| Category Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Sales & Marketing |  |
| Costs & Contract |  |
| Complaints & Service | |
| BBB Rating |  |
Overall Rating
Overview
Elavon Logo
Elavon (elavon.com) is a large merchant account provider and credit card processor that also supplies e-commerce solutions, hosted gateways, gift & pre-paid card services, electronic check services, and PCI compliance programs. The company was formed from a merger of NOVA Information Systems and euroConex and is part of U.S. Bank’s (U.S. Bancorp’s) payment services division. Elavon is based out of Atlanta, Georgia, and has been in the credit card processing industry since 1991.
Elavon claims to serve over one million merchants worldwide, with a primary focus in North America and Europe. The company’s equipment lease subsidiary, Ladco Leasing, is a major supplier of credit card terminals and other payment processing equipment. Elavon also has its own online payment gateway called InternetSecure and can integrate with other gateways such as Authorize.net. For international businesses, the company offers settlement in 16 currencies and a platform that can provide authorization in 85+ currencies and can convert international credit card purchases into the cardholder’s home currency in 48 different currencies.
Sales & Marketing | B-
| Key Points – Sales & Marketing | |
|---|---|
| Uses independent resellers? | Yes |
| Promotes deceptive rate quotes? | No |
| Discloses all important terms? | No |
Elavon relies heavily upon resellers, sub-ISOs, independent agents, and partnerships to market and sell its credit card processing services. This marketing strategy is common among large merchant account providers and can often prove harmful to a company’s reputation, as it appears to have done for Elavon. One of the company’s most notable resellers is the grocer and retailer, Costco. In fact, Costco Merchant Services is often mistaken as its own credit card processing company when, in fact, Costco is simply acting as a sales agent of Elavon.
Elavon itself does not appear to use any deceptive advertising or rate quoting tactics on its website. The company has recently added a pricing page that lists specific rate quotes, promising 2.65% plus $0.19 on swiped transactions and 3.5% plus $0.19 on keyed-in payments. These rates seem to apply to both credit card terminals and mobile processing. The company also lists a $10 monthly fee on this page. These rates and fees do not appear to be misleadingly quoted at this time.
Most of Elavon’s accounts are established by resellers who use their own sales and marketing strategies. In a few cases, it is apparent that some of Elavon’s resellers are using misleading tactics based on reports from merchants. The company and its resellers are also notorious for signing merchants up for expensive, non-cancellable equipment leases through Ladco Leasing as part of their merchant services packages. Elavon usually enforces the terms of the lease agreement even when merchants claim that they were deceived by an agent.
[Related: Get quotes from a provider with “A” rated sales policies]
Costs & Contract | C
| Key Points – Costs & Contract Terms | |
|---|---|
| Swiped rate: | 2.65% + $0.19 |
| Keyed-in rate: | 3.5% + $0.19 |
| Termination fee: | $195-$295 or none |
| PCI compliance fee: | $29-$59 per month |
| Equipment lease: | 48 mos./non-cancellable |
Elavon’s pricing and contracts terms may vary by merchant based upon processing volumes, business types and risk variables. Not only that, but some Elavon resellers have the flexibility to adjust contract terms, rates, and fees within specific guidelines as set by the company. As if these two factors weren’t complicated enough, Elavon appears to have made a number of recent changes to its contract terms, so merchants are reporting many different rates and fees at this time.
Prior to February 2013, the company’s standard merchant account contract included a three-year service agreement with a $295 early termination fee if cancelled within the first year, or $195 if cancelled within the second or third year. Since February 2013, it appears that Elavon has ceased to include an early termination fee in its standard contract. It is unknown whether this policy change affects contracts signed or renewed under the company’s former terms. Merchants should also keep in mind that resellers may be able to adjust the service agreement to up to five years and add cancellation fees if they desire. Elavon also formerly charged PCI Compliance fees that varied from $59 to $29 per month; however, the company’s recent promises of no more “hidden fees” would seem to indicate that it has abandoned this practice. Elavon’s current monthly fee is listed as $10.
Although Elavon appears to be rebranding itself as a more transparent processor, the company continues to own and operate the equipment lease provider Ladco Leasing, which has a very poor reputation among merchants. The standard Ladco Leasing agreement is an expensive, non-cancellable 48-month equipment lease that often costs up to ten times the actual price of the equipment. Elavon seems to go to great lengths to conceal the relationship between Ladco and Elavon, probably due to the fact that there are very few positive reviews of Ladco to be found online.
Ladco Leasing Lawsuit News Report
Complaints & Service | C
| Key Points – Complaints & Service | |
|---|---|
| Total complaints: | 250+ |
| Live customer support: | Yes |
| Most common complaint: | Hidden fees |
It is important to keep in mind that Elavon is a huge processor and that the bigger a merchant service company becomes, the more complaints it will have. With that said, Elavon has over 200 complaints in the comment section of this review and over 40 on Ripoff Report, with many more filed against Ladco Leasing. This is an average amount of complaints compared to other processors of its size. Merchants primarily report problems with sudden holds and freezes, unexpected fees, billing disputes, equipment lease problems, and poor customer service. The common theme appears to be that the smaller a merchant’s business, the harder it is to get problems resolved. You can read actual merchant complaints in the comment section at the end of this review.
BBB Report | C+*
| Key Points – BBB Report | |
|---|---|
| Product/service: | 81 |
| Billing/collection: | 113 |
| Advertising/sales: | 19 |
| Guarantee/warranty: | 1 |
| Delivery: | 2 |
As of this update, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) is awarding Elavon an “A+” rating despite having 216 complaints filed in the last 36 months (down from 247 at the time of our last update). Of the total complaints, 113 are due to billing and collection issues, 81 to problems regarding products and services, 19 to advertising and sales issues, two related to delivery problems, and one due to a warranty issue. The BBB report states that 160 complaints were resolved but that 56 left the merchant dissatisfied with Elavon’s response. We have adjusted the BBB’s rating to a “C+” for the purposes of this review based on how our criteria would have scored it. You can learn more about why we adjust BBB ratings in our rating criteria.
* Denotes CPO-adjusted BBB score
Bottom Line
Elavon Review
Rated out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Phillip Parker
Reviewed on 2015-01-01
Elavon is one of the largest credit card processors in the world. Due to this fact, this processor seems to be a better fit for businesses with high processing volumes ($100,000+ per month) and/or ones that need international payment acceptance. Although the company has numerous complaints, it serves over one million merchants globally and is bound to have a few unhappy customers. Due to this processor’s large size, we have set Elavon’s rating to a “C” since most businesses processing less than $100k per month would be better served by smaller providers that are able to supply better customer service for their size. Elavon can improve its score by enacting more favorable leasing policies and by resolving complaints before they become public.
This review was originally published on 8/27/10 and last updated on 1/1/15.
Leave your review of Elavon in the comment section below:
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Elavon withdrawn more than 50’000.00 from my bank!!! The story starts here: on January 2015, i had a customer who started come to my store to buy lots of things with a prepaid card, and every transaction was approved and signed by customer too, so we never thought it would be a problem. But one day we checked our business account and found out a large amount of money withdrawn from Elavon, which was not right. So i called Elavon to ask about the withrawn, and a investigator representative said because someone used fraud master card. I would have never find out about this if I never called Elavon, how come Elavon did not aware me about the fraud card used in my store when people there already know about it? if fraud is caught, is it not supposed to be stopped?? at fisrt the Elavon people said we can get our money back, its just the matter of time. then today after a cionference call, i’m told that I wont get my money back, the money will go back to whoever that disputed! so what about me? what about my company? we’re not getting our money back? Elavon is so horrible!!! Elavon is not fair!!! Elavon protect the cardholder, the bad people who used the fraud card, but not its own client???!!! Because I used Elavon for my company as a credit card processor, I lost 50’000.00 dollars. and I had to pay monthly fees too. Wow, Elavon is really a rip off company, Its created to steal client’s money!!! I’ll make sure this is all over internet!
How
I see a lot reviews with scam in it, etc but my experience has been nothing but bliss since I switched over from EVO Canada (Evil Canada) four years ago. EVO was evil incarnate. I signed up with Elavon through Costco Canada. Does that make a difference? You would think it’d all be the same company.
Anyway, Elavon’s terms were:
– $8 per month for the virtual terminal
– 2.24% per transaction
– $10 minimum charge per month
– 2 year term
– $125 termination fee
No other company has ever come close to those terms. They all seem to want per transaction fees for this a that, $300+ termination fees, $20 minimums and longer terms.
Elavon’s statements are so easy to look at and understand. Eight bucks plus 2.24%. Simple dimple.
Bruce, whenever I see a glowing review of Elavon I suspect it’s an inside job. You didn’t mention the extra fees. They have a program that’s mandatory even if you don’t use it. The charge is $35.00 per year. Also, some other program that Anne was charged $30.00 per month for not going online and filling out a phony report of how secure your terminal is (which by the way costs $65 or $120…I forgot which. After many years I finally quit and it was fun after all the rude people I talked to throughout the years. I signed up with my bank Wells Fargo for a program similiar to Square. You seem to think what Elavon charges is reasonable…however, with my program I can take credit cards on my smart phone or ipad. There are no terminal charges. No minimum charge. No contract. No termination fee. It’s straight percentage and in line with what you are paying.
Do not sign up with ELAVON. They are full of hidden fees and extra costs. I started being charged $30.00 a month because I didn’t go online and sign off on a questionnaire. I was also charge 34.95 for a website that I could use to see what services Elavon has to offer. When I terminated I was charged maintenance and monthly fees even after I hadn’t used Elavon for 2 months. They are a scam company. Stay away. They said that I had filled out the questionnaire in prior years, but I have absolutely no recollection. They have you by the balls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Better business Bureau filing is next.
I use Elavon, BUT through Costco as an Executive member. The rates are much lower than those shown. Elavon had bu far been the best processor I have ever had!
Remember ALL sales and marketing folks will embellish, twist and tweak all the numbers to make the sale…it’s up to the Merchant to be smart enough to ask the correct and critical questions before signing a contract!
Please reply to this comment with your business and location, or website URL, in order to authenticate your testimonial.
They DO charge an early termination fee. That is false. They suckered me in with a promise of lower fees, then proceeded NOT to save me any money. When I switched, they continued to debit my account and refused to stop doing so unless I paid a $195 early termination fee. Unscrupulous and corrupt. DO NOT use Elavaon.
I agree with the above comments. I just wish I knew earlier what type of a shady company Elavon is.
U.S. Bank was the one who introduced me to this better way to collect money for my business. Man, I am so angry I ‘m also changing banks!
The entire process is just set against you. Please DO NOT DO BUSINESS with this company. I made a mistake and learned from it. Shame on me! And Shame on U.S. Bank for telling me about such a crap company.
Im just thinking any good review here probably is entered by the staff of Elavon. I cant see a satisfied customer with this system,.. in my opinion.
Like they say on the shows “You’re fired” or “Im Out”
We signed up for Elavon through our bank many years ago as our credit card processor. Their rates were reasonable. But over the years, burying rate increases in small print their rates went through the roof. Some cards they were collecting close to 8%. When questioned they blamed the rewards cards and said their hands were tied. Not true! Other processors had rates half of Elavon’s for the same cards. Please read your bill- and do not use Elavon.
I would never recommend Elavon to anyone looking for a credit card processor. This is what happens when you do want to cancel your service:
1. Sent written notice to cancel our account 9-27-2014 in the regular mail.
2. Received my request back in the regular mail on 10-1-2014 with a notice that they would not cancel the account by written notice. We would have to use a website.
3. Went on the website and cancelled on 10-2-2014.
4. Received yet another bill for October, 2014 in mid November.
5. Called customer service today; hold time was about 15 minutes.
6. Asked for the charges to be reversed for the month of October, 2014, as we had cancelled in September in writing by mail.
7. Denied by the first agent because we didn’t cancel properly the first time.
8. Asked for a supervisor; denied, yet again.
9. Absolute refusal of a concession for charges that were assessed after cancellation.
Please do not use this processor unless you want fees taken out of your account even after you cancel their services. I will be reporting to the Better Business Bureau as well for extremely poor customer service.
I initially signed up with Elavon because they are affiliated with Costco. I thought they were reliable through Costco partnership. Boy, I made a big MISTAKE!!
1. Their rate for American Express Card is inconsistent as it is listed on the contract. I called in and trying to get an answer from them. I was put on constant hold and was told someone would call me back later with an explanation. THEY NEVER EVER DID. My concern is left unsolved until today.
2. Awful customer service – after I present with my issues, they will have to put me on a very LONG hold over the phone or simply disconnect on my hold! Then I need to call back over and over experiencing the same thing. The customer service is very much lack of professionalism in terms of handling issues and concerns brought up to them.
3. I can’t usually the problems solved over the phone at once. They either don’t explain it well and left with more potential problems where I had to call them back multiple times — my last calling experience was painful waiting and holding for literally one hour.
I am searching for a new merchant service.
It doesn’t seem to matter what customer service tells you. I had been told repeatedly that my contract was up and that I could cancel on a month’s notice without a penalty. I spoke with customer service and was told the same thing again. I said fine, then I want to cancel. He switched me to their cancellation staff..who told me that my contract had automatically renewed! Stay away!!!
Elavon is a scam – they skim credit card transactions made abroad, by defaulting option to pay in “home” currency and charging 3.5% for that. Credit card company provides this service for free already, so this is just stealing money.
We began signing up with Elavon and LADCO because US Bank told us our software company couldn’t process our virtual merchant needs. After 2 months of confusion and tech support calls with US Bank/Elavon/LADCO we discovered our software company could indeed take care of our needs and for a fraction of the cost. When we tried to get out of our contract – that’s when the fun began! What a nightmare.
Here’s one example. US Bank folks said I had to get Elavon to cancel our contracts. Elavon told us only LADCO could approve the cancelation. LADCO said only Elavon could… At one point I was talking with Jenessa at LADCO who told me only Elavon could cancel our contract and that she had no idea who Elavon is or how they work. So I again called Elavon and after the 8 prompts one goes through to connect with a person guess who answered the phone …Jenessa. Yes, the same Jenessa at LADCO who had just told me she had no idea who Elavon is!!!
We did finally get out of our contracts (so they say) but only after a full day of phone conversations with 12 different people in all 3 companies. This is US Bank! Ouch.
Stay away!
We have been with Elavon for a number of years and mainly good experiences. I like Mr. Parker’s summary as our volume is anywhere from $7K in slower months to just over $30K.
Recently we rented 2 terminals from Elavon for a short term – they were quick to ship and help set them up – yet billed us for an extra terminal (billed for 3) – several calls and several months later we are still waiting for them to stop billing for the extra terminal (all are returned now, yet last month still hit my account for 1) and still waiting on a credit for the billing.
I’ve spoken with a few representatives that agreed we shouldn’t have been billed for 3 terminals and promised a refund and stoppage of the billing for almost 4 months. Our bank is now involved and has indicated we should see a credit next week – thankfully!
My biggest issues are – how can they ship two and bill for three – is there no quality control? Even after I identified the problem, they researched and agreed, yet they still continue to wrongfully withdrawal the funds – three months after I first contact them.
I would think if we were a larger processor we may have some better resolution – I hope that getting our bank involved has truly resolved the issue – I’ll see if we 1) get the refund and 2)have the billing ceased.
tried signing up with them but never received anything and now they tell me I owe them 1400 bucks … now there taking money right out of my account I don’t even have the terminal these scam artist are horrible do not use there services im having such a hard time dealing with these crooks
they tricked me into signed up never gave me my machine and now there saying I owe them 1400 no matter what and there going to take it out of my account for give me bad credit. I don’t have a machine I don’t have customers to take credit cards from so why do I need your service and why do I owe u 1400 for nothing????
How many cancel requests must one make? Erroneous charges for their incompetencies…Terrible service, difficult and painstaking to deal with to summarize. They have slow response (I had to request service cancelation on 2 different occasions), slow turn around, they bill client for delayed delivery of return package (you pay if the parcel isn’t delivered). My assigned representitive Tamara simply passed the bucket once she new I wished to cancel their services (yet she was designated as my account representative). She didn’t offer to follow up on my behalf nor did anyone offer an apologee. This outfit is more focused on following their own precedures rather then provide any kind of customer service… Thought I would try them out (tried 2 providers) and glad I found how much cheaper a competitor was (savings of about 30% based on real actual data). I love Costco and go there all of the time I’m shocked them they’re doing a JV with such a poorly operated company. I wish them Chapter 11!
If you thinking about joining Elavon do yourself a favor and don’t do that, They charged my bank account $8000 in one week for no reason and no one over there seams to care about that, I don’t think I’ll ever see the money back- maybe I’ll go to court on that issue, this company is a death penalty for small business, go to Square or something similar.
PHANTOM, UNACCOUNTABLE, INVISIBLE THIEVES !!! DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE IRRESPONSIBLE & PERVERTED CROOKS!! BAD FOR BUSINESS!!! AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!
They miss-sell inappropriate card terminal contracts through “bonus hungry” agents! They then find excuses to freeze your account whilst it has huge sums of money settled and authorised that belong to merchants, leaving merchants in the dark for weeks about what’s happened to thier money…and then send out letters cancelling merchant contracts, whilst informing them that thier unpaid funds will (and I quote) : ” Without further notice to you, apply the funds held in Reserve against any outstanding or future payment obligations.
They have put my successful business in total jeopardy because of this… Not to mention other irresponsible cock-ups that they are fully to blame for, yet shrug off any blame with thier disfunctional system that is far too big and dissjointed to cope.
If you think getting a card payment authorised with Elavon means you are paid as a merchant..?
THINK AGAIN!! I AM OUT OF BUSINESS RIGHT NOW THANKS TO ELANON!
Elavon does Not have cancellation fees. What are you guys saying? And if you signed up with Costco or other Elavons sales office (ISO) you should contact them for all your issues.
I am a sale rep and my office works with Elavon and all our merchants call us for anything they need. We never charge for terminals or any cancelations fees and if a merchant wants to close their acccount for ANY reason, we have Elavon close the account the SAME Day that merchant request it.
You guys must of signed up with the wrong sale offices (ISO). Elavon is a GREAT company.
Before signing any contracts or agreements with Any processor you must Trust your salesrep more then trusting the company behind him. We the salereps could do a lot to help merchants resolve problems. I always give my cell number to my merchants. You should always ask your salesrep for his/her cell number and ask him if there is any issues is he going to help you or the processor?
A good salesrep Will and Can ALWAYS help merchants better.
Good luck to all :-)
Dave must be paid off by Elavon
We were charged a $500 cancellation fee to close our account, despite having been with them for over years.
Elavon is a company that will screw you at any and all opportunities. They are a company that should never
be dealt with, and would make a lot of people happy if those crooks were finally put out off business.
To call them thieves really not fair to all the honest thieves out there.
I would strongly suggest anyone looking at using Elavon to look elsewhere.
We had the same problem with getting rid of them. Approaching the end of our 5 year contract, we called with 3 months remaining and they told us we could get out of it but we had to pay them, otherwise we were supposed to give them 6 months notice! They’re leaches and they won’t let you go even if you are totally dissatisfied with their service. We have fought them for the entire 5 yrs we were with them! RUN if they approach you!
You have to be 10 steps ahead of them. I spent 1/2 hour, yesterday, giving them SEVEN MONTHS notice that I want to terminate 3 days after my contract end date for next year. I was told that I didn’t have a contract and that it was with EMS whom they bought out and with whom I was originally signed up. Made them accept 7 months notice, anyway, (just in case they suddenly decide to charge early termination fees). Told them that I would ship the terminal back, registered mail, before the termination date. They said that the terminal was not theirs and that I should keep it because it was between me and EMS, my original processor. (I will ship it, anyway, in case they try to charge me $395 for it as was stated in the contract with EMS.) I asked for email confirmation of our conversation with my termination date. The rep, Robbie, said that they do not do that, but there is a transcript of our conversation, which I can request, later, if I need it around my termination date. And, she said that an email of termination will be sent at that time, in March of 2015. And, after all this conversation, she says that they do not have my merchant number in their system and only have it because I gave it to her. I told her that I gave them that number because that is the one on the statements that they send me, monthly! Are these people for real??? Robbie talked in circles and vaguely and kept having to “consult three supervisors”. Do they train these reps to converse like that, vaguely? Well, in the end, I DID get an email confirmation of my termination dale (that she said that I could not get until next year), right after the phone conversation, and it does have my merchant number. These people are scary! Maybe, it is just that the reps are extremely poorly trained? Or, are they trained extremely well, to leave loopholes? I don’t know which it is, but I am getting the h—- outta there! I have had these runarounds with their customer service, in the past. And, with a whole lot of “passing the buck” Robbie claims that Elavon is transparent, but I think NOT! (Now, to take extra steps to protect my bank account so that they do not get more than they are entitled to.)
If Elavon is so great why all the bad reviews? I was with Elavon for over 12 years before I finally got fed up with the poor customer service and the constant adding of services I couldn’t use but got charged for. I’m now with my own bank Wells Fargo and I’m very pleased. The customer service is good, there are no “extra” fees and the money is in my account the very next day and I take payments on my phone or tablet. I’m so glad I made the change.
We became familiar with Elavon when our credit card merchant was absorbed by Elavon so it was not our choice. On the phone their staff tends to be cold and often “NAZI” types who will judge you and often penalize you without actual proof of having done anything wrong.
I feel dealing with Elavon is not worth it, they’ll require a great deal of personal information and then give you BS excuses why. The real reason is they want to make sure if anything happens they can go after you personally. The truth is there are many better and more professional companies out there. Even cheaper options. Like anything with time technologies change and better options often replace the problem companies like Elavon.
You can go into your local hardware store like Home Depot and pick up a card reader for your smartphone for $10 and even sign up over the internet for online credit card merchants for less cost. Elavon is currently working with Costco however they are not the same quality company with the same standards as Costco.
Avoid Elavon at all costs, their Virtual Merchant online software is out of date and medieval. Its also far more complicated and harder to set up. Nothing about Elavon to like, their prices, staff, fees and rates. Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere for a credit card merchant.
Elavon is a company not to be trusted or given business. I had been a customer for over 5 years, as Elavon
had bought out the company I originally had a deal with(Tangerine Concepts). After they raised their rates by over 75 basis points, I told them I wanted to cancel my contract, which with the original firm was a 2 year contract . I was then told that Elavon automatically renews the contract every 2 years, and that I would have to pay $500 to have the contract ended. So the numbers you read above are incorrect.
Elavon will try and gouge you at every opportunity, I would suggest anyone looking to find a payments processor to avoid Elavon, they are not a company with which you would want to do business. They use every legal trick they can, and you had better read every single word in their contract, as they will stick it to you at each and every opportunity. They are nothing but thieves masquerading as a payment provider.
This is not true. Elavon never had auto-renewable contract. They even stopped charging early termination fees in 2012. They also recently lowered lease pricing and added additional paperwork so the customers can’t claim ignorance when they don’t need the credit card terminal anymore and want to get out of the lease. I think some of the complianers here are no different than their customer who stiff them by starting chargeback proceedings against them.
Darek you must work for the company. I’m sure some of the complainers may go a little overboard but that’s what dealing with Elevon does to you. When I would call in with a question I usually got a rude customer service agent. They added fees and more fees. After they list the regular fees they list “other” fees. They built a website to help their business customers and then charged $35 or so even if you didn’t use it. They told me it was “good” for me. I was so happy the day I called and closed my account. It was fun.
I’m now with a company that actually did what they said and they have not charged me any “other” fees. Also the money is in my account the next day even on the weekend which never happened with Elevon. Best of all their customer service agents are nice and helpful.
Gail, could you provide the name of the company you’ve had a good experience with?
The card processing company that I now use is my own bank Wells Fargo. They recently added a service similiar to “Square” where I can process my customers credit cards with either my iphone or my ipad. I’m extremely happy with their service.
This is absolutely true, it is precisely what happened to our company, One small 2 sentence line on a end of month statement saying that within 90 days rates are going up 0.5%, which for most people translates to a 1/2 of one per cent increase, as opposed to the 50 basis point, or approximitely 20-25% increase in rates. In fact, we purchased our machine over 5 years ago, so whatever it is you are talking about in regards to leasing does not apply in our case, as none of the equipment was leased. So maybe next time you could come back with a somewhat informed
opinion, Are you being paid by Elavon?
I equate their level of customer service and trust/reliability with ATT, so I’m sure you know where this is going. We terminated our agreement with Elavon/Regions months ago, but are still being charged 34.00/month. I call every month, get a call ticket numner and a promise for a refund. Still nothing. The new rep always blames it on the last rep not submitting some form. Seriously, beware. You will never rid yourselves of them. Ever.
I am counting down the days until I can get out of my last contract with them. I, unwittingly, signed a new 3 year contract in exchange for a new free terminal, after my previous one broke down. Now, I have to deal with Elavon for one more year. I, already have Square set up on iPad, easing that in, as I cringe out the end of my contract with Elavon, ending in 2015 with Elavon. I will send cancellation, well in advance of the 120 day requirement, via registered mail and multiple online cancellations (for evidence and documentation) and will return their terminal via registered mail to make sure that they do not find excuses to zap my bank account as they have done to others. Sick of their excessive fees that do not serve me as a small business.I don’t trust them, one bit.
Elavon has been TERRIBLE to deal with. They offered me a “Free Notebook” for switching which ended up costing me more to ship than it was worth. Recently, my so called welcome kit was incomplete twice. The number I called for training put me on hold for 40 miins then 20 mins beforte I could speak to anybody! In the firtst 2 months they have twice sent me a form letter with my company name spelled wrong telling they were cancelling my account without any explanation. This time I am leting them cancel.
What a waste of time!!
I am a customer with Elavon fromerly Nova through Costco for more than five years now. I have made my mistakes before trusting the customer representives over the phone without asking for their names and document my call #. I just overlook it and move on. But this time I am not backing down. Because my cell phone doesn’t support any of the wireless devices, I need to do it the old fashion way of using the knuckle buster on the road and input the info. manually on the terminal. I called customer service to advice me of this standard. The rep on the phone was very nice. He explained to me there are two ways to go about it. The first one is get their cc#, street # and zip. He recommended the second option is voice authorization. He CLEARLY TOLD ME NO EXTRA CHARGE for the service EXCPECT WHEN I SPEAK TO A REP LIVE, then it will cost .90 each transaction.
I was very happy knowing this info. Today I received my statement and there is a $15 authorization charges on my bill. I was shocked call customer service to clear this issue. The rep was trying to help but not in her power to do much. I was transferred to a manager. He told me that he couldn’t do anything for me because I initialized the transactions. Well, of course I did! I trusted the customer service rep to give me proper information and advice. Isn’t that what we are paying for? I am not concern about the extra $15. Is the misleading information from Elavon. If I know there is a fee, I willing to pay for it. The short of it is that the manger tried to find my call log so he can train this rep properly. But still can’t do anything for me. I am sick of paying for Elavon’s employees’ mistakes! I totally lost faith and trust in this company! I will address this issue up to the Ceo of Elavon and Costco. They are ripping off small business by having untrained employees!
Lesson learned. Not to trust any financial merchant customer rep over the phone and document my calls! Can’t trust this company anymore!
JV
I have escalated the problem up to the PR Personnel. She took my case very seriously. She had the company refund me my fee and wrote a formal apology letter. She listened to my concerns about Elavon and discussed the issues up the chain regarding their customer support department. I am happy that someone does care for us small businesses out there. So, if you guys happened to run into any issues make sure to take it up to someone who can shake some sense out of the company. Lesson learned, always log my calls and ask for the rep’s full name in the future to avoid any unnecessary fees.
Biggest rip off I have ever been associated with. These people take take and take some more. I have canceled my account two months ago and they are still taking out monthly fees. Telling me I have to talk to my representative. Well I dont have a representative. I am forced to go to my bank and have my bank stop these people from stealing my hard earned money. I compare this to OBAMA care. Tell you one thing and do another. This business should be shut down.
I switched Banks to US Bank and they recommended Elavon for my small business. My first mistake was trusting US Bank. I signed a 3yr contract and by the time I realized all the “hidden” fees attached I still had a year left on contract. A company that does not offer a month to month is the first red flag. I had not used them for 6mo due to the CRAZY high fees. I cancelled and for what ever reason it could not be closed till the 7th of the month. Mind you I have been paying for 6mo already on something I did not use. The lady taking my cancellation said that if they took money out of my acct. to call and they would refund since it was the first week of the new mo. I had been told that twice by 2 different agents. I checked my acct. and sure enough they took out another payment. I called and was told if the contract goes into any part of a new month they will charge and that I was misinformed. I use another company now that tracks my sales and I can see exactly what I am paying. No fees when not being used. That is the way a trustworthy company works. Unless you like throwing money away, run do not walk from any bank that recommends Elavon.
I am in Ottawa/Gatineau area. I am with Elavon for a few years. I did not check my transactions carefully before. After I paid more attention with my new terminal recently, I found out that many transactions in the amount of thousands dollars were missing since July, 2013. I have to do tedious work to call them to find out which are the missing tansations and credit card numbers and reenter the amounts,
To avoid the problems, stay away with Elavon.
Elavon has been steadily ramping up my monthly fees and I plan on cancelling my service with them. I’m disgusted that TD Bank recommended them. I only take occasional credit card payments and call in for authorization each time. Even if I process nothing as is usually the case, they take $40.00 out of my pocket each month. Go through proposed contracts with them with a fine-tooth comb. It’s amazing how well they’re set up to scam small businesses who are just getting into credit cards.
Wish me luck in contacting them and getting this cancelled. I suspect I may need to close the account they draw from to stop them even after I cancel.
I had no trouble cancelling. In fact it was fun. The person taking my cancelation order was telling me how much the “fees” helped me. Right. I have been using my new service for a month now and love it. I take credit cards on my iphone and/or ipad. Much better service than Elevon and much cheaper.
BEWARE SEASONAL ACCOUNTS: I purchased a wireless credit card terminal from Elavon through Costco over three years ago for nearly $1,000. I am a seasonal business person and was informed at that time that in order to avoid ongoing monthly fees i needed to close my account when not in use and then re-open again when ready. Not a problem and I did that for three years.
So like any regular person I thought I “bought my terminal”…that i actually purchased something to own and it was mine….part of my business and a business expense. I was never ever told, nor did I ever read that being a seasonal account provided absolutely no terminal security……I was never informed (until 2 days ago) that when closed, the terminal’s wireless activity (it’s ESN) would be shut down AND would never work again. That the terminal was useless due to “inactivity”. That I would have to MAIL BACK the terminal i had and Elavon would mail me a used one. That I “was lucky” it didn’t happen to me for three years. They tried to put the blame on Sprint and said it was Sprint who “sold my ESN” due to inactivity. No…I foung out today it is actually Elavon.
So….the terminal i bought is now useless. After many phone calls, I am told by Elavon that it’s “protocol” to do this to seasonal accounts!!! I would beg to say that this is a SCAM on Elavon’s part as we never really own anything!….you either pay $20/month to “own” your terminal or it is rendered “useless” if you are seasonal. What did I buy for $1,000????? There really isn’t a “seasonal business account” with Elavon and I find it disgusting that they do this. I do NOT recommend them.
BTW – I had the same experience as Michele Dean when I finally cancelled. Got charged for TWO (!) additional months because 1) I didn’t have 5 days advance notice for the coming month and 2) by the time the cancellation people received my form by mail, they had already processed the charge for the next new month.
Sorry I didn’t post an immediate review about that experience here, but I was just too livid.
I’ve posted here before probably back in 2011 and even though I don’t use Elavon anymore, I prefer to keep getting email updates from this site. That way, I’m always reminded as a cautionary tale that there are horrible, greedy-ass companies like Elavon .
It’ was an expensive lesson, but it’s made me a better, wiser, scrutinizing small business owner.
Elavon’s business practices are disgusting. I don’t know how some of those people can look themselves in the mirror at night.
Hi Mike, can you expand on your review?
This company should rename itself from Elevon to Fees. Fees, fees and more fees. When you call to find out what the latest “fee” is that you were charged for the customer service person tries to convince you it’s for your benefit. I finally got fed up after years of using Elevon and got so much satisfaction out of cancelling. The lady that cancelled me said everyone loves the fees and the benefits they provide…although she couldn’t tell me what those benefits were. Enough is enough.
Terrible customer service. Waste of time. It took months to cancel. Much better alternatives are available. You have been warned.
I HAVE had a account for almost three years, and have used the service twice, i am paying $52.99 per month in fees, i have asked twice to cancel it and have been quoted huge buyout fees. july 1st i requested a close and they submitted a waiver fee to prevent a payout fee, but they didn’t tell me i needed to fill out a form 5 days in advance of the month to get the monthly fee sotpped so it is 8/1 i have a new fee for july and another one for $52.99 which will be billed for August “because i didn’t do the form 5 days in advance”. the customer service rep was awful, read from a canned script and didn’t care either way. this company was the biggest mistake of my life, the fees are horrible. BUYER BEWARE!!!!!
I left Elavon because their fees were too high compared with other competitors. I faxed a cancellation notice and they claim they didn’t get it even though I had fax confirmation. They continued to charge me the minimum fee for three months after I closed the account and had to argue with them to get them refunded. They are trying to get additional funds even after account is closed. Don’t recommend them.
where do I find the cancellation form? It’s impossible to locate.
Thanks!
I just called in and cancelled and made sure I knew exactly what they were going to take out of my final bill. I just got billed and it was for the correct amount.. Get the name of the person you talked with. I didn’t need a “form”.
I have worked with various credit card companies. An elevon representative made all sorts of promises and offered all of these great rates if I signed a 3 year contract. After 2 months or so, the changed the rates. They then added about 300$ in extra fees throughout the year. When I complained, they told me that It was in the fine print that I would have to pay any extra fees. Yet they couldn’t explain what exactly the fees were for. After 2 years, I decided to cancel early. It is a 14$ a month charge not counting any fees, and I could use intuit or square for free. I called the company and asked to be removed. They agreed. Then 3 months later I noticed they were still taking out fees. I called again but they couldnt find my account and suggested I call the bank because they werent the ones taking out the fees. I call my bank, it’s elevon. It takes me a couple months to find the time to call them and sit on the phone and hold for over an hour. I try and cancel again. This time, they finally find my account, then tell me I had to fill out paperwork and fax it to them. I ask why I wasnt told this before? They treat me like I’m lying. I ask if I can have the fees removed, they say no. I fill out the paperwork and fax it. They receive it, send me an accepted fax…. YET! I am STILL having money taken out of my account. Worst company ever. Thieves and liars.
Beware – Elavon will do their best to take your money and give you nothing for it. They have been deducting monthly fees from our account even though contract has expired and we have completed their “close request” form/fax 3 times. Spent several hours on the phone with “customer service” who promise that there will be no more deductions and guess what? Each month, we can count on Elavon automatically deducting their unearned monthly fee!
I opened an Elavon account and they had no problem with accepting my processing volume and low chargeback percentage after reviewing my previous 3 months statements with my current processor.
Only one month into Elavon, they terminated my account because I had $350 in chargebacks on over $120,000 in processing volume. They gave no rhyme or reason for this and refused to answer our questions. When confronted with the fact that my chargebacks were NOWHERE near the 1% threshhold that triggers an account review, they simply said “we reserve the right” per our terms.
I brought this to an attorney who confirmed that I never signed or otherwise agreed to a contract saying that “they reserve the right to terminate at any time without cause” and, on top of that, such a clause in a contract is invalid anyway because, as the lawyer explained, it constitutes what she called a “Contract of Adhesion” and those do not hold up in court.
Due to Elavon’s deep pockets we will be filing suit and publicizing it big-time.
When I cancelled they told me those “fees” would protect against chargebacks.
I signed up in March 2013 and immediately had problems. If I voided a credit card transaction in showed “out of balance” the next day. Then I had to spend an hour on the phone with customer service who sent over a list of my credit cards that day that I had to “rerun” the tips as sales 3 to 5 biz days later. Is this even legal? I lost over $50.00 per week in tips that I could not recover later or they did not send all of the cc #’s that I had to input manually as sales (oh and they are charging me for those by the way). Calling the sales person in ridiculous. Absolutely no clue what he is doing…John Escher by the way…thanks dude. Called Elavon actually pretty nice about returning the $100 fee (I wasn’t told about)…but LADCO who is an offshoot of Elavon is now going to sue me after I used the terminal for 2 1/2 weeks,,,,begged to return it and they want 1711.00 for a 2 year contract I guess I signed but didn’t get a copy of….really folks? I will spend $33.00 per month to block your $49.22 per month out of my account. Blocked everything with these folks….don’t do it…don’t do it….don’t do it…
In January I contacted Elavon to request my account with them be closed. I followed all the necessary steps as requested by the CSR I spoke with to ensure that the account was closed. I was told that I would have to pay the service charge for January which I was more than agreeable with. I made sure to ask if there would be any other charges and I was told very clearly that only the SC for January would be taken out of the account. At the end February Elevon took an additional $195.00 from my business account. When I realized this I immediately called to have the matter cleared up. It was at that point I was told by a CSR that they should not have taken the money. I’ve been trying for close to a month to have the funds returned and have gotten nothing but a run-around from not only CSR’s but Funding supervisors as well. I would not recommend this company to any business. I am also sorry that Costco is associated with them
I work at a bank and refer often to Elavon. They have cancelled their contract requirements since this review was written, and all of our clients are month-to-month. They also have rolled out mobile pricing that’s similar to Square, and though there’s a $10 monthly account fee and you have to buy your card reader, you get around the holds that Square puts on transactions. Visa and MC transactions are next-day if your bank is one of their partners.
That said, their customer service is basically everything you hope to not have to deal with: long holds on the phone, complicated automated menus, and the quality of the help you receive can vary pretty wildly depending on how experienced the rep is.
Wow, i couldn’t disagree more, Since changing over to Elavon I’ve almost halved my card processing costs, and the service has been exceptional, they include an online management tool, free, with your account other providers can charge up to £120.00 a year for the same facilities. I whole heartedly endorse Elavon and would recommend them to any UK merchant looking for a better deal.
Hi Mickey,
Please reply to this comment with your business name and location in order to verify your testimonial. Thanks!
What – Mickey – no reply?? Thought so. Thanks Phillip for calling out a fake review.
I keep waiting for Scumbag Elavon to go out of business. I used them for 2 years. I can relate to many of these negative reviews. Best thing I ever did was cancel their so-called service.
Keep up the good work with this site, Phillip!
We were told that there were “NO” contracts and if we were not happy with the service in any way and wanted to return the system we could with no ties or commitment. I have talked to this guy in the Vancouver office, his name is “Lucky” and he will not listen to our concerns and still wants us to pay for the machine which adds up to $1500.00.
They lack morals and their integrity is a big “0” !!!!!!
I will never deal with these guys again and if their representitives keep lying to potential buyers and users, they will go out of business fast!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been fighting with this company for 3-4 months now as they continue to debit my business account, I’ve been wasting hours on the phone telling them to close my account, they send me a secured attachment email with papers that they want me to fill out but the attachment has nothing in it?
Can anyone help me ? I just want to close my account and get rid of this company!
Call 1-877-326-7990. They can fax you the form and then you fax it back after filling it out. On the form, there is an area to request account closure confirmation by either fax or e-mail. I faxed my request in on 1/07 and received a fax confirmation on 1/10. Hope this helps.
Hidden fees, high processing cost and unexpected expenses, They offer it all…
I will never recommend Elavon for any business owner. They are inefficient, non compassionate and greedy. After they approved a credit card transaction, the card later turned out to be stolen, they made me bear all the financial responsibility, the stress and the loss finally made me close my business.
Glad to see that I’m not alone in this rip crap from Elavon!! And even worse is it that our bank recommended them!! We are a small business and have only been opened approximately 2 yrs. – this was our first credit card processing company, and until I find a reputable one, will be our last. The rep that sold us on this company promised us the world, I guess you would say, and it went down from there!! 60 days later he was no longer able to be contacted, as he no longer worked for them and he “supposedly” according to the company, did not disclose to us all of the terms and agreement under the contract we signed. The fees and additional charges every month became my worst nightmare. Until they informed about what it would cost to cancel the contract!!! The amount of $295.00 for the first year and $195.00 for the 2nd and 3rd !! Then the charges for their stupid PCI certification, we were penalized $125.00 plus another $100.00 for the certification itself. Which they informed me if you get certified we will refund that. I not certified alright, but was never refunded that $100.00 either. When I called to complain and want to talk to “Jennifer – Ext.~~~” , they said there was no one at that extension with that name and they had no Jennifer’s!!!!! This BS continued until November of last year when I ran one (1) credit card in the amount of $165.00 (we finally began requesting our customers PLEASE NOT to use credit cards and we would rather take an out of state check!! The last transaction I ran in the amount of $165.00 – they charged us exactly $ 64.75!!!! Do the math!!! That is nuts!!! When I called to complain – I got the complete run around, charges for every imaginable thing they could come up with – you talk about hidden fees!!! That was IT !!! Furious I hung up, called back the next day, requested to talk to a supervisor and cancel the whole thing!! I will eat the $195.00 out of my own pocket rather than put up with them another day. In the long run it will be cheaper to pay the $195.00 than have them continue to charge us astronomical charges every month!! I’m sure it won’t be that easy, and I WILL change banks if I have too!! (also informed the supervisor their PCI certification was a joke, and that any idiot could pass it. IF YOU HAVE THEM – GET RID OF THEM NOW!!!! Good Luck
Just an updated since my original comment in January 2013 ~ my nightmare still continues, which I should have taken the advice and closed our bank account, with Bank of the West!! I did dispute addition charges from the company, in person at the bank, that got me absolutely no where!! Even after filling out all the paper work, it was denied by the bank!! I originally did fax the cancellation request to Elavon in January and was informed in February I would have to send it again because they couldn’t find it!! I had my fax confirmation in my hand but I sent it again!! They CONTINUED to charge me monthly fees – I have to admit I did receive a refund of approximately $55.00 BUT was not refunded the PCI fee! And the last week in March they charged me the $195.00 cancellation fee, which the rep said she would “try” to get the waived!!
Not sure when it will stop!! I guess when I change banks!! LOL
Without realizing it I was signed to a contract with Elavon by an independant rep. As a result Elavon would not talk to me about my account. They would always say you have to talk to the rep that signed you up. Well the rep that signed me up said he would pay my early cancellation fees from my former processor which was $675.00. Also he claimed he became ill and was no longer affiliated with Elavon as he could not work. Elavon told me I had to deal with him not them. So I was caught. The rep stopped returning my calls and seemed to drop off the planet. Needless to say I had to pay the early cancellation fees of $675.00. If I had a problem with my credit card processing well too bad Elavon would say we can’t help you. I stuck it out to the end of my contract. I tried once again to contact my rep to cancel my services and this time he answered. He said he didn’t care that he didn’t make any money off me anyway. I told him that only he could close my accounts. It didn’t happen. One account was closed but the other one was not. And as of this month Elavon is still charging me a monthly fee. although they have not processed any sales for me for 4 months. I have no way to cancel. I am still stuck paying for services I am not using. I closed the bank account that they were using but they will probably threaten to sue me. I will just tell them sorry I can’t help you, you will have to talk to my sales rep.
Does anyone have the form to cancel our account. They sent one, my husband filled it out and sent it back and they are claiming they never received. He forgot to make a copy. They keep sending these “Secured Emails” that are ridiculous. Every time we reply back it says it didn’t get sent or received. They promised to refund fees, since we haven’t used the account since October, but we can’t get through to them. Need the form again to send registered letter.
Thanks.
I found in one of the other comments a phone number that I called, responded correctly to the voice prompts and got to someone that provided some answers. Try this number (877) 326-7990.
Same as others on this comment section just out of the blue got a funny illegal transaction message when I put through a payment after 10 years of using it. I phoned 3 different people at Evalon and everyone was incredibly stupid and with no idea of what they were speaking about. I just kept phoning back until i got someone who told me to phone our gateway provider who told us they informed Elavon a year ago to tell their customers they were shutting down our gateways so we could make new arrangements. I got nothing so i can’t believe a company would be so incompetent.
I have been a customer of Costco/Elavon for over 10 years. For the most part no problems. Then one of my clients wanted to process American Express. That was a 2 day dog and pony show. Approved, finally I processed in excess of $10,000. Two days after Christmas as I was again processing a transaction a strange code came up. I was informed that my account was closed and they would send me a letter. I was totally shocked. After 10 years of loyalty, they simply shut me down. I need to process funds for payroll, etc and I have been scrambling over the holiday to change companies. No on at Elavon will return my calls and I will take my business elsewhere. There are plenty of companies out there, I would really shop before I give my business to Elavon.
Upset client, Kathy
I am a sales rep For Elavon. I started to work for them about a month ago after working for Wells Fargo Bank for the previous 9 years. I would hands down recomend Elavon over Wells Fargo Merchant Services, Worldpay, Chase or Firstdata. As of Sept of 2012 all new accounts do not have a contract it is month to month unless you sign a lease. You can always sign up with a new company and keep paying the lease no need to terminate it if you are getting a good deal. All these new fees that are being released are thanks to Walmart and the big retailers who fought Visa and Mastercard on fees that they were being charged. Republicans stepped in and created the Doss Frank bill. It’s the same fees just titled in a different name. Just wait until 2014 when everyone will be forced to update all terminals because the Visa/Mastercard will be issuing EMV chips and banks will start to issue them this summer. All terminals must be able to support the cards or the business owner will be liable for all fraudulant charges.
Good luck!
Well, fortunately my contract with Elavon is up on 1/07/2013. But, I did get the parting shot of the $34 SRS Access Fee (what a crock) on my processing bill ending the end of Nov. After calling them, and be prepared as they talk in circles, this is basically what it is. That “one time only” fee they gave you last year of $59 because they have to do a 1099 to the IRS for how much they collected from you in processing fees is a “one time fee” because they just brought it down $15. The $59 one time only became a $34 annual fee to do a 1099 to the IRS. Their problem has become your problem. Adios Elavon on 1/07/2013.
We changed banks in May 2012. Elavon was recommended to process our CC transactions. Since then we have been hit with numerous fees by Elavon of which we were not made aware, the two biggest being the PCI compliance fee and the SRS enhanced reporting. I was dismayed to learn that a huge multi-million dollar company pays the same for the SRS enhanced reporting as our little enterprise does, with a tiny fraction of the the number of transactions. As a small business, such fees are totally inappropriate. We would never have signed up for this “service” had there been full, open and honest disclosure of what it was actually going to cost us. Although Elavon waived the PCI non-compliance fee once we became compliant (after my expression of dissatisfaction with how it was handled), I’ve been so unhappy with their attitude in using almost any excuse to charge yet another fee, I asked for the service to be cancelled only to be advised we were under a 3-year contract — apparently something else the independent sales person slipped under our noses in the fine print without bringing it to our attention — and it would cost us $275 to cancel this first year! Next year will cost us $195. What we pay into them is not worth what they’ve provided back.
Beware of the fine print. As Elite customers of Costco we were promised that the cost would be less than with Moneris. When all costs were in, evalon was 4 times more expensive. The had promised first 3 months free, not unless you stay for 1 year, we are a seasonal business we don’t qualify. they said we had 3 months to try or cancel , not so , cost to cancel is $165. Machine worked in city outdoors only. Indoors there was no reception, we had to do cards by hand , just like Moneris , but at 4 times the cost. Debit cards rarely worked , even outdoors, we had to move from under a tree to get reception.
I do not recommend Evalon . DO NOT believe the sales person.
Fred
While I can’t speak to what your fees were in comparison to Moneris, some other claims about the program are not accurate.
Costco merchants in Canada are offered a 3month rebate on there terminal rental, not 3 months of free processing.
Also, Costco members do not have a cancellation fee anymore, and even when they did, it was not $165, it was $105. Again, this has been waived since about August or September.
Maybe all the lawsuits against Elavon and Ladco have had some effect on contract terms. One of the problems, however, has been the fact that every contract seems to be different in some way. Monthly fees vary, start-up incentives may be different, and so on. And while Elavon manages to keep its image clean, its equipment leasing company Ladco does the dirty work with its “uncancellable” contracts, mark-ups in the buy-out price of equipment that may be up to 1000% of the actual cost of the equipment, forged signatures, and hard-nosed tactics to collect money from small businesses that are easy prey due to their lack of knowledge and experience with merchant services companies, and who don’t have the bargaining power that a large company like Costco would have.
I have cancelled account and returned the machine.
We were not charged a cancellation fee, it was waived.
I will now read all the fine print.
I will run away when an addendum is required. (meaning i have read the fine print)
lesson learned.
fred
Wow! And, I came to this site because I am upset due to a recent letter from Elavon, that they will start charging $19 in December 2012 for their new SRS (Settlement Reconciliation Service) which I do not need, whatsoever, due to being a very small business that does not have “returns, chargebacks, credits, etc”. My only transcations, for years have only been the handful of credit card transactions from my patients and the monthly fee that they take. So, why would someone like me need a reconciliation report? The only info that I need is the 1099 for my tax filings and their statements of their monthly fee. I called to state my case and ask if that $19 is optional. I was told “no” and I have to pay. I told the rep that it would be more honest if they just sent a letter saying that they were going to steal $19 from me in December, rather than disguising it as a service. Even, the “benefits” of the SRS, stated in the letter, were so ridiculously weak, as if they were grasping for straws, just trying to justify that fee. My complaint seems trivial compared to all the other horror stories on this site. I am getting out of Elavon before it gets worse and this $19 is just the tip of the iceberg. I would like to see a class action suit in Minnesota, dealing with this, because I can’t be the only one upset by this sudden, surprise fee. What will be next?
I just got off the phone with Elavon regarding this same fee, except I’m being charge $34. I was told it states in the Elavon contract that I signed that “Elavon can charge additional fees as long as they give me 30 days’ notice”. I am also a small business and have no use for the service but per Elavon, I am not allowed to opt out of the service. So they will get $34 from me each year until my contract expires, at that time, I will switch to another company and I will not recommend Elavon to others seeking merchant services. Hope the $34 was worth it.
I would appreciate any thoughts of how to get out of my contract. I called and was told u had to pay 3,000.00 if I cancelled service. I have a non profit and I’m so ashamed I did not research further. I went with my banks recommendation. So far I have stopped accepting credit cards to reduce fees. If you know of an attorney who can help, I would appreciate that also. [email address redacted]. thanks.
Deb,
My credit card processor (not Elavon) began tacking on both monthly and annual fees after we entered into a contract. Try as I might, I could not get them to back off any of the fees. I filed a complaint with the BBB asking for all of the fees that were not spelled out in the contract refunded and discontinued. Once the BBB got involved, the company let me out of my contract without any early termination penalties. This just might work for you. File a report and see what happens.
One person in my e-mail group did exactly that with Elavon and Ladco Leasing. He took it up with the BBB in Tennessee and got absolutely nowhere. In fact, he came away with the opinion that the BBB was somehow involved in the whole thing. There is another merchant service company called Entrust that people have had problems similar to those with Elavon.
HI there!
We have an experience with this company Elavon. Since one of our customer in (Canada) purchased our product. All the transaction went well with complete information from the customer. Elavon accepted the funds. The order was shipped and signed by him. It was not until two months later we received a chargeback to our account. And somehow we sent all proof evidence of the purchase together with proved delivery. After we sent the evidence we received our money back and everything was clear.
We then, received another notification that we have either accept the chargeback or sent proof evidence again but with a charge fee as double the amount.
We sent the information but they said the case was ruled in cardholder’s favor with no evidence of such.
Currently customer has our pruduct, your company cannot provide any proof of such we already provided all information. And yet, you already took our money from our account.
So everytime a cardholder make a chargeback to the merchants they have to give away the product, pay it and the penalties??
Elavon has no service at all. I try to open an account with them and this guy Jean R. Desarmes from Elavon answer to you when he has nothing to do. Almost 1 week i contacted them and still no progress in the account opening process. Will look for another company. I m with moneris since 2006 and yes maybe i pay more but at least i have someone professional to answer to me and as far as i can remember in 2006 in 2 days my account was opened. So Elavon goodbye…
By all means look for another company. And read this press release from the D.A’s office of Ventura County, California: http://da.countyofventura.org/12-030.htm which details the terms of the settlement reached in a civil action filed by Ventura County. Elavon and Ladco Leasing (which Elavon owns) were ordered to pay out over $400,000 in restitution to victims of their “misrepresentation and false promises used to induce small-business owners across the country to enter into lease contracts….”
I just received my restitution check and letter that Elavon was required to send to all the victims involved in the lawsuit. See my blog for more information, http://www.merchant-scamology.blogspot.com.
This company has screwed me over for 2 years in a row. The first year by saying they sent me a letter saying I needed to be in compliance in which I had hundreds of dollars worth of fees for. I explained that I have a PO BOX and I always get my mail. Clearly they never sent it.
This year I went through the whole process of getting the certificate of compliance. At the end it said PASS and I even printed out the certificate.
I just realized I have been charged $29.99 for the past 7 months on 2 accounts. They went in and fixed the compliant thing because I was actually compliant but will not refund my $419.96. I am now going to file a complaint with the BBB and contact an attorney. I feel like they are scamming people out of money and just don’t care.
Small merchants: I second all the opinions saying Elavon is not worth your time or money. They are extremely difficult to get a hold of, and once you do, the customer service is unfriendly. They do not discuss contract terms with you before setting up your account, and as a result you can end up with hidden fees and terms you had no idea you’d signed on for. It took me 3 months to get them to cancel my account. I was charged for each of those months despite the fact that I did not use the service at all during that time. Finally it is closed and I frankly couldn’t be happier to no longer have to deal with this company.
We had a charge back for $2000.00 and since we did not have enough money in our account they “closed” our account because we just had “too many charge backs” in a short period of time and were “warned” about it. We have never received a form they usually give you to fight a charge back. As always, our rep was not available and nobody returned phone calls. We then got a letter from their legal department saying we have to pay them $2000 within a few days to avoid collection and that they cannot reopen our account yet still able to charges on it! They also did not recognize the fact that we had over $1000 in a reserve they established which should have been applied towards the charge back amount. We switched to Merchant One. What a difference!! Friendly and fast service. No hidden fees and charges. I cannot believe that with all the complains and issues Elavon has they are still continue being in business. They should take the complains to heart and try to do better but they seem to get worse. All their Reps need customer service training to learn how to treat customers!!
Elavon is probably the worst company there is. They put a hold on my account for no reason and decided that they would not release them for a year. I was told that it is in their contract and no reason has to be given. This can be devastating for a small business. This is nothing short of stealing. Also they told me that they don’t have to release the funds even if they get paid and will not pay any interest on my funds.The only nice person was the one I signed up with.
Also the software sucks. They do not have any good reporting tools. The one they provide will not fit on a page.
Alex
I use Elavon because I banking with US Bank. This is worst experience I never had with all differece Merchants. The bank Merchant officer is suck. She does not prepare the user and ask the small business detail by just opeing a account for us to get our business.
The Elavon itself was mess. bad attitude, un- responsbile, I had so many charge for variety unreasonable reason and when I claim is not our responsilbe see what happen.
first time they charge $25 for charge back fee for $8.95 claim. and we fight back our money and they return our money back to our account.
later on for the $8.95 case again they withdraw the money away plus another $25 charge back fee from our account again. Without getting any of our money back, Elavon making $50 dollars charge back fee from a small business like us. Shame on you Elavon Elavon Elavon
Their service is suck. The customer service representative having bad attitude and they not there to help. They are their to make our life difficult. The company make the account clsoing process extremely difficult like going to the moon.
They are reipper and try to get as much money as possible from cosummers. NEVER NEVER NEVER USE THEM AGAIN.
I deeply feel sorry for anyone who are with them.
I have gone through HELL trying to cancel my account with Elevon through Costco. I faxed the form they provided back in June 2012. nEVER HEARD BACK FROM THEM…. Finally called them again today after receiving a new bill for 20.00 covering July 2012. They claimed I used the wrong signature and that they had emailed me back in June….No email….they are the rudest people I have ever dealt with…especially after using their service for over 15 years. I urge everyone to switch to “Square Up” credit card service…they put your money in the bank in just a couple of days,,,instead of upwards to 5 days with Elevon. No monthly fees and a small percentage compared to Elevon.
I got a chargeback from a fraud case June 30th and was notified by Elavon August 14th. They tried to take the money on the 16th when I asked for the 17th. They say they didnt hear that , although their answering machine says they record all calls so this can be verified. When the money wasnt there they held all funds for a week. Finally I got my earnings from the store, less the chargeback, and I thought I was done.NO!!!! They took the money again on the 24th and since then 3 more times. You cannot get anyone to talk to you and when I yelled out of pure frustration…they ‘fired’ me. But they are still trying to take the money and I keep refusing to pay. I have now sent a registered letter, faxes, phone message that are never returned…..WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO? This is costing me money and they dont listen. BE WARNED ABOUT ELAVON…..
Don’t use Elavon I had them for many years. then they started to raise my rate. When I called about it they told me I was considered high risk and they couldn’t lower my rates. I have NEVER had a charge back. I am a small company and when they first raised my rates I started to encourage my clients to pay with check or cash. When my volume dropped off they raised it again. I called again and was told they couldn’t lower my rate.
Then I found a new Merchant account with a much lower rate, and a much lower monthly fee. After trying the new company out for a while and being satisfied I called to cancel my account. I was told they would send me the cancellation form to fill out and send back. It never arrived. I looked on their website and couldn’t see it. I called back and they said they would send it again. IT NEVER ARRIVED. I received another statement though. Finally I found the form another customer had posted online. I filled it out and sent it back. The account is still open and they say they haven’t recieved the form to close the account.
This time it is going out certified mail.
AGAIN DO NOT USE ELAVON
They stick to the 2.2 % industry average pretty well. The Engenico terminals are crap. They will NOT replace broken terminals ($60 for them) for free as many other (Paymentech) companies will. They charge $200.00 for replacement of a terminal that is pre-disposed to failure…. it’s where they make their money. Phone support is dismissive and uninformative. They have split contracts which will keep you paying for hardware for 60 months and then hang you out to dry with a ridiculous “buy-out” offer.
Elavon is not a good company to get involved with. Paymentech is the best …by FAR! I hate myself for the day I changed 18 months ago. BEWARE.
For the last 6 months I have been trying to cancel my service with Elavon. Yet every other week they continue to bill me. I had to close my bank account to get away from the outrageous fees. $655.71 in the last 90 days alone. That is with zero transactions. I 1st tried to close the account in January 2012 and now its July 2012 and its still “open”. DO NOT USE!!!! ps-Use chase payment tech. lower rates, no “equipment lease” to use the website and no sleazy lets add this to your monthly account business partners as well.
I just got off the phone with Costco and filed a complaint against Elavon. I opened a Merchant service account with Elavon through Costco and despite the promises of the Elavon rep my phone-order only was subjected to their tiered pricing. Not a single charge has processed at their promised rate of 1.99%. In fact my average fee was 3.12% – worse that PayPal who I dumped for Elavon.
To Costcos’ credit they took my complaint very seriously. We’ll see what can be done.
I would love an update as I am considering Elavon with Costco.
The District Attorney’s office of Ventura County California, recently announced the court’s ruling in their civil law enforcement action against Ladco Leasing and Elavon. Here is a link to the press release.
http://da.countyofventura.org/12-030.htm
That is great news. When I worked for Elavon we were told by are mangers not to let the merchant know that they owned Ladco . Now I understand why. I think it is unfortunate that US bank their parent company sat back and allow these unfair pratices to take place.
Hi Frances and others on this board, that I worked for Nova Merchant Systems about 6 or so years ago. I was hired by a MOST unprofessional lady here in Houston, Sammantha Dossey, who LIED to me and further lied in court. End of story, I sued Nova and won in the lower court, but they hired a slick lawyer, and must have spent upwards of $100,000 in order to AVOID paying me! Big companies do this ALL the time! It is quite disgusting! I worked hard, busted my rear end, and in the end was UNJUSTLY fired — but that WASN’T enough for them, I was denied commissions on deals I had sold; then after I filed against them they threw in an attorney, I was handling the case myself, and I was robbed of about $5000 including court costs! This is A MOST DISGUSTING COMPANY — as those on this board, and others that read this can see. Well, at least they didn’t just do it to me! But remember, WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND! I hope this company GOES BANKRUPT and that they drag the CEO, Pamela Johnson SERVES JAIL TIME for all her dishonest doings and management along the others that were in charge at the time!!!!
Thank Deborah for sharing. That’s great. I can’t wait to see they’re going to hell. I own a small bausiness in California. I’m one of the victims who are suffering from Elavon. I have the same issus as everyone in here have. And this is what happened to me in the last 4 months ago. I was refered by one of the Us bank brand manager to use Elavon. He promised if i signed up, Elavon would paid for my previous company $595 but they just gave me about $380. The sell Rep. his name Alex didn’t explain about the third party in the contract (ladco). of course, I agree to pay $69 for the terminal and do it for 4 years. He just made me assuming the terminal own by Elavon which I can breach the contract just to pay $290 to get away with it whenever i’m not happy with them. Infact, he tried to put me throug this. He trapped me by let me did an initial which is listed with a really small letter and he tried to telll me don’t worry about this part and just put the initial. And the part should i concern is on the last page and this is what he explained to me. I used Elavon only one month due to they charged me more than i paid and it’s not what Alex came out in a quote that we discussed and agreed. So Ladco Leasing has kept calling me and require me to pay 4 years contract which is $4,665.16. I refured to pay because for me it is fraud but i did pay the $290 and sent the terminal back as i agreed. they sent me to the collector. Collector has tried to thread me if i have a property or business would be impacted even on the phone or now send a letter to notify that the suit is being filed.That”s my nightmare right now. Please everyone who has the same problem or not, can you tell me what should i do???
I really thankful for any ideas. I wish and hope everyone can stay away from this Crook. I don’t want to see others get suffer like me.
Well, this isn’t surprising! What is Surprising is that one of their Sales reps forged my signature on a NEW Business account! So I guess the law suite didn’t do a lot of good. I was informed that he has done this to a number of business owners! I had the guy arrested. Now I have to try to get all my business accounts changed. My SS# could likely be ‘out’ there?????? Not a good feeling. I am a small business owner, don’t we have enough to worry about?
This company had a problem with one of its Credit Card Processors which resulted in me being charged $800 in charges that took three weeks, numerous phone calls, and $160 in NSF fees. Really bad customer service and response time. Told me three different times to expect payment and didn’t receive anything on those dates. Now they keep hassling me about the NSF fees, which I have already been reimbursed.
I am always on hold for 1/2hr +, they have charged my account $20/month for an entire year. I never used Elavon, they were unable to use my existing CC machine VX570. Nver took one sale, to date they’ve drawn over $300 from my account
Beware the hold time is insane! Never give them your bank info, they’ll start drawing your $ and never return a call. Amazed they have a C ratingshouldbe an F!
i was screwed with elavon its the worsest company out there i hade a charge back for $4,659 and and street address match and zip too they say i lost my money they are doing fraud (beware) of ELAVON
elavon would not cancel my business credit card processing account without my allowing unlimited accessd to my computer files. I have repeatedly tried to cancel a service i have never used. Difficult would be an understatement. Worst customer service I have ever encountered.I am not inclined to post negative comments online, in fact this is my first time. I had to warn others, though, maybe it is a good company, but they will make it very difficult for you to cancel and continue to charge you for a service you have stopped using.
I wish I had read these reviews 2 years ago, so I could have chose other merchant service provider. From the experience of contacting Elavon’s customer service, I know that most answer you get from them are not reliable, when you expect to get more help from their manager you will end up getting a nightmare instead. I know a customer service manager in Elavon will regard this a compliment. Am I right Mr. Zack Garron?
Here comes the whole story.
Since the beginning of June 2012 the terminal start to have more and more problems: restart itself (power cord’s problem), communication problem between the pin pad and the terminal resulting extended waiting time (some times 3-4 minutes for a single transaction). I decided to call Elavon’s customer service on June 13, wehnsday. I was told they will send me a new terminal however I have to pay $45, and I will get the new machine on June 18, the next Monday. I didn’t get anything from Elavon on June 18, the Monday. Instead, I found the $45 have already taken from my bank account three days ago, on June 15. I thought now that they have charged me, they must have already delivered the new machine to me. I decided to wait one more day. I didn’t get anything the next day neither. I called them on June 20 and got a recorded message: We are experiencing higher volume call …….. I thought, OK, I am going to wait one more day. The next day, the Thursday, I realized that something must be wrong so I called Elavon customer service. After telling the agent my story I waited 10 minutes before getting the answer which really astonished me: ” We had an issue with shipping department, we will ship the new terminal today.” OMG, I thought, you guys’ service is really beyond my imagination. I didn’t expect the fact that nobody did anything for my new terminal after charging me $45, and furthermore, they have totally forgot it. This is fantastic. However, the agent told me that I could get the new terminal on June 22, Friday. This comforted me a little bit. I really hoped to solve the problem before weekend, which will be very busy. The agent told me her supervisor was working on it and they will try to ship it before 1pm, this way I could receive it on Friday. In Friday morning I decided that I’d better to call Elavon to be sure that I will get the machine that day, just in case they forget it again. Guess what? No only did they not ship it, they didn’t even configure/set up the machine on Thursday. This was too much for me. I really wanted to know what was happening there? I failed to get an answer since all the gentlemen and ladies who answered me seemed don’t know what is happening neither. After a so called ‘technical support supervisor’ failed to give me an answer, I demanded a manager. I was told the manager was in a meeting at the moment and he will call me back. Experiencing what have already happened, I think I know Elavon’s style: What you tell customers will never be true except one thing: taking their money as much and soon as possible. Regarding the above mentioned promised phone call from an Elavon customer service manager? Elavon’s style: didn’t happen. I called them again in the Friday afternoon. Fortunately, I managed to be sure that they really get the terminal shipped this time, I got the tracking number. Bravo. But here comes the mystery which remains unsolved: what have taken Elavon’s hard talking staff 10days to make a shipment? Luckily, I finally have the honor to ask an Elavon customer service manager, Mr. Zack Garron, the question. Instead of giving me the answer to the mystery, respectable Mr. Zack Garron has really taught me a lesson:” If you had called us right after when you hadn’t received the new terminal, you could have already had it now.” For Mr. Zack Garron, and maybe all the Elavon staff, it is perfectly natural and normal that Elavon’s customers need to get used to call several times to get one single problem solved. This is Elavon style NO.2: don’t worry about your memory, those diligent customers will surely remind you of their problems. This is a good explanation why Elavon’s customer service line is always hot, and you can frequently hear the recorded message: We are experiencing high volume incoming call ……..
These Guys should be shut down and shame on Costco for dealing with such a poor service Company, They need to learn how to handle problems much better. 3 days to talk to someone, Automatic return calls not working, I need to move my Account ASAP.
I aggree they should be shut down. I worked for Elavon for almost six years. When I first started I thought they were a great company to work for. They proved me wrong. Most of the customer service reps are not given the proper training to assist customers. We were force to lie about their products and not to mention the Human resource dept is made up of most pot heads. Your best bet is to get as far away from Elavon and US bank as you can.
omg, I have never ever in my life dealt with a company like this before. any thing and every thing, from day 1 has been a night mare. to get any answer over the phone… ohhh forget it, You have to spend more than 4 hours and still get slap on the face. my merchant’s account with this company has been closed for month’s, but they still diggin in to my checking account and take my $.
When I requested that Avalon cancel my (never fully set up) account and discontinue withdrawing money from my bank account, they sent me on a wild goose chase of red tape and never cancelled the account. After spending half a day on the phone going back and forth between Elavon and their subsidiary, GreenTree, I finally received confirmation that the account was cancelled. However they billed my account the following month for the full monthly fee. I had to go through my bank to stop Avalon from withdrawing funds for a service I never received.
Ater reading all of the 127 reviews above, I now have some idea of what PCI fees and NONPCI chgs are all about. Opening a small business, Sept 2011, on the spur of the moment seemed like a good idea at the time, but trying to deal with the merchant provider,Elavon and Ladco Leasing has turned into a never ending story.
Thinking that I should have access to a merchant credit/debit card, I asked my bank Metropolitan National Bank about this. They quickly made a call and send an account rep. It was my impression that he worked at Metropolitan Bank. Ignorance on my part. He came out immediately, very friendly. I asked what connections would be better, internet or phone. He said internet so I ordered internet installation. I did sign a paper, though, I did not get a copy, but he explained the fees as $39 per month for the equipment, which would cover Visa, Master Card and Discover and the fees for a debit would be $1.39 plus .20 cent transaction fee, and a credit would be $1.89 plus .20 transaction fee; a rewards card would be 2.25 or $2.50 and 36 months lease. They sent equipment for a phone hook-up so I had to have phone hook-up and he came back and had me sign something else, but said it was just to change the mavchine and again I did not get a copy of anything, I only have the notes I took. Though it seems not to matter what the contract says or does not say, their terms and conditions are stated on the back of the merchant billing statement as “we may change or add to these Terms & conditions.”
The fees quickly began to deduct from my bank account, so much that I had to constantly ask for a transaction register to determine what my bank balance was. . Final straw was in March 2012, the statement from Elavon shows $148.34 in credit card and fees charged was $120.95. I was never able to understand the statements. There were NONPCI charges and PCI fees and card minimum bill fees and processing charges. etc. But I could figure out that this was 81.5% of my total without counting $47.93 lease fee plus $25 lease fee for March. Total fees from Elavon and Ladco lease was $193.88, sales thru credit card were $148.34.
I complained to my bank, they asked me to wait unit I got the merchant billing statemt, but it was clear that I could not afford to pay all the fees associated with cc transactions. I called the account rep the bank had sent and explained the situation to him….his only comment was :”Those minimum fees getting you?”. I said I could not afford the service and I wanted to cancel. He said that maybe he could cancel the service, he would have to talk to his manager but I would have to pay 48 months lease of the equipment. I asked if there were any cash options and he said, “Yes, but that is not what you chose”. I then said, you are leaving me no options but to close my bank account. The then unfriendly rep informed me…”If you try to dodge this fee, it will be turned over to collections and we will ruin your credit” (my first inkling that maybe he did not work for the bank). I waited another week to hear from him but apparently his manager does not talk to him?? I closed my bank account about the middle of April 2012.
Thinking back maybe, I should have said I was 72 years old and might not need much more credit but you never know. I do believe that you should keep your word and I am trying to do so. I also believe that services where the fees are so enormous that you have to be dishonest in order to sell a service is not right, may be legal but not right.
I have sent the machine back but the notices of past due amounts for lease and merchant services are being sent.
From reading all the other complaints, I see that I should have filled out a ‘merchant request to close processing accout” which they never bothered to tell me. I have read the “How to Report Bad Credit Card Processors” by Phillip Parker and will follow that advice.
Ladco leasing is owned by Elavon.
we have been using them for many years never a unresolved charge back every. These people kept your money with no dollar posted amount for 6 months and in effect its theft. 6 month and you may never get it back. There out of money and looking for free loans at your expense..do not process with them, we are still as of today 20,000.00 and they do not give there customers the money back.. WATCH OUT GO ELSEWHERE
they plaved.over.46g into a reserve account that was to be held for a minimum of 30 days to ensure there were no charge backs. this was march 2nd. we didnt get our money until June 29. by this time it wS nearly 4 months and all my vendors cancelled. they choked my cash flow and pute out of business. anyone who would like to join a class action lawsuit pleaseet me know asap. i have an attorney who is taking my case on a contingency basis. which.obvilusly eans he bievez i have a strong ase
John,
I used to work for the fraud/loss prevention dept. I know exactly what you are speaking of with the reserve. I had to take people’s money on a daily bases and for some really ridiculous reasons. They tell us to tell people we will hold the money for a min. of 30days but in all seriousness management would not allow us to release the money for usually close to 6moths depending on the reason. The company does not care about their customers. It’s all about them making money and hoping to prevent losing money on the “possibility” of disputes.
All merchant services are somewhat difficult to deal with but I feel like I have dodged a” kill shot” bullet by not continuing an association with Elavon!! The sales person gave a name of a company , but did not mention the actual provider would be Elavon. Then I tried to get a similar set up as we have currently. Forget that. It’s their way. I was very uncomfortable with all the discrepancies and terminated the relationship after less than 3 weeks and did not process any charges on any cards.
They processed and charged the .01 cent charge they entered to check the machines before they sent them. The machines were set up for some other type of business. Just a disaster from the start.
For the three weeks of no usage they charged us over $1600.00. I could not say it often enough. Stay away from Elavon.
Please stay away from these guys!!!!! I have filed a lawsuit and a complaint with the BBB. Today I had Sarah from loss prevention laugh in my face as she told me she cant speak with me only my attorney could speak with there attorneys. Well, its been 2 Months and Elavon is holding onto close to $39,000.00. They will not release the funds and probally hope that I dont have enough money to sue. Well, I will soend every last dime I have fighting this. These people are white collared criminals and thieves. Its money that my business collected that they are entitled to pay, not there money and they are doing me a favor by paying it. Trust me, they will get what they deserve. My attorney charges 500/hr and he is foaminng at the mouth to take this case. Elavon, I am a small business owner with big business money. Your time has come!
My company was with Evalon for 30+ years and when I finally moved to a new processor, I found out how much they were taking advantage of us. Every year we would do a rate review and they would lower our fees, but then 3 months later they would increase our fees…and 3 months later do it again. Bottom line they are very misleading and in the end get 3 times the processing fees the reputable companies do. Evalon tricks you with 3 levels of fees: qualifying, partially qualified and non-qualified. They wow you with the qualified rate, but then when you see your bill, you will notice that there is 2% in the qualifying status, 85% in the partially and 13% in the non-qualified! Since I’ve moved to a new processor and have not used Evalon for a year, I find out Evalon was taking fees out monthly and charging my bank account for services I was not using (statement fee and account fee). I have spent hours on the phone with their lack of support center, been disconnected, on hold and rudely spoken to for hours and hours. Each time with a partial refund guaranteed, but in the end I just get another set of charges on my bank account statement the next month. This should be illegal, to just transfer money out of my account into theirs with no services rendered!
Please do not use their services! Big Cooperate company who takes advantage of their customers. Especially when you decide to move to a new processor.
Josh
STAY AS FAR AWAY AS YOU CAN!!!!! THEY ARE A SHADY BUNCH!!
Elavon has been holding on to $42,583.00 since March 12th. Initially I was told that they were holding onto my funds to ensure that there were no chargebacks and that the money would be hekld for a minimum of 30 days. Well welcome to day 60 and still no answers and no money! They give you the run around and no one can give you any answers. The best part is that the $42,583.00 is due to my vendors! I have been running on borrowed time and few more weeks of this they would have buried my business. DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THESE PEOPLE. It will only lead to problems. This much I can promise. For the past 2 years we have been processing 60-70g a month in CC batches. They cut us off March 13th and are holding all our funds in a reserve account. My attorney plans to sue there pants off. I will keep you all informed
Thanks
Go to this page:
http://www.elavon.com/about/team.aspx
There, you will find the Elavon ‘Executive Team’. Their email addresses are formatted as [email protected].
Until you run it up the chain of command, you will not have results- my experience speaks for this. These members of the ‘Executive Team’ got results, and my money was (FINALLY!!!) returned within a week:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Tom Boyer was the most effective in making it happen for us.
Good luck!
John, I look forward to watching your lawsuit with enthusiasm. They have been cheating the small businessman for years. Ciscero’s of Utah is also suing them. Check out their case. There may be something there that will help. Just Google it for more information. Good luck. I’m too under-financed to sue them, and only lost about a thousand before I got away from them. I run a dog rescue funded with my social security so the thousand was a lot of money to me. It would be great to see them receive JUSTICE. Go get em. Wonder how much interest they are collecting on your money?
@JohnBrosnan Class action that if you can :D!!!
Any news on your law suit. John Brosnan? We have had the worst experience with elavon and are looking to find other people who want to join us in a class action.
WARNING TO ALL ELAVON CUSTOMERS- review your contracts and your billing because these guys have been ripping us off for 14 years! They have been charging us an extra $1000-$2000 a month for how the charges have been entered. If you do not follow your fine print you may fall victem to supplimental charges as well which exceed 8.02% and $1.53 per charge!!! When confronted, as a valued, 14 year loyal customer, Steven the funding supervisor, which would not even give his last name or employee identification number, denied even entertaining any resolution on this matter, and told us to go else where… I give this company an F rating, go some where else for your merchant needs!
Re my earlier post: I finally got to speak with a person and they gave me the info I needed.
I need to check a transaction with Elavon and have been on hold now for hours without talking to any person. Do they even work on weekends? I’m really regretting getting involved with these people.
I have had nova now elevon for 15 years,,i decided to convert my service to a system whereby i would not need a telephone line any longer,,i filled 5 forms with all my personal and business info,,waiting for my application to be approved, as to why they needed approval after 15 years of service without any chargebacks in 15 years did not make any sense,,however, now they want me to submit 2 years tax returns,,i declined,,what a bunch of b.s. crappy ridiculous company,,
You DON’T want to work for them either! When you separate yourself from the company..for whatever reason…they WILL NOT give you your last paycheck. They will tell you they don’t owe you anything due to vacation days you took. My daughter was owed at least 100 hours and they will not pay her. Said she took 8 vacation days that weren’t accrued. Never mind the fact that they were also taking money out of her check for a weeks’ vacation that she was purchasing (extra). This company is not a place ANYONE should work. They have no regard for employees. They’ve lost most of the employees in my daughter’s department alone due to “policy” changes.
I agree, I quit from Elavon on 2/6/2012, They refused to pay me the rest of my vacation and back dated my quit date to Jan 26,2012 which shut down my medical benefits so now I’m responsible for all my medical bills after the 26th. I ‘m glad I quit because it was a hostile work environment. They laid off all the Senior mangers and kept the new ones , so they could pay them at a lower rate. The policy and procedure change to make it harder on the customer service reps. I also got tired of lying for them regarding the pci compliance (reported this info to US bank) nothing was ever done. We saw the human resource mgr ([Name Redacted]) and several senior manger smoking pot at the park. Nothing was done. I’m not sure why the state of TN is allowing them to get away with stuff like this. It’s true money talks.
Elavon does not care about small and new businesses. If you have one or two charge backs or any issues they already consider you a “bad merchant”. On top of it, they freeze funds and hold fees without any warning and if you try to get a hold of someone to help you, you get the run around. We are assigned to one account representative who is the only one able to help us. Wehenver we have an issue we have to talk to her since nobody else is “able to help”. It takes us days!! to get a hold of our account representative and when we finally get a hold of her or she finally returns a phone call she always tells us something new in regards to their terms and conditions. We are a small business and started 1.5 years ago. So, we have some hard times and instead of Elavon trying to help they put you down and treat you like you are a bad merchant.
Stay away from Elavon!!
Jessica,
They have frozen close to 42,000.00 for 60 days!!! They are close to putting me out of business! We are going to sue the pants off them!!!
Elavon was the worst experience I’ve had in business this past year. They were not up front with their fees (in fact, I got charge an overdraft fee because I didn’t even have the amount of the fee in my checking account before they debited me!) and how much it costs to keep the services going, month by month. Their fees are exhorbitant, in my opinion, for a small business starting out. Their contract is written in very small print, and their fee for canceling the service is a whopping $295.00. I would avoid using this company if you’re a small business.
Dear Judy:
I have experienced the same you did. On top, the representative assigned to my account never gets back with me and I have to waste days trying to get a hold of her and then she always tells me something different. Have you experienced the same?
Thanks.
Elavon is getting sued over aggressive PCI Compliance policies. Read the story here: Elavon Lawsuit – A Merchant Challenges PCI Compliance
I have been working with your company [Elavon] for many years and had been happy with the service you provided. I contacted you with a problem in Dec and was told you do not support Smart payments any longer; I upgraded my comp and was not able to use your program any longer as the software was not available to download. I contacted your company and canceled my account on Jan 31, 2012, so I thought until I received a bill today. I called and talked with Steven and Annie and feel that I have been taken advantage of. The way you do business is wrong, it is dishonest and I will no longer recommend you to friends and family. In fact I will tell them to stay far away. I was told by Annie that she would send me a doc to have Robert sign and when received I was unable to open it. She also said she would TRY to get March charges removed. What about not having the program allows you to charge me for Feb and March? You took the program away from me, this is SO DISHONEST!
STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!!!
My wife was starting a new company and signed on with the recommendation of Regions Bank.
They sent us a used device that would not work wiith our register and in addition tied the us to an incorrect account number. After our Regions rep assured me there would be no penalty to cancel the account, Evalon informed me that there was a $290 fee for closing the account in addition to the $90 they had already charged us for a swipe device that didn’t work.
What did we get from Evalon? Nothing. Not a single transaction was processed.
What have the charged? $370 and counting.
PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU CHOOSE ELAVON!!!!!!!!!!
I have had a terrible experience with this company
Bad Experience #1
When I first got started with the company I was referred by USBank. The second month of service for my new business we had not yet had a sale so there was just enough money in the account to pay for the 42$ charge minimum every month. Well instead I was Charged 72$. This was because of a penalty they charge you if your not PCI certified. Well no one mentioned this to me at point of sale or ever. I have never done this before so I had never heard of PCI Certification. Well because I didn’t have enough funds in my bank I was also charged over draft fees. Elavon refused to reimburse me for the PCI Cert Fee.
Bad Experience #2
A month later I needed to change the type of account I had in order to accept payments over my website. During this process I was asked if I wanted to accept American Express. I said yes. That was all. A few days later I noticed I had a Hard Inquiery on my Credit Score from American Express. ” Oh ya by the way when you choose yes that means they do a hard inquirey on your credit” Woulda been nice if they told me especially being that I am trying to repair my credit right now.
Bad Experience #3
After I set up the new account that communicated with my website I stopped getting deposits in my bank. I figured it was because of the changes and maybe it needed addtional processing time. Turns out they put a hold on my account and put all the payments into a reserve account. THEY NEVER CONTACTED ME TO TELL ME THIS. When I called they said it was because my payment screen did not have SSL or https. It actually does and did, but the underwriters did not go far enough into the process to see it. They ended up realizing that it was and releasing the funds. Main complaint here was that no one ever seems to notify me whenever there is a problem. They either charge me a fee or put my account on hold.
I started to join a colleague’s account when I was sharing her office. My account was approved and I called to activate the account while at home, was told I had to call when I was with the machine to activate the account.
In the meantime, I decided to change locations so I did not activate the account. I spoke with my Elavon rep about how to initiate my own account at the new location. We spoke several times over a month or two. I decided to postpone opening the account. He just told me to call when I was ready to open the new account.
Later I noticed a $20 charge from Merchant Services. I called the rep and said that I shouldn’t be charged since I didn’t activate the account. He agreed, I thought we took care of it.
I just found that I have been charged for 6 months, $20 per month, for that account. When I called Elavon they wanted me to close the account, with a $95 fee, and refused to refund the past charges. My rep no longer works there.
The supervisor that I spoke with took a week to respond, repeated that I didn’t close the account so I owed the money. I explained again that my rep never told me I had to close the account, that since I didn’t take the steps I was told were necessary to activate it, and that the rep knew I moved and was not even in the office with the machine, that I should not be charged. He referred me to another department, two weeks ago, and I have heard nothing.
I’m not happy with Elavon at all.
Phillip and Monica,
Your both incorrect, PCI is mandated, but it isnt a federal law, Monica can you show me in the Dodd Frank Act where PCI is mandated? And Philip, the merchants are required per PCI Council, the card companies, Amex, Mastercard, Visa and Discover to pass a quarterly exam and submit the SAQ.
Jeff/Phillip
We are all incorrect, ha.
Jeff, you are right, PCI is not part of Dodd Frank (that’s where you can find the Durbin Amendment, another piece of Federal Legislation affecting our industry)
However PCI compliance IS Federal Law, you can find it in FISMA, the Federal Information Systems Management Act of 2002. FISMA does not affect merchants, however it does affect all banks covered under FDIC. They are required to protect their information and run annual risk assessments on all of their liabilities (i.e. merchant accounts) The fees incurred for maintaining compliance are passed along to the merchants (perhaps, with a margin added). PCI DSS was inacted in 2004 the Visa Cardholder Information Security Program, which later formed the PCI Security Council.
Phillip, my bad, misread one sentence, your correct about they dont have to charge fees..sorry!
Hi Monica,
Third Party transaction processors, such as ‘Elavon,’ must comply with IRS 6050 (1099K) and I quote the IRS code itself, “Such entities are precluded from collecting fees for costs incurred in fulfilling these requirements. These statutory obligations apply regardless of whether the participating payee pays a fee.” In other words, they must comply, without collecting a fee. go to (www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/irdm_section_6050w_faqs_7_23_11.pdf ) Seems that there is some misunderstanding on the part of Elavon of the meaning of the words ‘precluded’ and ‘regardless.’ Maybe they took that to mean that it is OK for them to have no regard for the law as it is written and just help themselves to our Business Checking accounts.
Elavon, without notice, helped itself to my Business Checking Account not for $59.00, but $100.00. And, I have yet to receive the 1099K! Of course I complained to an Elevan Agent in November about the fee and I quote the Rep., ” The contract you signed provides Elavon the right to access your account and take out any amount of money, without notice and without regard to original agreement of said fees etc.” Really? Even Bogus Fraudulent Charges? eg.-(Precluded from charging but charging anyway for something was not provided within the required time by statutory obligation.)
Elavon is the Biggest Mistake of my life. The company has nothing but a problem for their client. I am only one month with Elavon and they already prove that they are nothing but a Trouble. Their customer service doesn’t helps in solving any issue. Their merchant provider doesn’t reply your calls or messages. They hold your money without any reasons.
They canceled my account and hold my money and asking for to pay for the bad service they provided. What A loss!!! All I can say STAY AWAY FROM ELAVON AS FAR AS YOU CAN….
Called in regard to the $59 SRS Fee, and the rep. insisted that it was an IRS setup fee to file the 1099-K. I’m pretty sure that the IRS doesn’t charge a fee to file 1099-K. Elavon’s just doing it ’cause they can. I really dislike companies that charge you fees and then try to pass it off as if the big bad government made them do it. See also: phone companies.
On 1/3/12 I I accidently charged a customer $3487.87 for an oil change when it was supposed to be $34.87. I caught the mistake right away and refunded the total amount then charged him the right amount. However for some reason that is still unclear elavon saw the charge but did not see the refund and attempted to withdraw the total amount from my checking account with out notifying
me. The result was my bank account being flipped into negative and getting charged overdraft fees for several checks I had written. In addition to that Elavon began withholding proccess deposits until they got their $3487.87. I called them on 1/10/12 and spoke with steven who refered me to Jesaca’s voice mail where I left a message.then I called on 1/12/12 and got Steve. he lied to me about the money being returned as did Roman,Jody and Jenet over a period of seven days. Any way I’ll spare you the rest of the story as it was all the same. But I’d like to add that they refused to compensate me at all (with attitude) for the trouble and expense they had caused me including two $20.00 charges for trying to take money out of my account that didn’t belong to them.( People go to jail for that) So if your considering signing up with these folks keep in mind that all card processing institutions are the same. They are a necessary evil like banks that charge you a fee to use your money. Choose wisely and watch them carefully.
Wow … Thanks for all the information Everyone . No way will I go with these guys !
Elavon has been our credit card processor for years. A large customer (who is also a Fortune 500 company) paid a BIG invoice with a credit card. They are holding the payment until the company pays. ITs a big amount. They’re also holding back other payments, too, in case they get stuck. Absurd! We have no chargebacks!
I have been developing a web site for a client. We need to use Elavon to make sure the site is compliant (for some reason even though our PSP is happy) before they will release funds into my clients bank account as the acting merchant bank.
I have been repeatedly calling them all week – Untrained staff who don’t know the first thing about their company process who don’t call you back. Our application has been lost in the system.
It would seem that as Elavon are connected to Santander in the UK, small businesses have to work with them by default after setting up and account. Getting customers by default means there is less need to be competitive with training or service.
Very disappointing.
I have just been reading some nightmare experiences with Elavon in may 2012 I sighned up with this company for a knew on line business fancy dress i am still waiting for secure trading to connect the debit & credit cards.
Secure trading are saying the problems lies with Elavon they have not sent the bank set up yet although my site as been tested by secure trading and all is Ok. Merchant services as already charged me for this month June 2012 they said I went live on the 25th of may but I have still not been able to trade with the cards not been passed yet. I would like your advice please. is it best to cancel in writing and tell my bank to stop Direct debit going out to merchant services.
Kind Regards
Amie
Update to earlier post: Rep. made it right today. Slow about it, lots of nag sessions from me. But, for now, we are even. Just hope it stays that way. I have very little faith in this industry.
Beware of fees!
I had closed my account with Elavon, stating that I didn’t want to pay them $59 for a PCI fee, and that I had found a processor who doesn’t charge that fee. On the same day, there happened to be a chargeback posted to my Elavon account. In speaking with the card holder, he assured me he did not dispute that charge, although he did have fraud on his card around that time. His bank took it upon themselves to issue a chargeback, and Elavon then charged me their $20 non-refundable chargeback fee!
Elavon, regardless of the reason for the chargeback, will NOT agree to refund the $20 to me…I didn’t do anything to warrant being charged anything by Elavon (except maybe close my account?). The cardholder’s bank was in the wrong to have issued a chargeback, and Elavon will not make an exception to their predatory policy of a non-refundable charge.
Elavon’s back room is incompetent and their service reps are rude.
Elavon surprised me with some fees and when I called to inquire, they rudely dismissed me, saying that they had put notices in previous statements. (This rudeness occurred after they had completely mismanaged a simple bank account transfer.) I informed them by voice and in writing to close the merchant account and to cease any automatic withdraws from my account.
Of course the incompetents failed to close the account and attempted automatic withdrawals for monthly fees for a closed account.
Never do business with these jerks.
I really thought that Elavon was a merchant friendly processing company.
I will not put down the name of the company, but I will tell you the name of the sales rep.
I have a friend who processes with Manny Sardinha in Hawaii. He gave me the contact information for Manny Sardinha. Manny has helped us out a lot and since August of 2011 we have been with Manny and his processing company. They have done nothing but help our business out. Also Manny has been very accommodating with our questions and concerns for both ourselves and our friends that were interested in merchant accounts.
My friend also left his business and did not notify Manny until 3 months later. He called them up and they had already noticed that his account had no activity for 3 months. He told me that the support team was very professional and very patient. Manny then called my friend and gave him the number of the contact person. The service is excellent and professional.
Hope you find a better processing company and have a Happy New Year.
Mahalo,
Kimo Kealoha
We cancelled our account with Elavon mid-September, and were told we would be shipped mailing labels to return our equipment. Unfortunately, we didn’t put a stop payment on our bank account and they took out a payment for the month of October. When I called to complain I was told that the labels had been shipped. I explained that we hadn’t received them, and they said they would get another shipment, but they were ‘behind’, and it may take up to 6 weeks before we received them. I enquired about a refund for October, and they said that once the machine was returned, we could discuss that issue.
Two weeks later, I received the ‘original’ labels, and returned the machine that day. Five days later, I received another batch of labels!!!!
I called yesterday to discuss a refund for October, and was told that they can’t address anything older than 30 days!!!!
Fortunately, we put a stop payment on our account (at a cost of $20.00 of course), as they attempted to take another payment for November!!!
I don’t think I’ve ever felt as frustrated or angry with any service in my life!!! Yes… a larger company wouldn’t even notice a couple of extra payments, which is what they rely on. No-one takes responsibility for anything in that company. Definitely BEWARE!!!
Merchants beware of Elavon. They have so many fees that they don’t disclose or notify you about. They even charged me 20.00 to change the bank account they debit. Their customer service is the worst. One month I had 600.00 in charges and 132.00 in fees. How’s that for making money?
I should have known by the strong armed tactics of the rep that first contacted me that something was rotten in the town of prince george… I was under the impression that my contact was for 2 years (2 years too many with these crooks!) Now that I have closed my business, because im broke, they want their equipment back AND they also want $1700 for the 5 years the contact is supposedly for… They’ve already sent me to collections without any notice whatsoever! Karma will come around! Hopefully you read this before you make the mistake of getting into bed with these thieves! If I can help just one business from making a HUGE mistake like I did, it will all be worth it!
You did well to get away from them Nate. They really charged you 1700 early cancellation fee? Wow, that’s a new high in highway robbery, even for Elavon. They must be needing money desperately. Nate, I feel your pain. I have been trying to warn small businesses away from these corporate pirates. Unfortunately, these posts only get read after the damage has already been done. I keep hoping someone will institute a class action lawsuit against them. It seems ludicrous that they continue to get away with what can only be described as “criminal” activities.
As a small business (I run a dog rescue company) I can’t afford to take them to court. If someone else can do so I will testify to their actions against my rescue, totaling nearly a thousand dollars. I never ran a dime through their service and can prove that I never intended to do so. But 1700 early cancellation and a five year contract. Mine was only two year and 199 early cancellation. It looks like they are pushing the envelope as hard as they can. Their mothers must be really proud of the astute businessmen they have become.
William, Just today I threatened our Rep with a lawsuit, he did not do his paper work right and admits it, but expects me to pay for the past fees and any fees that accumulate until he gets it fixed. Says that he cannot refund anything over 30 days. But, he was notified within days of our first statement . Continue…
If anyone decides too and is serious about a mass lawsuit against Elavon please shoot me an email.
Lisa, I am unable to leave my rescue as I am caring for twenty five dogs and five horses. I would, however, cheerfully participate by signing an affidavit testifying to their unscrupulous practices. They have literally hundreds of complaints against them. I’m certain there are many others that Elavon has cheated that would love an opportunity to seek some justice against them. Beware of their main line of defense. Elavon uses many “sub” companies that operate under their umbrella. It is their standard policy to cast the blame elsewhere. A competent attorney would need to incorporate the concept that Elavon is ultimately responsible for the actions of their “sub” companies. I don’t know the legal terminology for these other companies, but you can be sure that will be their first line of defense. Just be prepared for it. In the military, an officer is responsible for the actions of the men under his command. So it should be with these corporate pirates.
In short, I would love to see justice done to these corporate pirates. They have been running roughshod over the small businessman for too long. You may send me any follow up email to [email protected] if you wish to contact me. Go get ‘em. I will give all the support of which I am capable. Bill Huff
The fee Nate Kemp would have been talking about (1700) would be for the lease of the equipment
I just switched with payment systems and they offered me the lowest rates in the country 1% on credit plus 9 cents and 0% & 0 swipe fee on debits. Avalon did us wrong, and not to mention Heartland wich has the biggest breach in history in the processing business!
hi issac….i have switched ot payment systems….the 0% and 0 swipe fee on debit sounded good…..this company is just like your previous one….very very bad….have you noticed all the “misc” fees….please let me know how it’s going with payment systems…..
I feel your comments are without merit. The contract terms are written specifically on the contract that you signed agreeing to all of the terms, and per the terms of service if Elavon doesn’t receive payment you give them the right to place your account in collections.
William, I am an animal lover, so Thank You for taking care of the horses. I (and my co-workers) am still waiting on fee refunds. Our Elavon rep. is actually working for a large bank. Will keep you posted if any further action is taken.
Monday is a “holiday” so I am postponing contact to State Attorney General until Tuesday. My attorney suggest that I try going through this process before other attempts.
Paul, each Rep. can change the contract to fit their clients needs. Our rep. changed ours on the paper form that we signed. However, when his office put all of our data into Elavon, it was entered incorrectly, and the fees accumulating due to their mistake, is now out of our pockets until it is corrected. So, not unmerited at all. We know what our contract is.
Paul,
I feel your comments are without merit. The initial contract the rep has you sign is not the final contract, which is only delivered digitally at their merchantconnect.com website after your account is created and you have a User ID and Password to access.
For the record, Elavon did make a major mistake on my account- admitted so, and it took almost a month and several tries for them to get it straight; the first CSR made it worse, then stopped corresponding hoping I’d go away (I have been assured that issues with her had been ‘addressed’). After that, I was left with no other option than to email everyone listed at their website ‘About Us’ – ‘Leadership Team’ section (hint: [email protected]). That got results, but by then the damage was done and the ‘relationship’ was irreconcilable. Further note that even though they did correct their mistake after the threat of litigation, and offer shallow apologies, at no point did they encourage us to continue to remain customers.
I own a small business and process credit cards through Elavon. Not dissatisfied with the service however a $59 charge was added to my account to fund their IRS 1099 K requirement. They told me it was for a new service for my benefit. A service I requested to opt out of. I was told NO! Every customer will have this one time fee assessed. With over a million customers that is a cool $59,000,00 that Elavon will pocket. I hope they claim this to the IRS and when my contract is up I will look for a new credit card processor and also cancel my bank account linked with this at US Bank.
I asked what the SRS fee is for and I got a 5 minute lecture on reading my mail. This is truly a SCAM. Now I have to find another company to get away from these crooks. US Bank is a great bank. Costco is a great grocery store. Why are these two companies pushing such shippy service? STAY AWAY FROM ELAVON.
The IRS Code regarding the new 1099K compliance rules below: But First; CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT, How do we start? If Evalon has more than a million customers, and they collected a 59 fee from each, that is 59 million. Certainly enough to attract several law firms no? There should also be a penalty of at least 100 million just to pay for all the wasted time arguing with tools that only do/say what they are told to. And further another 500 million in penalties for disregarding the Law, without regard. How are we as Americans going to be able to trust any banking institution when there is no respect whatsoever for the Rule of Law?
I found out from the IRS, ‘Payment Settlement’ entities are precluded from collecting fees in fulfilling the requirements of 6050W (1099K). Go to (www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/irdm_section_6050w_faqs_7_23_11.pdf) and I quote, “Because federal law requires settlement entities to file information returns (1099K) and to furnish payee statements (monthly), such entities are precluded from collecting fees for costs incurred in fulfilling these requirements. These statutory obligations apply regardless of whether the participating payee pays a fee.”
In other words, they also must comply just as any other business is required to when sending out 1099 misc, for example. Really is amazing, I have never even thought to charge anyone for sending them a 1099. What makes them so special? Will I need to 1099 them for the fee? I guess not since it is only 59 dollars. But it will add up to at least 59 million. I think we should all send them a 1099 anyway for the 59 dollars!!!!!!!
BTW, this whole 1099K mess is an absolute nightmare. I could not have come up with a better way to drag the whole economy over a cliff. What a waste of time. Let’s see now, can I split the pea one more time, oops, there’s nothing left to split.
All,
You SHOULD NOT pay a $59.00 fee for 1099 K reporting, or for the NEW (for 2012 tax season) IRS 6050W form. That is complete BS. I work for First Data, the largest payment processor in the world (120 countries). We do not charge for any IRS filing.
To the merchant upset about the chargeback fee, unfortunately that fee does actually pay for a service, it IS NOT a penalty. When a card holder charges back a transaction (regardless of the validity) your processor must (by law) retrieve all of the information about that transaction from encrypted archived reports of your transactions. A risk analyst then investigates the transaction (they work for money, just like the rest of us) and your chargeback fee is to compensate your processor for investigating the claim on your behalf. It doesn’t matter if you process $5 a month or $5 million a month, you will always have to pay that fee.
To all concerned about PCI compliance: If you were told a processor does not charge that fee by an agent, I am sorry; you were lied to. This one is actually enforced by the Federal Government. (We as payment processors don’t like it either)
Feel free to look up the Dodd Frank Consumer Protection and Wall Street Reform Act, and more specifically the PCI DSS amendment. (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). This amendment will explain to you why every merchant in the United States that accepts credit cards, must pay for PCI compliance. The fees you pay go towards an insurance premium that your processor must hold over every merchant account they deal with. NO MATTER WHAT. So unfortunately you will have to pay this fee as well.
Also, look up the PCI Security council, comprised of Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. These four companies have merged for this council to enforce PCI compliance world wide. So yes, every merchant in the world must validate PCI compliance.
If you would like honest, transparent answers to payment processing questions, feel free to shoot me an email. [redacted]
Hi Monica, thanks for the comment but you are incorrect about PCI compliance fees.
Processors are in no way mandated to charge PCI compliance fees. This is because the cost of PCI DSS is solely the burden of the processors and is the sum of fines, audits and internal costs of maintaining compliance. The problem is that most processors pass these costs along to merchants at great profit to themselves with annual fees billed to the merchant. In many cases the fee is marked up over 200%, and sometimes much more. I can tell you for a fact that not all providers charge PCI Compliance fees but, instead, have decided that they already make enough money from other fees and don’t need to gouge merchants with yet another expensive fee.
Due to Elavon’s internal issues, some pointy-haired ‘Director’ with Elavon closed our account on 11/4/11. There was no reason, we did nothing wrong, it was a “mistake” according to our rep., and she is sincerely sorry.
Eleven days later, they act like they’re doing us a favor by even working with us to get the transactions that were approved and batched over from 10/24-11/4 processed through. SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of transactions. We’re a small business, and we process between 35-50K/month. Needless to say, this has crippled our cash flow!
I was told the transactions would be taken care of Friday, 11/4. By Tuesday, I still didn’t see the funds. By Wednesday, 11/9, they told me there was a ‘special process’ and it takes TEN BUSINESS DAYS. Then they told me they would expedite that process, but I need to sign a ford authorizing them to fix their mistake and assuming all liability for their mistake (I’m desperate here, payroll and tax deposits are coming due); if I got that form back ASAP, it would be done by Friday 11/11 and should show Monday 11/14. No dice. I contact them today, and I get “I am sorry for the delay but Elavon experienced some systems issues on Friday. This is in process. I will advise once complete.”
Again, this has CRIPPLED our cash flow. We are a small business, and OUR vendors want paid BY THE 10TH, and they will not accept ‘sorry’ as payment. I am at the end of my rope here. We do everything in our power to conduct business in an honest and forthright manner; because of this, we have never had a charge-back or issue with payment.
Looks like my next stop is to submit a complaint about US Bank and Elavon with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Any advice?
On the bright side, according to the rep with Elavon, we’re getting a really good deal on our rates!
I do have some advice for you. Get away from these corporate pirates as fast as you can and at any cost. Delay will increase your loss. For verification of what I’m trying to tell you, simply read the long list of complaints on elavon. There is also an ongoing investigation of misconduct with the alleged purchase of a high BBB rating.
Again, get away from them. They prey on small businesses that they know are too under-financed to sue them. Beware of additional charges when you try to get away. They will really pour it on then.
I am truly sorry for your situation. I have been through it with them. I run an animal rescue corporation and they took nearly a thousand dollars from our dog’s food money. This is a new generation of piracy and damned little we can do about it. I know the frustration you are experiencing, but trust me. GET AWAY FROM THEM.
Their large business accounts take the majority of their attention. They use the small businesses to rip off to supplement their income.. [email protected]
Any good feedback on these pirates come from their employees, who are just happy to get a paycheck regardless of where it comes from or, possibly from one of their large accounts. They take care of the big accounts and the small businessman is fed to the sharks.
It is almost refreshing and disgusting to read all of these complaints. We are a small business and fairly new online. We went through a 3rd party to find Elavon shut us down 5 days ago without any notice or reasoning. With around $2000 in batches being held and declined and 50-60 phone calls and voicemails we are still left out to dry. Before I read these I knew they had to be preying on small business and neglect anything but their larger businesses. They do not care if familys dont eat and they run off all of your customers it seems. What kind of company wont let you speak with a real person who handles your account?!!?! “Thats “security” and we arent able to speak with them direct” but they should call back within 1 hour since we have sent in 5 “heightened” emails that your wanting them to call back to re-open the account”. This is UNREAL. Can you offer ANY feedback on how to have this issue resolved one way or another??? Any advise would be greatly appreciated. – A small business owner.
I was lucky in that our account was established by Stuart Harvey when he was CEO. He passed it off to his underling, who is no longer in Elavon’s division, but was able to light a fire when I called him in desperation… not that it did us much good.
We did receive credit for the $17K today, but it was at the expense of our customers being double-charged. 12 days working toward a resolution that has only multiplied the problem. Where is the money from the first round of charges? Somewhere in the matrix, I suppose… earning Elavon compounded interest.
Try explaining that to your customers.
My advice to you would be to scrub LinkedIn’s profile for Elavon, and start emailing EVERY NAME you find; it appears that their standard format is [email protected]. I’m working on a list. I’ll do USBank next.
Beyond that, take heed to William Huff’s advice of moving immediately; they’ve already written us off, and if you think the level of service is bad NOW, wait until the next time you need their ‘help’.
I thought that by going with a direct acquirer, we would be cutting out the middleman- effectively saving money and having a direct line to the source should an issue arise. I can’t imagine what would happen at this point if we were with a third party agent.
I encourage you to join me in diligently keeping tedious records for use in submitting a formal complaint to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as listed on this site.
In the interim, I’m resisting the overwhelming urge to start ‘dropping dox’- after all, that’s my bread and butter you’re f***ing with.
UNREAL? Understatement. The behavior I’ve encountered thus far from their useless paycheck-collectors is bordering on sociopathic.
Thanks Rebecca for helping me spread the message. It would be interesting to total all the accounts of collected monies Elavon is holding “in transit” in interest bearing accounts. Short term interest on a couple of thousand dollars doesn’t amount to much,but on a couple of million?
I smell a corporate rat. White collar crime at the highest level.
I don’t have the time or funds to pursue these crooks, but if I can attract the notice of enough people and make them aware of what Elavon is doing, maybe, just maybe I’ll one day see justice done.
Rebecca, I was in a U.S. Bank when the manager called Elavon to appeal to them for help when they were ripping money from my animal rescue business. They simply didn’t care. I was too small, beneath their notice. The thousand dollars they scammed could have provided food and medical aid to homeless dogs. I fund my rescue with my social security money. I hope I can help other people avoid the sick feeling in the pit of the stomach you get when you know you’ve been cheated and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Elavon, my records are intact and I hope someday they’ll be used to help expose you for what you are. I don’t expect to get my thousand dollars back, but I have a long memory. I hope to see justice done, not just for me, but for all the struggling small business people you have cheated. I feel their pain and outrage. We wait for our chance to see you get exactly what you deserve.
Have a merry christmas with our money. You won’t mind if I hope you choke on it.
Elavon has an A+ rating with the BBB and accusing them of paying off the BBB for that rating is unfounded. Also, I use Elavon and I am EXTREMELY happy that they take PCI seriously. I received messages stating I had to be PCI Compliant and which website to visit. PCI should be enforced. I am tired of my credit cards getting compromised because businesses don’t take security seriously. We all pay for credit card fraud in the end. I think the bottom line is that in the times we live in, you CANNOT trust anyone. You have to READ the fine print. My contract referred to the “merchant agreement” and also had a website to visit to read the Terms in full. I READ them. My merchant statement contains messages to make me aware of things I need to do. I READ those. Bottom line is, if we all took respnsibility for the things we should, not as many people would be complaining because they signed something they did not read and did not understand. Take responsibility for your business and research and read before you sign. Last, I find it a bit suspicious that searchpaymentcardoptions.com only recommends 2 processors. Someone mentioned Elavon paying off the BBB. Are those two recommended processors paying the owners of this website?
Hi Cher,
Thank you for the comment. I recommend watching this 20/20 investigation regarding the BBB’s practices (there are many other examples online). I’m not accusing the BBB of inflating Elavon’s rating, but I am bringing awareness that an “A+” for a company with 237 complaint in the last 36 months is a little odd. It seems to me that such a high rating should be reserved for companies with no complaints. CardPaymentOptions recommends far more than two processors but only the top ones get the best exposure, which changes as new information arises. Unlike most other review sites that cover this industry, payment is not accepted for the purposes of raising a companies rating or giving it a positive review. We pride ourselves in bringing transparency to this murky industry by helping business owners avoid the “fine print” and jargon problems that intentionally dupe merchants into expensive contracts.
Ms. Harvey sounds like an Elavon official. I don’t hold her statements as being very accurate. Or helpful.
I never had any issues for years with the original merchant processor through our bank. Then 13 years ago Elavon became the provider. Even then, it was OK, Since this PCI fiasco and later the 1099-K reporting requirements, Elavon has seen (it) as a pot of gold to milk small businesses. They are not very good with customer service either. Even their web links to require PCI compliance do not work properly. They charge $29 a month for non-PCI compliance. There is no reason to rip-off small businesses with these fees. Then they have a whole host of other related fees from mailing statements to minimum charges, to the latest the $59 fee (1099-K) which applies the same from the biggest customer to the smallest. They say it benefits the merchant. No it does not. It benefits them and the government.
They also told me their fee for my account they pay to the Big 4 VISA-MC, etc is a mere $59 annually, yet they soak up much more than that with these and other fees described above.
Their customer service is nearly nonresponsive. Their websites also have issues in getting them to work properly.
It sounds like it is ripe for some kind of class action against this company.
This company should be ashamed of themselves. the way in which they take advantage of small businesses is appalling and is representative of why there are Occupy Wall Street protests everywhere! They need to stop taking advantage of small businesses and stop charging ridiculous fees every chance they get. They continued to take money from me even after I went out of business !
DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY! YOU WILL BE SORRY IF YOU DO.
SAY NO TO THEM BY NOT DOING BUSINESS WITH CROOKS!
This company charges twice what my new processor charges. Then it took 2 months to get them to stop charging me service fees and several phone calls which wastes my time. I recommend staying away from them at all costs.
I have had nothing but bad experience with Elavon – applied for an account, but withdrew my application before being notified that it had been approved (went with the Square which totally rocks!). I never got a final contract, they just started billing me monthly charges that were NOT what was in the application, and as I said, I never got a final contract (sorry Sammy Jo). REPEATED emails and phone calls to several entities on several levels to straighten it out were mostly NOT returned – the only people I managed to hear back from wanted to charge me a CANCELLATION FEE (more than the application said) for an account that never should have been set up in the first place!
Finally got Carla Henry to cancel the account without a fee, but still waiting (2+ months) for reimbursement of monthly fees which Carla said would be reimbursed. Had to get my bank involved to do stop payment on their fees. Carla is no longer returning my calls or emails.
Does anybody know who to talk to at Costco to tell them to stop promoting Elavon?!
We have used Elavon and recently found that they have added a $29.95 per month fee for over a year and a half ! They said that I failed to get my annual renewal for PCI (a simple online form ). I received no emails or letters.There had been a call from them in early 2010 and I contacted them right back. There is a line item on the statement: NONPCI CHG 1 29.950. We only have 46 charges per month, totally $1,400, processing charge of $37, plus $5 assoc & authorization fees, $5 STMT MAIL (?), AND $5 STMT FEE (?) and $29.,95 NONPCI CHG. i believe a more legit way would be to notify clients of such added fees that essentially doubled our bill. The supervisor would not credit us anything even when she knew I would be changing companies.
It’s important to know that PCI (payment card industry) compliance is not just an online form. Taking an online test makes your business compliant, but PCI compliance mainly has to do with the actual credit card terminal in the business. The make and model of it determines whether or not it’s PCI approved. There is currently a list of non-approved PCI terminals that are being retired because of a safety breach issue associated with them. If you have a terminal that’s on the list to be retired, you will continue to get those fees. Your processing company should have made you aware of this, they also should do a rate review for you instead of letting your fees go up twice in one year. In march and october your fees have probably gone up instead of down and you are being charged the non-compliance fee as well. All things that your current processor should have made you aware of, instead of simply putting it in your statement hoping you wouldn’t notice. Unfortunately there’s bad people out there trying to access cardholder information so these older terminals are no longer safe or approved to have functioning for payment. Unfortunately there are companies out there who will take advantage of the fact that you won’t find out and will continue to pay their outrageous rates and fees until you do.
I am currently with STREAMLINE, but signed up for Elavon back in june. I have made the payments they required, but have waited for the salesman to come and set the machine up, as I am hopeless with these things. He didn’t, as requested, come and help us. He hasn’t phoned as requested a couple of months ago, (on holiday apparently) and when i contacted Elavon to take the machine away, I was told i have a 3 year contract, that will cost me £995 to cancel. If i leave the machine in storage, without cancelling, the fees will add up to £1500…..as I was sold this service as “cheaper than Streamline” i am at a loss to discover how.
I feel conned, and this was definitely, at the very least, a missold contract, as we are a small guest house in Margate, Kent, and do not take the kind of money in revenue to justify this kind of charge, indeed, our agent was told our card takings were minor. Does anyone know if I have any comeback here?
This is an update to my previous complaint.
Finally, a young man called Adam from the the company that “sold” me the contract, contacted me today.
He assures me he can sort out my problem, and if he keeps to his word, I shall add to this saga. There has been no offer to terminate the contract, but to resolve my issues. Indeed, it is only because I wrote this review that I came to Adam’s attention at all….so far he is the only person who has proved to be remotely trying to help.. (So, when you have done what you promised, I shall be back Adam…promise!)
Incidentally, Cardsave, who I have been with since 2006, want to charge me a £144.00 inc. vat termination fee…..did i sign up for a life sentence with them???
Thanks for the update, Sharon! Please keep us posted on how this turns out for you.
I am hoping this is the last update i will have cause to write…..i have had a result, but it was entirely due to this site, and phillip’s efforts to let the business sector have a voice that can be heard, and possibly help other people avoid falling into the trap we fell into. from the horror stories i have read from america, (and thankyou for your support bill) elavon is your worst nightmare. i believe the rules for firms like elavon are different in britain, but that doesn’t make a damned difference if no-one is listening and helping to sort out the kind of problems i’ve seen on this site, which to my mind, seem criminal in many cases.
i was lucky. adam sorted out my problem, but only because he read my review. and that’s thanks to phillip.
Sharon, Do whatever you have to do to get free of these corporate pirates. They will string you along and take every cent they can for as long as they can. They are complete crooks. Get free of them. They prey on small businesses that they know are unable to afford to fight back. They are truely the lowest kind of predator. Good luck getting away from them. Bill
Costco Elavon is the best!! Not sure why your not having any luck but they’ve saved me a ton of money. I don’t have to deal with PCI and statement fees, dues and assessments. They don’t even charge you and arm and leg when it comes to early termination on the contract. Besides its only $95 bucks!! Ninety-five is ninety-five!! And who cares about how long the contract is either if they’re gonna be saving a ton of money. What’s wrong with you people??!! And it goes through my bank all fine and dandy! :)
Jason, maybe you should read some of these complaints. Since its only 95 dollars to to early terminate as you say, maybe you wouldn’t mind sending me the extra hundred bucks they charged me (195.00). Apparently you haven’t been charged the non-pci compliant fee YET. Don’t worry, you will be, and with no warning. They are kind enough to just deduct it from your bank account.. And just exactly how are you saving a ton of money? The money that is deposited is already your money. They are just a middleman who charge you to put YOUR money in the bank, minus their cut.
There are three possible answers here: 1. You haven’t been with Elavon very long. 2. You do a huge volume of business,or 3. You work for Elavon and are shooting for a raise. I suspect that #3 is the correct answer, otherwise why are you posting in the remarks section anyway? Hope you get your raise Jason. It will come at the expense of a small businessperson like an animal rescue. They ripped me for about a thousand dollars before I could escape their clutches. Good luck in your Elavon career.
Elavon is definitely not upfront nor legit! We signed up through 3rd party, East
Commerce, but we have only dealt directly with Elavon. First they charged $50 for not being PCI compliant, without notifying us that we needed to do this annually and nor providing that information when we called to inquire about the dramatic jump in our monthly fees from one month to the next. Also when we called Elavon to close our account with them, they failed to inform us that we needed to submit a “merchant request to close processing account” form. Had we not called the following month to check that the account had indeed been closed, we would never have found this out and would have continued to accrue their fees(in fact they did charge us that month’s fees + $75 closing fee, which was never made clear to us when we signed on). Be very wary of this company! They are evasive, ambiguous, very far from clear about their terms and conditions. They sound good at first and will offer a lower rate than other companies and may adhere to that for a year but will stick you with all kinds of added fees and charges and will take it directly out of your account without any communications beforehand about what for, why, when, how much, etc. We found them to be infuriating CHEATS.
Yea they are!!!! I don’t know about you but Costco Elavon has saved me a lot of money!!! Don’t know why your getting charged those fees but they’re great about not charging them. What’s the problem!!?? Honest in my opinion!!
Jason, READ what people are saying about them. The complaints are real. Do you really believe that we have nothing else to do but write false complaints about a company that is doing the right thing? Treating their customers well and fairly? Again the problem is (read complaints).
Here is the problem; Elavon is ripping off small businesses that they know are doing too low a volume of business to have the kind of money it takes to sue them. Bringing a lawsuit against them to recover the money they stole would be too time consuming and would cost more in lost wages than we could recover. That leaves only this forum to register our outrage against a corporate giant taking advantage of the small businessman. Now you know what the PROBLEM is.
Indeed. One of their favorite tactics against small business owners is the ‘one time fee’. The main issue is that there seem to be 10 or more ‘one time’ fees that come up over the course of a year. Each ‘one time’, and each unique, but everytime one is paid another is just around the corner. Now they are charging yet another MANDATORY ‘one time fee’ for access to a website they have created that I have no use for nor any desire to see. They may be good with large companies, but for small business, they are nothing but one scam after another. Basicly, they are LIARS, CROOKS and THIEVES!
I just got off the phone with Elavon over this “SRS” fee – they charged me the “one time fee” of $59 – I don’t understand how they can get away with extra fees that aren’t detailed in our agreement.
This is theft in my opinion – sending me a notice about this new reporting tool and site, I call saying I won’t use it so please don’t charge me the fee and they tell me to call back AFTER the fee is charged. I did and they say they CANNOT reverse the fee, saying they did their best to reduce the fees on their ‘valuable customers’ from $79 to $59. I’ve seen this fee as low as $29.95 from Elavon on other sites so I don’t understand the price differences on that.
What I was told that they are allowed to change the terms of the agreement at any point, which includes charging endless “one time fees”, BUT, and here’s the kicker…you can cancel for them doing this but they will steal the early termination fee from you too. Stole money we don’t authorize, then charge me for cancelling when they charge fees not agreed to.
I really, really, do not like the way this company operates.
I would never recommend Costco’s Elavon CC service. I told them I wanted to do transactions through the web and was still developing my site. They setup my account, but they set it up incorrectly so I could not transact over the web. The person instead of switching accounts setup a second account (took 4 months) and I was double billed until I noticed it 3 months later and when I was ready to deploy my site, they had already cancelled my 2nd account for not having security (no notification) as it was still under development.
I never ran a single $ through there service and CS was no help at all and would only refund 2 months. I spent so much to get it setup and still I can use it.
I have found that large processing companies often take advantage of small merchants with exorbitant fees. However, there are few privately held processing companies who offer quality service and reasonable pricing. During my research for the right company for me, I found out that 1) you have to ask about interchange plus pricing. Often times these companies place the interchange cost in buckets and charge a large amount with their cost. Then 2) ask about how PCI affects my business. It seems like there are ways to avoid the whole mess PCI brings by going with a company who can offer an end to end encryption solution. If you google terms like merchant processing companies or related terms, it directs you to the large companies that either have a negative reputation like stated above or have been breached like heartland- not a great way to research when looking for a reasonable company especially since you know they pay for their website to pop up. Visa has a website where it lists Processors who are PCI compliant. http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/cisp-list-of-pcidss-compliant-service-providers.pdf
This should be helpful for those who still need the “necessary evils” but would like a company who can offer quality service with reasonable rates. If anyone would like to know who I use, let me know. I can certainly share it with you.
Hi Kelly – I’ve been researching for two weeks – an absolute headache. So many creeps and crooks. I’m with Global currently and have tried First Data – sooo bad.
I would love to know who you use.
Thank you, Marnie
Hi Marnie,
If you haven’t already be sure to check out the Recommended Processors page.
Hi
I have recently sighned a contract with Elavon. I should of been trading on my site 25th may 2012.
but there seems to be a delay with secure trading. after reading these nightmare stories I am going to cancel the contract. The contract is for three years I don’t no were i will stand with that. but could you please recommend who you use.
Kind Regards
Amie
I was about ready to sign up at Costco for a merchant service but decided to come home first and read some online reviews. After reading everything on in here I’m pretty much terrified! I think I will just stick with my current merchant service even if the fees are a little higher the service is better….
hey all just a little bit of information cosco merchants do not get the srs fee. and yes it.is a bunch of crap about the fee but if yall would.just take a look at the website it will.show.everything elavon reports to the irs and will.help you do.your taxes at the end of the year. msp merchants are gettin charged whatever there msp.wants to charge elavon.has no control over msp. hope was helpful if have.any ?s.please ask
Elavon ARE THIEVES…they have taken 170k from my bank account without any notice at all. I am going to have to contact an attorney, they say its because of chargebacks but I did 1.2 million in two months and have had 13 chargebacks totallying 1400.00 dollars…SO ELAVON TAKES 170K FROM MY ACCOUNT FOR A LOUSY 1400 DOLLARS? i HAVE EMAILED JAMES SINEGAL, HE IS THE PRESIDENT OF COSTCO, HIS EMAIL ADDRESS IN [email protected] i HAVE ALSO EMAILED LISA YAPLE, BERNIE DECKYS AND SANY TORREY ALL OF COSTCO AND NO HELP. I HAVE SHOWED MY STATEMENTS TO THE MANAGERS AT MY LOCAL COSTCO AND THEY HAVE FORWARDED ON INFORMATION TO THE ABOVE PEOPLE, BEEN OVER THREE DAYS WITH NO REPLIES, MY INTENTION IS TO NOW SUE THEM.
AS FOR ELAVON, I HAVE TRIED TO REACH CARLA HENRY, RALPH WHITE, LAWRENCE TAYLOR, LUCRETIA EMBRY, TODD AARON, ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE COMPLETELY WORHTLESS AND THEY HOLD MONEY FROM ME SAYING i HAVE CHARGEBACKS…WHAT A FN JOKE, THESE PEOPLE SHOULD BE FIRED AND I PLAN TO APPLY PRESSURE. JUST WAIT COSTCO AND ELAVON, YOU HAVE MESSED WITH THE WRONG PERSON
Hi Jeff. I feel your pain. They took almost a thousand from me at Arkansas Canine Rescue with nothing in return. I know its not as much as you have been ripped for, but I run A DOG AND HORSE RESCUE FUNDED BY MY SOCIAL SECURITY. It would have cost me more to sue than it was worth. It would do my heart good to see someone sue these corporate pirates. I am in full support of your endeavors in that direction. They really are slime who know the small merchants are virtually helpless against their team of lawyers. I fervently hope that this time they finally bit off more than they can chew. Go get ‘em! Bill Huff Arkansas Canine Rescue, Inc.
I am a small non-profit barely raising enough money to continue training shelter dogs to work with veterans. I explained this to me “sales person” and am now in a contarct where my monthly fees are over the top. Lied to and stolen from, this is how I feel. Not a very good businees model, stealing from homeless dogs and veterans.
Cathy, I run Arkansas Canine Rescue (dogs and horses rescue). Elavon ripped me off for nearly a thousand. They are heartless corporate pirates and represent the evil in business. I even had my bank manager call them to explain their error. To no avail, of course. They kept the money. Costs too much to take them to court in time and money. A fact of which they are well aware. I feel your pain. Its our animals that suffer. I do believe they will pay. What goes around comes around. They probably live small and miserable lives. I hope so anyway.
Yes, it’s time to leave Elavon. They just established a “reserve account” for me because I am charging more than normal. Huh? When a customer process more business you drive them away? That’s the new Elavon I suppose.
We are a B-to-B – never had a chargeback nor even a return in the 6 years I have been with them. My great local representative was let go recently. I’d say it looks downhill from here. I’m done. I’ll get the $21,000 they have temporarily stolen from me eventually.
We are also having similar problems with these people. A big amount is been put on hold without any valid reason. is there anyway where we can get our monies back. We can claim for the recovries our monies if we unite and claim together as a group
Let me start by saying, avoid doing business with Elavon at all costs. I changed the structure of my company from a dba to an LLC and set up a new bank account reflecting these changes. For two weeks, after many phone calls and tons of email correspondence, I have attempted to get Elavon to change the account in which deposits are made . . . still to no avail. After jumping through many “hoops,” it appears that I am right back where I began. In all my life, I have never encountered such incompetence and lack of customer service as exhibited by this company.
I’ve never had a problem with Elavon, or experienced any hidden fees. In fact, my agent stops in from time to time just to make sure I’m happy with the service. He brought me a few referrals over the past year and he makes us feel like he actually cares. I recommend Elavon, but you might be better off going through an Elavon IC vs. their sales office because the IC is like a second source of support.
how do you contact Elavon IC? I don’t see a reference to it in google.
I talked to cust service about closing, she talked me into a seasonal suspension for 3 months – hoping business would pick up. She did not tell me the monthly fees would remain the same!!! What the heck, that is what I was trying to avoid!! Called the next month, frustrated and asked to close. After faxing the closure form I thought -done deal no more fees. At no time did anyone tell me that even one day into the next month you are charged for the whole month – spoke to supr, just wanted one month credited back – $24.95. Oh no cant happen. We had been customers for over 6 years with little problem. Feel like we were screwed. Also note – no one can explain the “other charge” of $4.95 monthly either. And if we did not have any credit card charges, why is there a $3 fee for processing???? Scammed.
Elavon has been great for me, Statements come, fees are right. I have had no problems with the terminal itself, and the correct amounts are always in my account when they should be.
I have had to wait on the phone for a while when I did have a question for them, but really if the rates are so low somethings gotta give and for them it might be customer service staff. When I did get to talk to them though they were very good in helping me. I have no complaints about them.
I did however get lured into switching to Axxcess payments and Charge National which both use Pivotal Payments for processing due to their “lower” rates… Once the hidden fees come to light they are double the price!!! You can read my review about them under Still Waiting… needless to say… stay far far away from those companies! When they tell you about 1.59% for Visa/MC also note that their is an “Auth” fee of 15cents for EVERY transaction on top of that! When I did finally cancel with them it took 4 months to get my money back and I had to call EVERYDAY and finally 3 weeks later I spoke to a “supervisor”…
Faxed cancellation of merchant agreement form to Elavon per their request advising going out of business on a specific date, May 1, 2011. Elavon decided to terminate the agreement immediately on Apil 19th, thus depriving our small business of sales for the remainining two weeks still open. Elavon’s actions cost of hundreds of dollars in sales when we really needed it. Elavon rep giggled as she told us that her company pays little attention to the efective date on their forms! Do NOT do business with them.
Sammy jo, Maybe you should read some of these “countless complaints” you are deriding. Have you bothered to ask yourself why they are “countless” instead of a few normal business complaints? Do you really think the small businessperson in America has nothing better to do than complain about your company. You said to “get real”. Ok here is a little bite of reality. After people are ripped off enough they finally realize there is not much they can do about it. Even winning a lawsuit against such a giant is a losing proposition simply because of the time and expense of bringing such a suit. Your corporate employers know this so they they are unafraid of stepping on the little people of America. That leaves this forum as one of the few arenas where the “little people” can air their grievances. It won’t do any good, because of people like you, but it makes us feel a little better.
So, before you lash out with your sanctimonious and offensive remarks, just research a few of the “countless complaints” your company receives. Oh yeah, I hope you get your raise. It may have been taken from a charitable organization like Arkansas Canine Rescue, Inc.
Well said! And even though a thieving corporation can successfully hide their scamming, deceptive intentions in small, vague print – it’s still unethical.
Some ass-clown representative tries to insult the small business community in this forum when he or she doesn’t even know the details. Thanks, Sammy Jo, for being a clear example of the douchebags that work at Elavon!
Thanks for the support Marissa. elavon has been defended by saying that most of the complaints are because of resellers. I say that is not a valid defense. elavon is ultimately responsible for the deeds done in their name. I believe they just don’t care enough to clean up their act.
I hope that by raising awareness of some of these misdeeds that either elavon will feel the ire of small businesses and become more sensitive to what is being done in their name or more small businesses are warned away from these corporate predators. Keep up the fight.
The sales agent assigned was Jean Desarmes. We have attempted numerous times to get in touch with him at his number. we are only able to leave messages which he never answers or calls back. He said the terminal would cost 24 X 24 = $ 576. I told him we could buy the terminal for less on internet. He assured me this was not possible. I called North American Terminals and bought the same new machine for $ 200. We have now contacted a Costco ELAVON Supervisor Alice who says we will still be billed for the terminal since is was finnally shiped yesterday even though we have told Jean we did not want it three days ago. She was very rude and forceful about the whole affair.
DO NOT USE ELAVON.
Too bad I did not read this website before I signed up with Elavon. Poorest customer service I have ever experienced – if any at all. Took me over 30 days just to find out what my opitons where. Each kept passing me to another. Oh, and BTW, Elavon actually used LADCO Leasing to get their money for the Gateway in advance so don’t even think about getting out of that. Once LADCO loans the money for the Gateway, you are stuck. Maybe I can get one of our local news reports to do a story on this.
THey told me I had no choice but to sign a 4 year contract when in fact I had other choices. Not done with them yet. I intend to take this as far as I can.
I’ve posted below already and Costco is supposedly following up on my dispute with Elavon. Next week I’m filing a complaint either way with Better Business Bureau and Consumer Affairs.
The deceptive practice has to end. It’s beyond ridiculous.
Hi Jk, I’m one of your who is suffering from Elavon. I have the same issus as u have. The sell Rep. his name Alex didn’t explain about this third party in the contract (ladco). He just made me assuming the terminal own by Elavon which I can breach the contract just to pay $290 whenever i’m not happy with them. Infact, he tried to put me throug this. He trapped me by let me did an initial which is listed with a really small letter under and he tried to telll me don’t worry about this part just put the initial. And the part should i concern is on the last page and this is what he explained to me. I used Elavon only one month due to they charged me more than i paid and it’s not what Alex came out in a quote that we discussed. So Ladco Leasing has kept calling me and require me to pay 4 years contract which is 4,665.16. I refured to pay because it is fraud. they sent me to the collector. Collector has tried to thread me even on the phone or now send a letter to notify that the suit is being filed.That”s my nightmare right now. Please Jk or everyone who has the same problem or not, can you tell me what should i do???
I really thankful for any ideas.
Elavon is a corporate predator. They charge merchants non-compliance fees with no warning. Often debiting a merchants account without notice. Charging annual fees without notification. Any complaints fall on deaf ears or no ears at all. These people are despicable. They will prey on non-profit companies knowing that most of these companies are simply too underfunded to bring a lawsuit against them. Most of their charges are small enough that even if a lawsuit wins, the small merchant loses. The time and expense are simply not worth it. A fact that Elavon personel are well aware of.
To say they are upfront and honest is obviously comming from someone who has not read the looong list of complaints. Most people being stung by this corporate predator just go on with their lives instead of making a completely useless complaint. I only replied because of the “honest and upfront” remark. That was just too much. More than happy to tell anyone who wants to listen about this “honest and upfront ” monster. Nearly one thousand from a dog rescue company. Really sad.
What is really sad is to hear the countless complaints from merchant who intend to do “business” but failed to READ the Merchant Application, Terms of Service Agreement or the Merchant Operating Guide, which CLEARLY state all the terms and each parties responsibilities, requirements and consequences for those who fail to comply with the terms they have agreed to in advance and in writing, That is what is really sad. I work for Elavon, and I love my job. I love helping Merchants but so many are so completely unaware of what is required. We are a business. You are a business Our terms are CLEAR, you have only to READ the terms. The same old sad excuse, “Well, nobody told me that or I did not know and it’s not fair or I did not read all the “fine print’ because I just trusted it would “be fair and go my way” is the saddest excuse of a complaint I have ever hear. READ YOUR CONTRACT. This is business, not personal. Hello? Who does business the way you do? If you took as much care of your business responsibilies as you did complaining on this site and whining about a “law suit”, (that by the way, you would lose miserably) maybe you would not be so unhappy and dissatified. We provide a service, a damn good service and fund all the monies to your accounts. We are responsible and you should be too. So we are the MONSTERS who pay you but you can’t read your own contract. Get Real! That’s what’s sad. You can’t afford to sue Elavon and if you did, you would lose. You know why? READ YOUR CONTRACT. It is clear and very well explained and these are the terms YOU agreed to. SAD!!!!
A long winded response from a corporate employee who accepts money from these corporate pirates. Looking for a raise? Most small business can’t afford to suit because the time and expense of doing so far outweigh the benefits of winning. Its easy for you to say Elavon would win in such a cavalier fashion without even listening to the merchants side. You know, the one that just got ripped off by your beloved employer. Taking a corporate giant to court to recover a few hundred dollars is a lousy gamble. Your staff attorney would read some obscure small print in the contract worded in a legalese that only specialized attorneys can interpret. Often such interpretation would not even cover the specific issue being legated. Throw up a smoke screen, get an adjournment, confuse the issue and sooner or later the small merchant must give up the battlefield. You see while they are in court, the small businessman has no one to mind the store. So more income lost. A classic case of win the battle, lose the war. The corporate predator is well aware of these things.
Your employer took nearly 900 dollars from my animal rescue business. They never did a single thing to earn that money. They debited my account without notice citing some obscure clause that I never was able to verify. I was fined for non-compliance without the notice that your precious contract says will be sent out prior to such a fine being levied. When I had finally had enough and tried to withdraw your employer sucked another three hundred dollars away from my animals. Maybe that was your christmas bonus. I’m sure they needed that money badly. After all, the money for those corporate attorneys must come from somewhere.
I’m sure you will understand how distressed I am over making you sad with all the “whining and complaining”. I am equally certain that you would rather the small merchants took their losses in silence while you sit on your sanctimonious bottom and spend your paycheck. I’m sure all at elavon would be happy if we would just shut up and go away. Slink back into our little cubbyholes and not say a word. But, If I can convince just one small businessman to steer of this corporate predator then I will have achieved my purpose.
Sammy Jo:
I’m a little confused by your response. You stated: We…fund all the monies to your accounts…so we are the MONSTERS who pay you….
I just want to clarify, you don’t PAY the businesses, you deposit THEIR money after taking a hefty chunk for yourselves. Merchant services is, sadly, a necessary evil, however, please don’t lose sight of whose money it is in the first place: OURS, not yours.
I did read my contract says must comply with pci not a word about a web site Your contract is not clear and neither was the person that signed me up. where to sign up for pci. charged extra 30.00per month for not knowing how to comply did not catch it till annual extra charge 50.00.
also charged 5.00 per month for statement received total of 3 in a year.
got the first one then missed several months total of 9. So I figure my contract went into default the second month when I did not receive statements. tried to cancel being charged 195.00. Did not receive 9 statements out of 12 well I think I can prove them wrong, I think a subpoena of total count of customers and a postal bill would prove they are defaulting. Also told not getting statements does not break contract, still collected the 5.00 monthly. A broken contract is just that I am disputing the proprietorial cancellation fee.
I am going to try class action suit if I get enough response.
Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or Fax 303-278-6245
name is Jon.
Sammy Joe,
Why don’t you educate yourself and read the IRS Code, namely 6050W governing the compliance and requirements of the 1099K returns. And I quote: ” Because federal law requires payment settlement entities or electronic payment facilitators to file information 1099K returns and to furnish payee statements, such entities are PRECLUDED from collecting fees for costs incurred in fulfilling these requirements.” Your beloved company is committing FRAUD. No matter how you try to justify yourself with the “contract.” But, it is obvious, you and your company have no regard for the rule of law whatsoever.
Furthermore, the days of Usury will not be forever because someday, there won’t be anymore suckers for you to use. And, just how good does it feel to work for a company that not only demands, takes, what it wants in order to send out required IRS forms and reports. Your industry was the first, no one before ever had such poor business etiquette. Never would I ever be so brazenly ridiculously rude as to charge a client for my own required 1099 compliance with the the IRS. But, you and your company will get what is coming to you. I think now, every business is going to 1099 your company for all of the fees you so glibly helped yourself from their checking accounts, like it was your own personal cookie jar.
So, go ahead Sammy Joe, pick the red pill, eat your cookie, you will wake feeling refreshed and that everything is “just fine.”
I have thankfully terminated my agreement with this firm due to their incredible poor service.
None of my letters are ever answered.
My e mails are returned unanaswered.
They refuse to give me a copy of the original agreement.
They imposed a minimum charge per month which i was unaware of.
Since October I have had to pay a fine for non compliance on security, which of course i tried to do but due to the web site being closed it was not possible, eventually they sent me a paper copy but it is 55 pages long and I am not familiar with the terminology used. It was easier to leave the company. I would like to have the address of the ombudsman who controls this industry. hope you can help.
After being told that my contract had expired and I could cancel at any time, I attempted to cancel my agreement. Received A letter telling me that there would be a cancellation fee. Called customer service..”Tom” checked his computer and told me that my contract was expired. Transferred me to “termination Department”. spoke with “suprevisor”. Was told that Customer service rep. wasn’t trained and didn’t know my contract. I asked for a copy of my contract and was told that they would not provide it…only “signature page” , “which is the important page, because it explains the your contract renews”. Refused to provide rest of contract. They faxed me the signature page that said that my agreement was subject to “extension..as specified in Section 11 of Master Agreement”. However, they will not provide the “Master Agreement”
Hi, I was researching Elavon because we got a offer from Costco for merchant services. I got an email from someone at Elavon asking me for some items, one being a business license and the other my utility bill. I wrote them back and explained we were a small non profit looking to collect donations only and this didn’t require a business license (so we don’t have one) we don’t sell anything. Also our utilities are included in our lease so we don’t get bills. He replied back with the same form email asking for the same thing. I replied back again asking for a workaround or if we didn’t qualify to just let me know. I got the same canned email reply back.
They left me 3 or 4 messages today saying I had to have my paperwork in by today or my promotion expired. So I am a little dismayed by the customer service and push to sign me up without any regard to my questions.
Do you have any suggestions for a service for a small non profit? We plan to collect donations via our website but also would receive donations in the mail that we would want to enter ourselves. We previously used paypal but it lacks the ability for us to enter credit cards ourselves. Our volume is fairly low and we don’t sell anything except occasionally we have educational events where we do gift with donation type things.
The ability to swipe would be nice but not as important.
You are probably having this problem because it sounds like you are a low volume account and the agent doesn’t care if he gets your business. Elavon is a behemoth company that tends to favor high volume accounts. I would recommend dealing with a smaller processor that will want your business. I’ve emailed you a couple suggestions that will suit you well.
Jennifer,
If you have not found an option, I know of one that likes non-profits and includes much of the applications you are looking to use for your business.
I will email that info sometime tomorrow.
Wish I could be more helpful but I don’t think I would go with Costco because Costco uses Elavon as their service provider. I just set up service with Elavon’s Virtual merchant and their customer service gets a big zero. I have spent 3 hours waiting on the phone and still can’t get through.
I wish I had done more research prior to signing up with Elavon via my Costco membership. Elavon is deceptive in their Terms and Conditions. Basically, they denied me a $319 (!) rebate that was the original lure for using them in the first place.
They were paid $39/mo plus the $76/mo Ladco Leasing fee for the terminal for 12 months. Because I didn’t process any credit card usage for a few months, they considered my account inactive, which voided my rebate terms. ( I am a very small business.)
Elavon claims that “active” means processing at least one usage each month. This definition is absolutely NOWHERE in writing nor was it verbally explained to me by the sales rep
In fact, the sales rep told me that if I didn’t process anything on any month, I’d simply be charged the $20 monthly minimum fee, which was fine with me.
After I started my 12-month contract, never was it communicated to me that my rebate was jeopardized by lack of monthly use. Never mentioned in my monthly statements, any correspondence, email – NOTHING. Elavon deliberately conceals its intent to keep your rebate.
I’ve made a complaint to Costco to try to resolve the rebate issue. From there, I will also file a report with the Better Business Bureau.
Good luck to anyone who deals with Elavon.
Hi there, great website and I will be sharing with friends too. I am in the process of looking over contracts with Pivotal Payments (Charge National), Monex and Elavon (through costco). Monex seems too good to be true in terms of their rates and I have seen better reviews of Elavon than any of the others. I am a small home based spa operating all services myself, so I am only looking to get into a contract that offers only debit (I want to avoid all the other charges that go along with credit cards). Just wondering if you can share your insights on the 3 companies I am considering.
Hi Helena,
Pivotal seems to have poor ratings and didn’t score well in my review, so I’m not sure if I can recommend them. I’m not familiar with Monex, but I’ll make sure to add them to my list of companies to be reviewed. Elavon is a good choice for larger businesses and those that need international processing, and you might also want to check out Merchant Warehouse, as they also score well.
As far as only accepting debit cards, I don’t think it’s possible to set an account up with such a restriction but you could require your customers to pay with pin-based debit to avoid higher credit card transaction fees. I recommend reading my ebook “Fee Sweep” because this industry is very complicated and it’s easy to make expensive mistakes.
If you have any other questions, I’m happy to answer them. I’ve even dedicated a page to it here.
Phillip, this merchant is doing business in Canada. This is why you are not familiar with only accepting “debit”. As well, Monex is a larger ISO in the Canadian market. They do not do business in the US
Well, Quite an eyeopening topic but can you tell me which payment processor would be good for a small business owner like me.
Hi Mike,
What type of business do you have?
I have spent countless hours trying to get refunds for charges Elavon took from my account erroneously.
In April, I signed up for another 3 years with Elavon because they waived the $55 annual charge for PCI certification. Since that time, they charged me the $55 anyway, my agent was able to get that refunded and then they charged me AGAIN. Eventually I got reimbursed.
Then they charged a $25 monthly fee 3 months in a row because I was out of compliance with their PCI company. As it turned out, I was not out of compliance; their PCI company failed to report my certification, which Elavon readily admitted. Still It took months and phone calls and emails to my agent and Elavon to be reimbursed and actually, they only reimbursed 2 of the 3 $25 charges, my agent wrote a personal check for the 3rd charge.
And then, there was a mystery $32 charge for insufficient sales during the course of the month. When I called to check on it, they said oops, sorry, we had a company wide power outage and when the power came back on, some companies were charged that fee by mistake.
This, from a company that charges $10 a month for mailed statements and then when I go on line to check, the on-line statement is designed for maximum confusion.
So, had I not been vigilant, they would happily continued to charge me $25 a month for “non-compliance” and gotten away with it, as well as the “oops” charge and the annual $55 that they had “waived” to secure another 3 year contract.
My agent with whom I have no complaints agreed to get me out of my contract as soon as I can find some other merchant services company who are honest. To date, I haven’t found one but I keep looking.
Hi Elayne,
Thank you for providing your experience with Elavon. You may want to check out my ebook “Fee Sweep.” It will tell you exactly how to get the lowest rates and fees, and how to pick a great provider
Elavon is totally upfront and legit. The problem is with some of their independent contractors. Tangarine Merchant Services is a complete scam. I have used ELAVON for years in conjunction with COSTCO! Tangarine and others are owned by a company called Pivotal Payments. They are worse than the most unscrupulous used car salesman!! They insinuated that they were going to reduce my rates and everything would remain the same with Elavon.
Within a week of signing up 4 seperate companies were taking funds out of my account. They promised me 2 cents for debit and 1.59% for credit card. Extra fees that they listed as “where applicable” were explained as “not applicable.”
They charged me 15 cents per credit card transaction. Another fee of .1 percent for batch header. They also charged 3 cents per swipe whether the card was accepted, declined or there was a network problem. Contract was changed after I signed it and they had the nerve to mail it back to me with the changes. The lease company on the machine was Lease Finance group who in addition to their $35 per month fee charged an additional loss waver fee of $7.90 per month. I have barely dealt with them for a month and have already been notifed of a $100 annual fee for technology upgrades. It is a conflict of interest for Elavon to get involved yet they have helped me to go back with my original deal. Tangarine misrepresented themselves as calling on behalf of Elavon, but sold my debit processing to a company called Telus-Emergis and debit me fees for this through another of their companies called Pivotal Direct. Elavon has always paid me debit and credit in one lump sum, usually in less than 12-18 hours. Recently one debit close took 5 days to get to me. Also my debit fees which averaged $7 per month with Elavon at 6 cents per incur a $20 minimum fee through Pivotal another charge they said was not applicable. My solution decided upon by me, my bank and Elavon is to immediately open a new bank account. If you do this, it is important to let Elavon know about the banking change because you risk losing being a merchant forever if credit card commissions are not paid. I expect Tangarine/ Pivotal Payments to assess a cancellation fee, however Elavon has kindly put a note on my account to waive it! I expect that Tangarine will say this is not so!! If anyone calls you on behalf of anything to do with Elavon and you are already using them as a Costco Gold Member, hang up immediately and call Elavon directly. This is what I should have done! Their people will tell you in no uncertain terms that no one gets a better deal than Costco. Keep in mind that Costco has an impeccable reputation and would not deal with a shady company. My terminal lease is so called “uncancellable” but in reality I signed this through Tangarine in good faith. Because they did not live up to any of their promises, I feel that everything in this contract was done in an underhanded manner and subsequently unenforcable. They will probably try to ruin my personal credit but I have assurances from my banks that due to the sure volume of complaints concerning these wheeler dealers that nothing will disrupt the triple a credit rating I have after 35 years in business. I am ready to go to War and look forward to the time they go to debit my account and all they get back is an “ACCOUNT CLOSED” Notice. An analogy I like to use is this. When you buy a ticket to a hockey game it clearly states that they are not liable for injuries sustained in their facility. If you suffer damage from getting a puck in the face, does this mean they are not liable! Of course it doesn’t. Their lawyers will advise them to immediately settle out of court. Am I liable for a lease that was presented to me by a third party, who was completely dishonest and deceitful? I think not!! Heh! I’m cancelling and thats the end of it!! If you want to recover something from this fiasco, come get your terminal. I’m in the boondocks of Canada, Come Get Me Chicago!!!
Hi Doug,
Thanks for your insight on this. I will make sure to do a review of both Tangerine Merchant Services and Pivotal Payments. Good luck with your dispute, and you may want to check out my guide “Fee Sweep.” It tells exactly how to avoid these kind of situations and how to get the lowest fees the merchant services industry offers.
Best,
Phillip