. The service is bad, they appear to really not care.
5. I once had a security issue that was reported by their own system, they didn’t even have a security department to review it, they blew it off and I was not sure if there was a security breach or not to this day.
6. This is the worst, when you leave and want you re-occurring credit card data, they will charge you a minimum of $1000, at least as of the date I am writing this. I was told by a former employee that it takes them half hour at most to extract this data, but their rates are $250/hour with a 4 hour minimum. I was further told they do this to make it very difficult to leave.
My opinion is that this is really a horrible company in every-way, there is almost nothing good about them. They just don’t seem to care and will seam to stick it to you when they can. I highly recommend to stay away, my experience and opinion leads me to conclude that I aM not dealing with highly ethical people who don’t appear to want to improve their produce.
“Scammers! Don’t trust Authorize.net or total merchant services” – Authorize.net and total merchant services. High pressure sales pushing me to use their mobile device. I was VERY reluctant and happy with my square device and service. The decision to try them out cost me $114.00. I spent hours setting up the device. The card reader never worked. I called customer service and we supposedly got it up and running. But it still didn’t work. I called again, and they told me it should work … But nope! So I gave up. I cancelled authorize.net and didn’t cancel total merchant services. I was getting charged $38.00 per month for 3 months when I haven’t even used the device yet. I was offered no refund I asked to talk to supervisor and he was more rude then the c.s. I was talking to. This is the first review I have left for any company. Hopefully this will help you. Crooks , scammers
Been with them for years, hated them for years. My biggest complaint with Authorize.net is zero proactive communication with merchants. We don’t matter. When their data center caught fire and the gateway went down, they didn’t make a peep. Merchants were left in the dark, so contingency plans couldn’t be executed. We all lost money. More recently they made a change to their security certs that hosed thousands of carts, ours included. Their support was terrible, even dumping a lot of the support burden on a third party company that had nothing to do with their changes. I was pretty mad about it the whole thing. Their response; “We sent you an email a month ago and posted an announcement to our website. We believe it’s your responsibility to review your account for updates.” They are a prime example of too big to care. It would be easy to make sure every merchant knew about the upcoming changes, or was alerted in case of a fire or other emergency effecting their business, but Authorize.net doesn’t care. That’s why we’re shopping for a new gateway.
Terrible customer service. Would consider other options. Service has been down two days and can not access software.
Stay away from Authorize.net! We tried their services and the integration to our cart was a nightmare compared to other services. We got charged almost immediately nearly $100. When we canceled with two weeks and asked for a refund (without ever using their services) – we only got half back. What a rip-off.
I have read others complaining that authorize.net claims multiple charges and accounts. Our issue is similar in that they can not get their stories straight with the card merchants on why there are multiple accounts. After multiple requests for the account to be closed, they continue to bill and send the balances to collections. They then make no effort to resolve the multiple accounts issue and want you to have to go through their collections company. No customer service really, you would get a better response from a corpse.
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.
Hi Ken, I am having a lot of issues with them. They are stringing me along and not giving me the things I requested for the last 4 months. If there is a class action lawsuit, I would like to contribute my story. Did you ever figure this out?
Thank you.
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Are you with Authorize.net? Learn how to resolve this complaint.
I posted somewhere on here on my opinions concerning a class action and I have to say that I’m in unless they award me the $325 they owe me for charging me $25 a month since May 2015 for a service that I haven’t even used or knew anything about!
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.
I am for a class action law suit. This company has been charging me monthly for a business that I don’t even own! I remember attempting to set up an online business because for a while I was selling stuff through e-bay but I have since stopped but this authorize.net company keeps charging me $25 a month! I couldn’t figure out why until after doing some research and now I do remember that I cancelled my website …at least I thought I did but apparently there is some loophole I failed to catch or something. I’m not very business or money savvy so I’m sure there’s some fine print I forgot to read or something. Anyway, I filed an unauthorized charge dispute through my bank and the next few days received some emails from this company telling me there has been a transaction situation and they can’t get money from me, blah blah blah and that they’re closing my account etc. Well, guess what?! I never even knew I had an account with them in the first place! I honestly thought these charges were from a company I used to work for who charged us for data that we used on the company smart phones that they provided to us. But now I’ve realized that I’ve been tricked by authorize.net. wow….wish I would have clued up a long time ago. So I don’t know what to do at this point. If I did go after them with a law suit there would more than likely be some loophole that I don’t understand or whatever…..I did manage to get back $75 and overdraft fees that my bank charged me but authorize.net still owes me at least $200.00. But yes, I would be in for a class action suit against this company if anyone else is.
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