Overview
BankCard USA Merchant Services (bankcardusa.com) is a merchant account provider that specializes in credit card processing and electronic payment services. The company is a reseller of First Data that shares past ties with Maverick Bankcard, a relationship that is covered in our Maverick Bankcard review. According to a BankCard USA representative, these two companies no longer have any relationship besides being located on different floors of the same building, and each operates independently of the other.
BankCard USA claims to provide processing for 400-1,000 new merchants per month and to have serviced over 100,000 merchants since its creation. The company began operating in 1997 and is located at 28720 Roadside Drive Suite 299, Agoura Hills, California 91301. BankCard USA Merchant Services is a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Walnut Creek, California. The president of BankCard USA is Shawn Skelton and the vice president is Scott Hardy.
Key Points
- Sales & Marketing: BankCard USA appears to hire independent sales agents and has received a low-to-moderate number of complaints about its sales practices.
- Costs & Contract: BankCard USA appears to offer a three-year contract with an early termination fee of $99.
- Complaints & Service: BankCard USA has received more than 45 public complaints.
- BBB Rating: BankCard USA has an “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau and has received 25 complaints in the past three years.
- Rates & Fees: How Merchants Got The Best Rates With BankCard USA
Related: Phillip’s Top All-Purpose Processor Picks
Phillip’s Top E-Commerce Picks
Phillip’s Top Mobile Processing Picks
Phillip’s Top “High-Risk” Processing Picks
BankCard USA Bottom Line
BankCard USA rates as an average merchant account provider according to our rating standards. The company has a moderate complaint rate for its apparent size, and merchants consistently report dissatisfaction with the company’s contract terms, sales tactics, and customer service. The company can improve its overall rating by lowering its complaint volume and revising its sales strategies. It is worth noting that BankCard USA could potentially be confused with another business named Bancard USA. These entities are unrelated.
About Phillip Parker
Hi, I’m Phillip and I’m disgusted by the state of credit card processing in the U.S. and abroad. I believe that the industry has been overrun by people who engage in fraud and deception in order to steal money from hard working business owners. I’ve made it my mission to expose the companies and individuals who engage in predatory marketing, pricing, and contracts, or just provide terrible service. Along with uncovering the bad guys, I’ve also discovered the good guys who do stand out from the status quo. CPO is a website where you will find ratings and reviews of these companies along with advice on how to save money and which service providers consider. Together we can move the industry in a positive direction. If you would like to help support my work, please checkout “Fee Sweep” my eGuide to getting the lowest possible fees when accepting card payments. If you haven’t heard of “interchange” this advice will save you hundreds, even thousands, in processing fees.
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The company is a joke. Signed us up for an account and month later closed the account and is now holding over $2500 worth of deposits. Angela in the risk department never answers calls or replies to emails. Sales reps are very good at convincing you that they do everything different from all the other merchants but BankCard USA is horrible once you have an account and actually need help.
I used BankCard USA for three years. First, I was a new business start up, so I received a ton of offers for CC companies. I called about 4 or 5 of those companies. When I spoke with BCUSA, the sales rep did exactly as the above description in this article declares: they misled me on their fees (percentages of fees/use). Second, I was told that BCUSA percentages were between 5% to 10%. Without exception I was charged between 23% to 25% in fees every year. I was also charged if a customer had a points reward system on their CC – BCUSA never disclosed these fees would also be charged, unless it was buried in their 80 pages contract somewhere – which it may have been and I just overlooked it. However, they did advertise and promise a rate of 0.23% because I was a new business, along with a FREE CREDIT CARD TERMINAL – which is how they listed it – in all caps. I never received my wonderful low rate of 0.23%, nor did I receive my free terminal.
I do not recommend this company at all! BE WARNED, they will find a way to gouge you. If you are a new business start up, try your best to avoid BCUSA if at all possible make them your last ditch effort to obtain a CC processing company. Take Paypal only, in the beginning, if you must. I’m no longer in business, they are partly to blame!
What a terrible terrible company. The whole time, with a card reader, I was charged for “no card present”. After months of “We will give you the best rate” I finally reached out to a third party and realized how much money Bankcard was taking from me. UNREAL!!!
I was told ” No contract” When I emailed a cancellation notice the company never replied. One year later, after they kept charging me, they said I had to send a signed form in to them to cancel. They never told me I had to do it and said I am owed zero money as refund. Somehow I let my company get screwed be the same company every month for about 2.5 years. RUN RUN RUN.
Please I repeat please stay away from Bank Card USA – I wish I had did my research before I trusted this company with my business. They almost destroyed my business. – They have stolen over $2,500 from me. I opened my account with them March of this year and here it is August and they still have not realased my money. They are liars and deceitful. I am disgusted and cannot understand how these money hungry sum bags are still in business. I am warning you please do not trust your business to these people.
The costumer service sucks, every time I call them seem like they are having a bad day. Technical support if is a women in the line for get it, they hung the call, with no helping me, so I need to call several times until a guy (men) help me, a few times I went out off service in my retail store per 1-2 hrs.
This company is full of crap. They are in California which means for me being in Georgia it makes it very difficult to get anyone on the phone. Ryan in there risk department is one of the rudest CSR ever. They will hold your money without so much as an email as to why. When they do get you through to Ryan he gives very indirect answers and no reason for the hold up but his personal feelings. PLEASE STAY AWAY! I only ended up with this company through a mistake from my processing company Shopkeep. You can’t do any research on these people because they seem to be new. They hold your money in any account that gets interest for them so they continually make money off of you but can’t return a phone call.BEWARE OF BANKCARD USA AND THEIR RISK MANGER RYAN KUEHI. They have $700 of my money with no word on it being released. Left three messages for Todd Duplain with no return call in a week sine he is the person who opened this account incorrectly from what his manager says
I am beyond dissatisfied with Bank Card USA. The customer service has been terrible and it is extremely difficult to get a hold of the SUPERVISOR! He input my account number incorrectly and now ALL of my funds have been transferred and deposit into the WRONG account! It has been 2 weeks now that I have been out of all of the money I have made from work. I am a single mother with overdraft fees and bounced checks all because the supervisor input my account number incorrectly! How terrifying is that. I have called him at 5 times this week alone and called customer service 3 times. How is that okay? And no one can give me answers and just give me false promises. This is my livelihood, this is NOT joke and should not be taken lightly as it has been. I work in a salon with a group of girls and were planning to switch to another Merchant, this whole situation has been very eye opening.
I will try to be very brief. I experienced HORRIBLE customer service today (11/19/15) by Bank Card USA. After ten days of not hearing back from the representative who was handling my account at Bank Card USA I called their main office to find out whats going on. There I spoke to a lady with a PISS POOR attitude who worked in customer service named Alex. This lady was extremely unhelpful and couldn’t provide me with any information on why I haven’t heard from my representative at Bank Card USA. Then she rudely transferred me to my representatives voicemail in the middle of me asking her another question. I left a voicemail and called back and spoke to the supervisor in Customer Service named Corrie and this gentlemen seemed to no care one bit about my situation. He informed me that my account had been forwarded to another processor (in which no one had told me about at Bank Card USA) and made no mention of remorse in the way I was treated by the poor customer service rep named Alex. Needless to say as a business owner I hate “poor” customer service and I will never do business with Bank Card USA going forward. I highly recommend you look elsewhere as well. God Bless!
These people have been calling our business for months with sneaky sales tactics. I would not do business with U.S. Bankcard no matter how great the up-front rates were (the people I have spoken with on the phone are enough to make me skeptical and then when you add in all the negative reviews and issues with the BBB, this only confirms my decision). We will be notifying the Attorney General if the phone calls continue. Steer clear of U.S. Bankcard!
Worse prepossessing company ever, They tell you all nice talk when they sign you up and they give you low rate but they hit you with falls charges, Hidden charges and when you call there customer service no one care and they all refer you to Cory, Cory never answer the phone never return calls,
Be careful before you sign up with them..DO NOT LOCK YOUR SELF TO A LONG TERM CONTRACT.
Yep.. my wife own nail salon call pro top nail in Anaheim hill . Been with them for so long and finally I got family member also doing credit card machine so I decided to cancel but they come up with all kind of excuses and tried to told me a sale rep will contact me later .. All they do is annoying and trying to beg me for staying back and not cancel when I don’t want to stay with them anymore .. So annoying they keep calling when I already decided to cancel already. Just sent me the cancellation form so I can fill out already!! What a waste of my times keep calling !!
In March 17, 2014 my credit card terminal stopped to work. I complained about it and send a new set of terminal on 19th. Now I am waiting for a returning ticket or postal level with recipient address. Today I gave a call and trying to ask with the associate where and when you are sending the UPS to pick up the bad terminal?
The associate answered me very rudely. He said he has already send 4 times now I have to send it by my self other wise I will be charged 300.00 dollars. I trying that person to send the shipping label to my next address but he denied and said he can’t change the address. It is very rude and unlawful also.
This company is not trustworthy to get assistance when a customer have a trouble.
I am trying to find out some other service provider and breakup the business soon with this service provider.
I signed up with Bankcard USA for my new small business and it turned a nightmare regarding all the fee they charge. By the time you hire them as you credit card processor the seems to be friendly and diligent on the phone but when they get your business they are the worst: in customer services, they are rude specially that guy (Corey), not mentioning that I start to paying $45 for their service charge and a couple month later they charge me $75 with no reason. This company is a scam… They will no tell you when you signed up, that you are committed with 3 years contract but, I found out at the hard way. In short if you google it over 70 bad reviews cannot be a coincidence. This people are stealing other’s people money left and right. Hopefully somebody and some agency punish them or at least put them out service.
I signed up for Bankcard USA Merchant account . I called them up to closed the account after a days my account has been activated, it has never been working by the way, because the credit card processor is not compatible with my website.
One of rep send my a closing account form and did mentioned that $295.00 will be deduct from my account and it will be release back into my account in the couple days. Basically, that is for the terminal fees you supposed to pay after your account has been activated for 1 year. She replied she never says that. I was shocked for a bit to her response as a rep working at the bank.
I called them back again one of the rep replied that she has to request the refund back into my account so now I am waiting.
Again the terminal fees of $295.00 is paying after your account has been activated for 1 year. In my case is about 1-3 days during those days I was trying to set up the credit card processor so I can accept a credit cards on my website, but I was unable to do, so I have to canceled l, but they turn around and charge $295.00
Be aware and stay way from “BankCard USA Merchant”!!!!!! I swear!!!!!!!
Yes, this happened to me too. They use your routing number and withdraw the money. There’s no invoice or letter informing you of the same. In fact their customer service people swear that there will be no penalties for any early termination.
I think this is very wrong and there has to be a change in law. I’m a small business owner too and I don’t charge for a service that I don’t provide neither do I penalize my clients for not continuing to do business with me. There should be some legislation passed so that these sort of companies are held accountable and not allowed to get away with this kind of fraud.
I will never ever use this company again and will not advise anyone to do business with them either.
Despite the fact that we canceled our account over 8 months ago and even returned all of the equipment over 4 months ago, we continually receive bills from Bank Card USA. Our emails go unanswered and it seemingly is impossible to get a hold of these people over the phone. Last time i got a hold of one of the employees, I was treated in an unprofessional manner and the gentleman I was speaking to was very rude.
This company is a scam and it is taking several months to simply cancel my account.
Avoid this company like the black plague.
BankcardUSA intentionally masks actual costs for services rendered using don’t ask don’t tell policies. They turn a OTHERWISE 30 minutes due diligence effort into a 4 minute signup. ThEy further complicate their merchant agreements with deceptive, partial, truths, and separated application forms to formal agreement IN POST SIGNATORY conversion techniques.
For example: if you are an internet based business, their form does not stipulate in plain English what your processing rates will be. Rather, they hide THESE VARIABLE rates by omitting them on the application forms or place them within muddied heading definitions to be debated later by you with them.
Their customer support and technical support department consists of 2 qualified people and a hand full of telephone call routing clerks.
Competitively compare carefully before you sign with them and understand what it is they require of you during processing periods.
Few, if any, merchants ever qualify for next business day deposits due to the rating and/or risk place on each transaction. If you have perfect credit, low processing amounts per batch and batch the same day, you might receive a next day deposit, but with security amounts withheld. OF COURSE THE NEXT DAY deposit possibilities are only valid on certain types or low risk categories of actual transactions made as well.
Separately, PCI security compliance alone can cost a merchant $240 (OR MORE) PER YEAR additional ! It varies based upon the type of merchant processing you are implementing
You will pay MORE to BACKCARDUSA in aggregate fees, be treated disrespectfully when asking for assistance and be denied rationale resolution to concerning costs and operational issues to reasonable satisfaction.