Elavon Overview
A Major U.S. Credit Card Processor
Elavon is one of the largest merchant account providers in the United States. The company was formed in 2011 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 headquarted at Two Concourse Parkway, Suite 800, Atlanta, GA 30328. The company has been active in the credit card processing industry since 1991. Jamie Walker has been the CEO of Elavon since being appointed to the role in 2017.
Active Across the World
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 multi-currency merchant services such as settlement in 16 currencies, authorization in 85+ currencies, and conversion into the cardholder’s home currency in 48 different currencies.
Elavon Review Table of Contents
- Costs & Contract: Elavon offers a multi-year contract with an early termination fee.
- Complaints & Service: Elavon has received more than 450 public complaints.
- BBB Rating: Elavon has an “A+” rating with despite having received 123 complaints and 9 reviews in the past 3 years. The company has been accredited by the Better Business Bureau since 2009.
- Sales & Marketing: Elavon hires independent sales agents and has received a low-to-moderate number of complaints about its sales practices.
- Rates & Fees: How Merchants Got The Best Rates With Elavon
Elavon Statement Analyzer
Find hidden fees, pricing errors, and overcharges in your Elavon merchant account statement. Not with Elavon? That's ok, we can find excessive fees in any credit card processing statement. We've already found $1,156,834 in hidden fees this year! Submit a recent statement to try it out for free!
Highly Rated Industry Competitors
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Our Opinion of Elavon
Decent for Large Businesses, Poor for Small Businesses
Elavon is one of the largest credit card processors in the world. As a result, 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. Very small businesses are encouraged to check out seasonal merchant accounts or mobile card processing apps rather than Elavon. Elavon can improve its score by enacting more favorable leasing policies and by resolving complaints before they become public.
We rely on your feedback about Elavon to keep this review accurate and up-to-date. Please take a minute to tell us about your experience. We and the small business owners of this world thank you!Other Industry Leading Merchant Account Providers
About Phillip Parker
Thank you for reading my review. I hope that it has helped you with your research.
Why I'm Qualified to Write About Credit Card Processing
I'm a former credit card processing sales director who left the industry to start my own a small business. From the time that I starting working in the merchant services industry to when I left to write about it, I've been on the pulse of payments for nearly 15 years. It didn't seem fair to keep this insider knowledge to myself, so built this website to help small business owners research which service providers to use and how to save money on rates and fees. I've reviewed hundreds of companies, read thousands of user reviews, and learned the pricing tricks of every provider. If you have questions about credit card processing, you can find the answers here. I can help you save money with your current merchant account or help you find a new one. Message me here to get started.
Get started right away! I've help businesses save $1,156,834 this year alone! Submit a recent statement and I'll take a look at it for free.
I tried Elavon and the card processor didn’t work with my IPhone 6. Returned the card swiper and I didn’t received my payment back. Elavon has very unreliable communication, the account manager did not respond to my numerous emails, their software people are just kids that don’t know what they are doing!
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-Phillip
By far the worst merchant card service company in existence. For a 300 dollar transaction they took out over 30000 dollars out of my account . No that is not a joke. This was all because of one customer who filed a dispute and I had proof she got her services but they did not care. Seriously stay away from them. They are tricky as you do not know you are working with them directly so make sure whoever you deal with does not work with them.
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-Phillip
They closed my account without transferring my money to my account. Only use the machine for 1 week, 2 weeks later and has not recieved the shipping tag. Funding department seems to know nothing on how to tranfer money. I was advised to wait 5 to 20 days!!!!
If you have a small business , dont even consider to do business with this [email protected]@
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-Phillip
July 16 , 2019 i started using Elavon machine. July 23, 2019 i closed my account because i did not receive the money that was processed at their machine. Until july 31, 2019, all the person i talked to said i provided the wrong banking information. The fact is i provided all the necessary documents including a void cheque. August 1, 2019 they charged my account with all fees and monthly fee, application fee, transaction fees etc. Amounting to $185.65. That is for using their machine for six days.
Still the funds were not yet transferred. Last week i was told my money will be transferred today August 12, 2019. I just emailed them and the reply was they misinformed me and i should receive my money next week, August 19, 2019.
The email also mentioned there’s nothing they can do to accelerate the process.
So please people in Canada with small business…stay away from this company.
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-Phillip
Elavon has been nothing but a headache since they convinced me to transfer from my existing merchant. They have shut down my machine twice within a week stating they cant continue service unless I sign a second lease for another machine as I can not run a business that provides a service and a retail product without running the service through one machine and the retail product through the other machine. They state I will be fined for not doing this, just to bully me into leasing another machine. I have one business, under one name, do my taxes and banking under one account… under no circumstance should I be forced to have another machine due to their reasoning. Its bad business on their part and I will never recommend to anyone looking for merchant services.
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-Phillip
Company is garbage! After opening my 8th location with them, they hit my credit 3 times on the last location, even after paying in full for the machines.
Debit machine wasn’t up for my grand opening and they had a week to get it up and running. Customer service is CRAP along with their rates. This company doesn’t give a sh*t. Save your money and time!
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-Phillip
My first transaction was a failure. To many Elavon staff involved and failure in paper work. Asked to return now. Going to regular banking now.
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-Phillip
Just had this payment process company for a week and still has not transferred my company’s sale to our account. I found out they mess up my banking routing number. Left messages to customer service and president voice mail but still no call back. Business owners in Canada stay away from this company!!!
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-Phillip
A complete mixed bag of ****!
I wish I could say great things about Elavon so Ill do my best. This is like the most toxic relationship you have ever had that ended in bitter divorce and you’re sitting wondering what you could have possibly done wrong to have to deal with people this incompetent.
The Good:
1. When things worked as expected, it all worked great.
2. They seem somewhat capable of resolving basic problems
The Bad:
1. They had the wrong legal business name on the account. No idea how that happened when I setup the account through my Bank which owns Elavon…
2. In the middle of the Christmas season where retail sales are almost always much higher, my account was “flagged” by there computer systems. That’s understandable, stuff happens even if it sucks. The issue couldn’t be resolved for nearly a week as they were snowed out of the office….We lost nearly $10K in sales since we couldn’t process.
3. They don’t actually do anything to help you during a dispute process. They simply hand off info, don’t actually do anything
4. The last and single most incompetent issue is a refund was supposed to be issued, which Im sure on there end shows it was issued. Yet, those funds never once are in my possession or even in my bank account. This took over 12 phone calls, multiple emails and countless hours of complete and utter butt-fuckery! Here we are now 75-days later and my last attempt to get anyone there to do there actual there fucking job….
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-Phillip
Bad customer service our e commerce account was blocked out due to non compliance security verification on the account. we have attempt to call several times only getting voicemail blocking e commerce is shutting down your business without advising customer with any circumstances. what kind a processor is this and they are affiliated with US bank card processor No one is trying to take responsibility just tell customer to call back.
terrible service this people needs to be aware it’s serious legal matter to close out someone’s account without default..
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-Phillip
This company is a scam & uses unethical & illegal practices. I have filed complaints with the BBB & FTC against them. Their rep Ian is a piece of human garbage & insults you over the phone, degrades you & feels like a real big man behind that phone.
He is clearly an incredible loser who only has a tiny ounce of importance when he is bullying people behind his phone.
This company stole money directly from me. Stay away from them & hope the BBB & FTC can take action to prevent others from having to deal with them.
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-Phillip
They promise one thing….and deliver another!!!
We were excited to finally find a decent Merchant Account, we loved what we heard and we decided to make the switch. The first three months everything was fine, then after that, our rates changed and our fees were just as high or higher than our bank. PLUS we still had to pay for this expensive machine, locked into it for four years….We would leave messages for Carlton, with often no call back, finally we were able to get hold of Carlton’s manager David Williams and we had a conference call, and how did that end…it ended with nothing being changed. This is NOT the merchant for you until you want to pay more, wait two days to get your money, and never have calls your returned. We are currently looking to change again, but we had hopes that Elavon would call and explain what happened for the HIGH increase and make it right, but so far…..NOTHING. This is very disappointing especially because we only tried this because it was from Costco….HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!!!
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-Phillip
Horrible customer service with rude and incompetent employees. i have been in the set up process for over a week, they have no sincerity to my situation and when they don’t like what you say they just hang up on you. This kind of service is detrimental to small businesses.
I will never recommend this company to anyone!!!!!
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-Phillip
My whole account is messed up, no customer service. Their fees are ridiculous. Stay away.
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-Phillip
I have been in business over 30years and never dealt with a more inept company than Elavon.
We recently changed to a different provider and Elavon continued to take charges out of our account. I have spent at least 5 hours on the phone trying to get the money back with all sorts of excuses. 6 months have gone by and still no help. I highly recommend using anyone but Elavon as your provider. They will only cost you time and money.
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-Phillip
Where do I begin. I have only had this processor for around 5-6 months then one day was notified that any cbd related products accounts only had 30 days to process and we were terminated after that. So since day 1 they knew what we were processing but months later they are terminating all accounts processing for cbd products. On top of that they have charged me a non pci compliant charge to my already over priced fees. We had 1 sale for the months and in return they charged us 107.00 in fees! So they also charged us a fee for only 1 charge for the months. A minimum monthly fee they call it. Biggest corrupt sh*t I ever have seen. This is why other companies are putting these guys out business due to their fees! I am and still waiting on a call from their customer service department. Wasted a lot of my time and it makes me sick. Stay away from these sharks
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-Phillip
Elavon is the worst company for credit card process…don’t ever trust them because they’re very big theft…I run out of my restaurant almost 2 years ago then Elavon is making pay them monthly for a credit card process which l don’t have nothing (sent all equipment about 15 months ago) but they told me that my credit score will get screw then send it to collection, if l didn’t pay them so imagine paying more than $500 dlls for nothing…we must stand all together against these abuses, not fear and very disgrace
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-Phillip
I agree. I was verbally told I would be under contract for three years. I guess it’s four and I didn’t read the fine print. Every year I get a new surprise from this horribly unprofessional and shady business. How do they get away with this??
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-Phillip
Horrible. Very, very bad customer service and experience. Nobody is on the same page, they call without knowing things & they just are so repetitive they don’t hear anything unless you want to buy then it all goes to crap!
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-Phillip
RIP off con merchant services more like.i ended up paying stealth charges for a service I didn’t, use, they suggested I take it up with the ombudsman who they clearly knew would be bloody useless, so robbing me of half the money they should have refunded me and then added a further fifty pound plus stealth charge to that, disgusting and clearly business is so good they don’t give a shit about their customers. As soon as my contract ends I will be changing suppliers so I do not have to continue using these clowns
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-Phillip
ISHONEST COMPANY WILL LOCK YOU IN A NON CANCELABLE CONTRACT IN A SCAMMY WAY WITHOUT LETTING YOU KNOW
Please… Do yourself a favor and stay away from this scammer
I’ve been caught in their scummy trap
Some crook name christian called me and started offering me the best ever deals and prices with a different messages saying that they work in a different way… and that they don’t lock their clients in a contracts so they can feel free… so he said
After i decided that working with elavon just with a different virtual “resellers” (Eswipe) (before i was with Canadian POS which is a complete joke) is not going to be any different, i decide to close my account and stay with the best Merchant POS – “Square”
when reached out to Elavon (because Eswipe are no body and just a virtual reseller of unknown service) i found out for the first time that they signed me without ever mention for 4 years contract of 55$ a month for a primitive device that sold for 100$
they told me that i cannot cancel this and i am stuck with them for 4 more years even though i realized that i don’t want to deal with them after 2 months, they still insist that i will pay them even if i don’t use their service in no way
i wish i did more research before got in a trouble with those dishonest companies (Elavon, Eswipe)
don’t do my mistake and trust the guy on the phone that sell you stories and then after you already signed with them he will not even answer your emails
The most negative customer experience i had for a very long time
be sure that you not going to get any more new customers if that’s depends on me
Ross Grishin
1120017 B.C LTD.
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-Phillip
Worst experience with merchant service company. They will not put in timely effort to correct issues (if it’s your money they don’t care). Customer service, especially the department that handles refunds and risks, it’s like impossible to get things fixed unless you do all the work and push them with a call everyday!
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-Phillip
Elevan account representatives will NOT return calls so that we can cancel the account. I have been trying for 3 months to cancel and have yet to receive a call, despite the “submitted requests” by the customer service representatives. This has cost us 72.99/month and is adding each month. I would not recommend Elevan for this reason.
This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee
-Phillip
My card reader stopped working. For three days my account manager has failed to return repeated phone calls, and each department I talk to gives me a different story and refers me to another department. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here who will take responsibility for anything, or who can help me receive what I’m paying for.
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-Phillip
This company needs to be investigated, I have been using Elavon to process my credit cards for my business. I regularly have problems with them not depositing it into my account. Last month it took over 2 weeks to get my deposits, this month currently over 1 week I am waiting for my money. Call every day with nothing but rude customer service agents telling me my money should be there. But it’s not!!! This company is criminal!!!!
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-Phillip
I chose Evalon because I trusted Costco (not anymore) and after spent so much on terminal (lied to me $200 rebate) and then comes endless nightmare. It is so difficulty to deal with them. Just make some small change takes forever! It is been few months and still not able to fix our simple problem. We are doing business and cannot afford to play with them. That Fxx company supposed to help us and make our lives easy but instead they enjoying making our lives miserable.
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– Phillip
The worst service we ever had! We decided to sign up with Elavon thinking that Costco always provide good value at a good cost. Well, not with the merchant services. We cancelled our services with Elavon after one week. You are virtually left to figure out everything on your own, the moment you sign your contract. Our account manager never contacted us, despite our numerous attempts to get a hold of him. It has been over two weeks that we can not receive our money. They can not figure out how to transfer $7,000 to our account. Seriously? Every time I call, it’s a different story from a different representative. They do not know what other person is doing. I could add many more details about them, but I don’t want to waste any more of my time. I can not even express the feeling I have about this company. Absolutely disgusting.
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– Phillip
If I can give you one piece of advice as a small business owner is. Do not, under any circumstance, do business with this company. From the very beginning it has been a complete nightmare. They will sign you up real quick and once you are in the contract…forget about it. Good luck on getting help. Nobody knows what the heck is going on. My account manager doesn’t have a clue, my rep who set me is doesn’t have a clue. People they transfer me to can’t help me and not sure why I was transferred. I absolutely regret signing up with their service. My rep even admitted they provided me with incorrect information as they were unaware and would pay my fee’s. Haven’t seen a dime for it yet. I’ve received collection letter for God knows why. As their is sufficient funds in the account. I should have known from the moment the rep called in to their customer service and how oddly rude they were to her that I should’ve of walked away. It was too late at that point. I had already signed up.
Don’t do it people. For the love of God don’t do it. I should have paid attention to the reviews as they are absolutely accurate.
From The Editor
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Worst customer service I have ever experienced. Leaving the company after they screwed us for the last time. They update your equipment and screw up the terminal and then it is a huge huge huge waste of time IF you can get hold of anyone. I have been on hold and no one even comes on line. We had to give up last night because after an hour of them making the situation worse! Now we are on an with an idiot who has no idea how to fix.
From The Editor
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Ladco, eSwipe and Elavon
eSwipe (Flash Payment Solutions) contacted me late August claiming that Elavon had asked them to so that they could give me better rates than Costco. They are a third party ‘front end’ to Elavon. After much clarification I was told that I could run their account alongside my current Costco/Elavon account (which I have had for 8 years and have found their service/support to be excellent) with an agreement to cancel at any time if I don’t like it. I was also told that the Ladco leasing agreement was not what it says and that I would not be held to it; that I would only be paying $20 per month for the equipment, not the $34.50 in the lease agreement and a few other fabrications. The support at eSwipe is virtually non-existant, with no one answering emails and most calls. I asked them to cancel the account.which they have not done so far (5 December).
I turned out that the eSwipe sales people made numerous false statements. Currently Ladco is being very helpful and suggested that I file a complaint against eSwipe with them, which I have just done.
I learned that Ladco paid the lease capital ($1400) in my case directly to eSwipe so this is presumably how they make their money. They seem to have many more sales staff than support staff. As soon as I signed up communication virtually ended.
I have been able to sort out some problems directly with Elavon – their support staff are are always friendly and helpful – but they say they can not close the account, as yet.
From The Editor
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Our company cancelled our account with Elavon Merchant Services in July 2018. Since then we have still been getting Merchant Services charges even though we do not do business with them anymore. When customer service was contacted the first time I told the individual to make sure both accounts we had with them were closed. This was back in September 2018. Come to find out they only closed one of the accounts so we were still being charged. They said that the fee would be refunded but never was. I contacted them again in November and found out that they had only closed one account so at that time I closed the other account. I was told again that I would not be charged anymore and the fee be refunded, just like the first encounter with them. Come December 2018, there was another charge. When I spoke to someone yesterday, they stated that the fee that showed up this month was for November, and after this month we will not see anymore charges. The last individual I spoke with also stated that there was nothing in the notes about a refund of charges. This is not good business practice.
From The Editor
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After several years of satisfactory service, we are NOT pleased with Elavon, at all. In the first place, it is almost impossible to get anyone on the phone. We used them with our business for years, then changed the name of the business and opened another account with them, closing out the first one. Little did we know – they did NOT close the first one, but continued to charge us for over a year and a half, for the previous account.
I happened to stumble across the fraudulent charges, when catching up on paperwork that had been required to “sit” for awhile, due to a shortage of help at our business.
When I tried to reach them, via email, no response. I emailed twice, called, was put on hold, etc., etc. The first time I called, I was told there would be a 2 1/2 to 3 hour wait. The next day, it was an 8 to 10 minute wait. I waited. Explained the situation, and was told we would be refunded immediately for the last 3 months, but the rep could not do more than that without going to a higher “tier” in the company. That was just about a month ago – no refund. The charges added up to about $3,000 – a bit amount for our small business! When I called again, after no responses to emails and no refunds, I was told they would refund 2/3 of the fraudulent charges, and that they would send via UPS, a form for me to sign – a release form.
No form has arrived, and we simply do not have hours and hours to “sit” on the phone to rectify things.
Elavon is quick to take your money, but not quick to correct errors. We were also charged $59.99 a month for PCI non-compliance, although no one contacted us about any non-compliance.
We rectified that, but have had no fees refunded to us. For a credit card processor that takes hundreds of dollars in fees and processing charges from us every month, we would expect better customer service.
NOT pleased with them one bit, and warn others to stay away!
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-Phillip
this company is a joke!! it’s been nothing but problems since day one!!! we were supposed to get a cc machine we got charged $50 something dollars and never received it!! then we get a large deduction out of business account when we didn’t expect it!! now to booth my small business can not have access to any of my money because they are holding it from me!! WTF!! now i have to submit documents to them to PROVE i have my own business so they can release me my money!! please tell me why you set up an account first then want to verify after the merchant is already expecting their deposits!!! this is absolute BS!! SMALL BUSINESSES JUST STAY WITH SQUARE!!!!!! less hassles!!
From The Editor
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for the mediocre quality of service such company would be bankrupt if it want for them rubbing themselves against Costco making people imagine they’re affiliated with them. the key to judge a good company is whn things goes wrong. in regular circumstances all they do is collected high fees and selling you overpriced equipment . we were victims of fraud and we lost over 10K is merchandise and Elavon instead of assisting us and helping us while we were trying to understand what happened; and after they back charged which i didn’t mind as the transactions weren’t legit , theu slapped us with over $600 in fees and closed our account and flagged my company ! which added insult to injury the lady handling my case was very very rude and belligerent and she was the judge and the jury, no recourse, no way to talk to her supervisor, no was to get removed from that flagged list. they dont deserve to be in business as they behave like a dictatorship. let them go under . Elavon, the house mediocre overpriced service, come sign in !!!
From The Editor
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Not only did they grossly overcharge me monthly, they did not transfer sales $$ into our account – and then one day after absconding with our money, they terminated the agreement immediately. We feel totally scammed and are looking into hiring a lawyer to retrieve our funds.
From The Editor
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Hey Jennifer,
They have done the exact same thing to us! They didn’t transfer money to use for over 1 month and then we called and immediately put $400k on hold.
Maybe we could exchange contact details and discuss this? They never warned me we had any problems – and the craziest thing is that we only had 4 chargebacks out of 5000 orders!
Did you have any luck with the lawyer?
From The Editor
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Extra minimum monthly charges were not included in the contract, and so i am disputing it even if i have to hire a lawyer…scammy company
From The Editor
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I had the same thing happen to me, their prices are NOT what they claimed!
This is by far the worst company I’ve ever worked with, 0 costumer service the worker TOM PHILIP is very unprofessional and has 0 consumer service, this company does not care about its costumers, they cut my credit card account on a Friday night without any notification and it’s now Tuesday still no answer from the company all becusse I changed the name of my restaurant and the IRS did not have the new name change so instead of giving me a notice that they will cut me off they just drop you and send you to hell, like I said this company deserves 0 starts
From The Editor
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If you ever need to speak to someone for assistance, their customer service is terrible. Unhelpful, Rude, and the supervisor is the worst. She wouldn’t even listen to anything I had to say. When I asked for her name she wouldn’t give her name just a reference # C3337234. will never use this company again. They will take your money and refuse to refund or back. They are thieves!
From The Editor
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Laure Djiepmo in customer service provided prompt, efficient, informative and polite assistance over several contacts. If this is an example of the quality of Elavons customer service, I’m a lifelong client.
Hi Lester,
Please reply to this comment with your business name and location in order to authenticate your testimonial. Thanks!
The poor reviews of Elavon continues and Costco continues to ignore their unethical practices. So very disappointing!!!
From The Editor
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I switched to Elavon 3 years ago the sales rep came to my store told me their debit provider had lower fees and no leasing just pay month to month. Also buy out of my contract with the other company I did sign a paper saying that i would it did not say leasing i felt great.At the time i was just starting chemo and radiation and was at work off and on. These pays few years the economy took a turn for the worst and slow times I’ve decided to take out the debit do cash or e transfer they told me i was locked in a lease i owed them 2200.00 and when i checked my band acc i will still paying the other provider call them 20 times no return calls when i did get one she told me i only took theirs out to go with someone else which i did not. the leasing company sends me a bill i answered the phone one day told them the sales rep said i wasn’t in a lease that month i blocked them from my bank acc . they were also suppose tp pay me my money from the other provider he said thats what salesmen did to get a sales. well the leasing company can call all they want and can come and put me in jail for their money i’m not paying dam robbers
From The Editor
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I cancelled with this company 2 years ago and just
recently moved to a new bank . I though my merchant
service company that i have now was still taking money our of my other bank account even though I have already switched it to the new bank… come to find out Evalon continues to take out over 100 dollars a month in fees after I had cancelled them. never sent me my paper statement which I had usually received and since the debit just said merchant service fee I assumand it was from my current merchant service. I contacted them and they tried to say I had two accounts and looks like I only cancelled one?? Of course I had only one account and one terminal. They finally tried to at first say they would refund 3 months and I was livid and said I will take them to court then they transfered to and the person said they could refund 6 months but they stole thousands and thousands from me and I will take them to court even if it ends up costing me even more. If this has happened to anyone else please get in touch with me. at [email protected] this is out and out fraud. Deborah
From The Editor
This Post Might Help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee
I have been waiting for months to get a refund of $2000 dollars that they said I owed then later said I don’t.I have had my own business for years beware of these crooks
From The Editor
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Please watch out for this company. I regretted it so much that I was talked to signing up from US Bank. They have a lot of hidden fees and non-cancellable LADCO equipment lease, After seeing all the fees that wasn’t in the contract I tried to contact the agent but I got more headaches from her. I tried to cancel the service but because of the lease for 48 mos. I was forced to keep the service. After about 5 mos I found Clear Pay offering free equipment and very low fees so I finally cancelled Elavon. I still have 37 mos of $33.56/mo to pay for my lease and $25 yearly administration fee that wasn’t even disclosed prior to signing up. The agent that US Bank sent to us told us that our monthly payment was only $31 lease fee for 36 mos plus %fees. This was all a lie. The contract came for us to sign after a month with 48 mos lease when I asked for it because I was shocked with all the fees they charged our bank account. Overall, Elavon with US Bank and LADCO leasing is a scam! Read and research before signing up. I’m saving about $100-$200 a month from Clear Pay even after still paying my LADCO lease.
From The Editor
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This service will charge you if you do not fill out their “survey” Make sure you read the fine print because my monthly rate went from $10 to $55! all because of a survey!!??
When I get another credit card processing service it will NOT be this one.
From The Editor
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I had hoped to reduce my processing fees in 2018. Elavon promised, lied in fact, to help with this. In every way this company is to be avoided.
From The Editor
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The sales of credit service can never be trusted, I trapped with a lot of hidden fees. problematic machine, and a non-cancellable Ladco lease (the worst rank of the industry) agreement. The equipment leases are unreasonably expensive, unfairly structured, and deceptively sold. I regret that I did not check the reviews before signing the contract.
From The Editor
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Be very careful if your a user. I was linked with a user number on this terminal along with my bank info& s.s# to use this terminal. When our company returned and canceled this service they continued to charge my bank account $34.95 per month for 3 months. When I called to see why they said they had no info on the terminal being returned and that I had to cancel this as a separate service. They could see I had NOT used this device in months but that they were keeping my hard earned money. I say skip this confusing way of doing business and use PayPal or square. They are both cheaper to. What a scam Elavon is
Costco needs to ditch this company and get a real one with decent customer service. The hardwired terminal has mostly worked well for several years, but many people no longer have landlines, so when I travel I needed a mobile app. There the horror began. They waived the initial fee, which was nice because I’d be even angrier if I had paid $149 for this useless app that freezes on the iPad (“there must be something wrong with your iPad, you’d better have Apple look at it”), won’t let me in to the website on the computer despite having all the right passwords, wants you to change your password every 90 days and you can’t use any of the past 13 passwords, as if you would remember them anyway, and takes an hour and a half of one’s precious self-employed time to process a single credit card payment. I am calling Costco tomorrow to give them feedback and urge them to find another company. Meanwhile, I will need to find another mobile solution.
Elavon Terminals, must be reading my system, exactly the same, the terminal locks up, transactions get “lost” simply to anyone ditch this company, I have, BTW what ever you do dont use Talech from elavon, it cost me 100s of hours trying to fix their bug filled softwere
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What I found out the hard way with Elavon is READ THE TERMS OF SERVICE !!!! We have been with them for 4 years with no problems. We have no chargebacks and average anywhere from $25k to $50k in one month until May of this year ( 2018) when we had 2 large sales around 20K each. Without knowing it we triggered Elavon’s fraud department to hold the payments and place them in a “reserve” account. We only found out when a letter came ( no calls, no E-mail) a week later from Elavon that they would not put through any further transactions and could hold the funds for 270 days before releasing them. We are not a large company and a $50,000 cash flow shortfall hurts. After many calls between Elavon, the customer (legit purchase) and VISA ( who processed customers purchase with no issues), they are finally considering releasing part of the funds. Now after reading the service agreement I realize they clearly state they can set up a reserve account for basically any reason they deem necessary and can hold funds for 270 days if they wish. Huge learning curve for us. We are going to discourage credit cards for the forseeable future.
This exact part of the Terms is why I am looking at the reviews. This is my worst fear!
From The Editor
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Elavon is the worst company I have ever worked with they are thieves and it is nothing but a headache every time you call in.
Signed up with Elavon services for my new broker/wholesale business and after using for just over 1 month got a call to have a ‘review’ and ended with closing my account. (not my choice, THEY SHUT DOWN MY ACCOUNT!) After explaining to them some of my charges they responded with “you cannot use your terminal for accepting sales of product that isnt yours” .. THATS LITERALLY MY JOB/BUSINESS! ..as they knew considering when I signed up for my account I had to describe my company. I buy from manufacturers and resell to people. What terrible customer service… way to damage the ease of my business and lose a customer. Makes zero sense. Screw this company!
Absolutely awful experience. The amount of fees this company charges a small business is absurd. We eventually found a better company to use, only to be continuously charged by Elavon for services WE HAD CANCELED. I have called numerous times and it is always a run around, you can’t ever speak to someone who is of actual help. The last phone call I had with the company, they admitted charging me when they shouldn’t have and are willing to refund me 50%. Refund me 50% of my own money they had no right to withdraw from my account????
On March, 2018, I completed enrollment with Cardx for a credit card processing account for my small art gallery, Art Imports, located in Boca Raton, Florida. I chose Cardx for the attractive rates they offered for credit card processing, and because they touted Florida as one of the states they can offer their technology platform and services.
Cardx works in conjunction with Elavon Merchant Services. Elavon merchant services is the bank that performs the credit card processing, while Cardx supplies to interface and virtual terminal for transaction processing. Cardx’s website is extremely friendly, with an easy, straightforward application process.
During this application process, there is no mention that the bank that will actually process your sales will be Elavon Merchant Services.
It turns out that Cardx is nothing more than a well presented “recruiter” of clients for Elavon. Elavon has a well documented reputation for freezing deposits at whim, without any reason or excuse, and to keep the proceeds of the sales you have processed in a “hold” account that bears no interest and you have no access to. Trying to get in touch with them is an exercise in frustration: you can spend hours in the phone ultimately leaving messages that are never returned.
Cardx simply tells you “there is nothing they can do for you” and they provide random contacts within Elavon that always turn up to be phones and emails from data entry clerks that have no say on your deposit hold. They toot themselves as only “the technology providers” and leave you with a financial loss, moving on to the next unsuspected small business applicant that, most certainly, will lose several days of sales to this well orchestrated theft.
I lost over US$1000.00 that I know I will never recoup. My processing history with this company was brief and untarnished: no refunds, no disputed transactions, every sale within the limits declared at the time of application.
The Internet is ripped with statements form former Elavon merchants that have suffered severe losses due to this ruse. Since Cardx does not disclose the fact that they team up with Elavon, you do not even have a chance to do a proper due diligence and avoid the future loss.
Cardx is advertising his services especially to Floridian Small businesses: https://www.cardx.com/compliance#statesweserve. This mean that there will surely be other businesses like mine that will fall prey to this theft, businesses that might be severely damaged by the loss.
Elavon are cavalier in our opinion without adequate governance nor adherence to their own protocols. We have referred their conduct to the FCA (London) which has referred the matter to The Central Bank (Eire). Without disclosing further details, we believe this organisation cannot be trusted to provide a reliable service for its commercial retail vendors.
We believe this organisation has the power to disrupt business, damage SEO ratings of your eCommerce business and junk both your goodwill.
Total Scam, should have known the sales pitch was too good to be true. They will nickel and dime you to death. Too many hidden fees to count. They will sign you up and not complete any of the paperwork and then charge you for it. Then will loose the paper work that you resubmit and charge you again. Be prepared to be put to the test if you sign up with them. Can not tell you how many times have been put on hold and dropped when trying to fix a problem, then they will charge again for something else, just hope you read this and don’t sign a contract with them
A complete scam ! I was in process of signing up, and cancelled my account, since they sent me a mobile device for a android phone, I called the rep, told him I have a iPhone and I would need to go buy a my own device to connect, so I cancelled my account before I ever used it and they have billed me before I got my card device in mail, and now it’s been a year and still trying to collect my money….Square is better ! Don’t sign up, the CEO should be fired for allowing this shit to go on…
Never n Never get Elavon, I need to talk to Costco Head Office regarding my all issues from begining to now but No Time n Lots lots frustration….
I transfered from other credit card comp . even has to pay penalty for early termination to go Elavon.
When I ordered first, according technician, will be ready to set to start but when I got terminal, nothing was ready, has to spent 2 days to set up and lost Credit n Ebit card sales.
Other day , had issue and spent 2hours but had not resolved issues, lost credit card sales again again.last issues so far, called and talked but they said , fax all info so faxed n emailed to;Elavon but No replay from Elavon for month so has to call again and spent 2hrs again
I think these reasones is enough n enough for No Elavon.
Scum of the earth I have never dealt with a low and dirty company as this, They send all these sales people around that promise you low fees and 19 cents per swipe.. then you start to see these charges in your bank account, they charge you for many fees then on top of it they charge you $99.99 for investment in security fee, they say they tell you before they charge you… I did not see anything and i was told the company changed name to Payment insider.. and to check my statements there which 1/2 the time in the month i could not get on to the website…These people are a bunch of crooks and will screw you out of of your last cent… i am so sorry i did not check the reviews first, Now with square and it just clean cut and dry.. And a message for Evalon greed will be the end of you…
Been okay with Elavon:
I have been using Elavon on an iPhone 6 since 2015 for my one-chair barber shop, which is still primarily a cash business. So only 20-30% of my sales are with a card, so my fees are lower–only $0.09 per transaction. The percent of total sale fees are the same as stated above. I haven’t had any problems really and have a good local agent. (I went through the credit union holding my financial accounts.)
My one complaint recently is the recent requirement to use a more complicated app for mobile transactions. About 1/3 of the time it won’t process the swiped card and I have to manually enter the card which takes up time and costs me more!
The new payments insider website is a little easier to navigate and understand. Aside from new/annual charges by Visa or MC, I have not been charged any more than expected.
Thank you for independently reviewing these companies. I may look into other options given others’ negative reviews.
My business is still growing, but I doubt I will ever have more than $5k/mo. in c.c. charges. Is there a better company for numerous small transactions?
This company’s service is very poor. They charge you hidden fees. I used their service for many years. I cancelled my account with them back in June. They were still charging me fees in November even I did not use their service for several months.
Garbage. Bad customer service, slow, useless, double charge people on our behalf. Hate them.
My experience has sucked too. I haven’t even started processing payments and have been charged $300.00. They did not disclose fees, and when I call they really don’t give a shit and pass me on to someone else. I only hope I can close my account without getting gauged again and then I can stay the hell away from them
This is the worst company I’ve ever dealt with customer service really lousy ,
Without any notice they shut my credit card Terminal so I can’t Process any credit cards
for my customers
The good think out of this I closed my account and
I got the Square credit card reader
I have no Idea how Costco Recommend a lousy company
Easily the worst customer service. You cannot reach them or you are on hold for hours. My mobile terminal never works I have to enter my credit cards manually which costs more. They had the audacity to say that they are aware of issues with the new iphones and that I probably need a new reader. The one I have is only a year or two old. As soon as I can get set up with another processor I am gone.
Elavon’s processing time for changes takes forever and denies request without reason. I prefer to set everything up the right way the first time. When you want to change something it takes forever.
My partner died tragically in January and I let Elevon know and sent death certificate. Tried to find out where to send machine back to. Since then (10 months) they have constantly sent letters via debt recovery companies, for all sorts of amounts of money. They have not listened to me, Death certs been sent to Debt recovery companies, broken down on the phone the this has continued. Today yet another debt recovery company. They cannot tell me an address to send machine to, (not allowed to). There appear to be loads of unsafe and potentially bogus Elevon links on web. This company is disgusting beyond measure. My partner was intestate. He owed for one month of machine, the month he died! I cannot get this resolved as they do not listen. I am sickened to the core with this despicable company and wish to report them, where?
I will never do business with elavon , I just start my business and did not make any sales , they charge me 1281 $ , when I called them no one answer and my money is gone , that’s fraud and they’re thiefs
Elavon is by far not only the worst Merchant service company, but probably the most dishonest and unethical company currently operating on planet earth. They said whatever they needed to pull our business from our former merchant provider of 7 years.
Within our first 3 months, they processed $1.3m which is our standard. Then without warning their Risk team decided to hold our funds without provocation or reason for the past 3 weeks holding over $70k and let us know unless we provided a $700,000 Line of Credit our account would be canceled?!? NO Warning, NO ability to other options, nothing—and we’ve never had a chargeback or return in 7 years. No chargebacks, no fraud, no reason whatsoever to warrant this action. They would only respond after multiple follow ups, only agreed to release funds after multiple follow ups and incorporating attorney involvement. They lost a client for no reason and we’ll certainly do all we can to warn others to not get blindsided by this corrupt company. Costco should be ashamed this is their preferred partner.
Why does costco endorse Evalon services thru their Executive membership, if it is so bad?
Seriously the worst company in the world. During 2015, I had to pay $300 for two credit card processors that were no longer good in 2016. So, then I got to buy two more for $300 and have had them replaced twice. Additionally, they started charging random acct fees. In 2016 I got one for $50. In July, I got one for $99? for what because they do such a great job? Never again
This company is sneaky and underhanded. They notify you after the fact that they will be raising your rates or adding new fees on top of their already large pile of fees. I was just notified about a $99 security fee effective the beginning of the month, whereas I received my statement on the 13th. Rest assured that this is just the tip of the iceberg with them. Over 30 days ago they offered to “do a rate review”, and I never heard from them again. When I cancelled they said that the rep had spoken to me and I had declined his request for a rate review.
Brian, we noticed a $115.44 debit from Elavon in our bank account on 10/2. I called their customer service department and was hold for 30 minutes before getting a rep. We were told that the $99.99 fee notification was on our August statement, and it was for technology and service compliance. We immediately asked for them to close our account and to refund the $99.99 fee! We were told we would receive an email, and then a second email to confirm the closure. Once we received the second email we would have to call to request the refund. Seriously? We had recently called to cancel our account, because we transferred our services to Square. Elavon was charging a $10 monthly fee for a service we have used twice! We have have been a customer for TWO YEARS!!!!! Square has no monthly service fee. They offered to do a rate review, and to call me back to see if they could waive the monthly fee for my company. We never received a call back. I also just read that we may be charged an early termination fee!!! I tried to call Elavon back, and there is 55 minute hold time to speak to a rep. I don’t have the time to stay on hold or to wait for a call back. This is absurd! I know the long hold times are due to every customer freaking out over the $99.99 fee.
I have had the same thing, i keep getting charges for pci compliance that is now 10.00, statement fee 12.95, emv fee 5.50, account fee 99.99!! I get no statement, only online that i have to print and it is A PAIN TO GET INTO, takes hours to login, as u have to change id info every 30 days and cannot use any used before! U cannot get a hold of anyone in office or any management, PCI is only 25.00 to certify and now the fee is 10.00 a month! HIGHWAY ROBBERY its disgusting they can get away with all these new fees with no recourse to be protected under any contract.
Outrageous waste of time on PCI compliance and problems with unilateral automatic enrollment in a subscription based product by Elavon called “PCI+”. Elavon purchased TrustWave clients that process Elavon clients and did not capture the PCI compliance certifications, call customers to advise that they need to re-do the compliance questionaire that was just completed a few months ago ALL OVER AGAIN, then, in an almost passing comment, they mention that when this migration of clients from TrustWave went over to Elavon, Elavon automatically, and unilaterally subscribed customers for a fee based service WITHOUT NOTIFICATION and WITHOUT PERMISSION from the client. Elavon just bills you this subscription fee without any notice to the client. How is that possible? ELAVON IS THE WORST to deal with and we are so sorry we ever left our previous processing partner. Elavon is a nightmare at all levels; multiple and convoluted “Customer Service” departments that do not have answers and place on hold dozens of times after waiting in long ques to reach someone. I spent over 80 minutes on the phone replying to Elavon’s request for me to call, then was transferred to 3 departments, with four different individuals and this is the commercial equivalent of the Keystone Cops and their out of control Firetruck.
Extremely terrible customer service! Ordered a new processor and they delivered to the wrong address and have been trying for a week now to figure this out. Been talked down to and told it’s my fault. Been in business with them for 4 years now and quiet because of the terrible custromer service. Extremely disappointed
Elavon is a JOKE! I am furious right now. I have been processing credit cards for 2 years now through my bank (who started with one company and ended with Elavon and has now cut ties with Elavon for what I can only assume are these types of issues, and gone to another merchant services provider). I had a couple of customers over the years “question: the charges on their cards”, not due to fraud but the fact they did NOT examine the receipt and recognize the charges, I have never had to “pay” for the customer’s error before! This just happened again, only this time I WAS CHARGED $25 (more than the profit I even make on the item!) because my customer called his card company, not recognizing the charge, but 5 minutes later saw what it was for and called back to say it was legitimate. DESPITE his doing so and his bank guaranteeing him it wouldn’t be an issue and they would pay, it wasn’t. Elavon withdrew the funds from my account, asking for proof of the charge, despite the fact the customer had already said it was legitimate. I of course provided the invoice for the items purchased as requested and after a few weeks Elavon put the monies back in my account. BUT a month later they charged ME $25 because the customer did this, claiming it was to cover “paperwork” fees on their part! This was NOT my error, and I am the one having to pay… well Elavon can take a flying leap I am going to another merchant service provider, they refused to budge on this charge, so bye bye Elavon. The company is a greedy rip off as far as merchants are concerned, as if the 3.5%+ they keep in merchant fees isn’t enough, they are now going to charge YOUR account for every “questioned” charge, even if it is $3.95 and legitimate, they will charge YOU the $25 EACH TIME! RIP OFF!
I am in the middle of a Huge potential litigation with Elavon – they “lost” all my transactions for a 40 day period which equalled roughly $60,000. Once they found them it was 3 months later!.
As they started manually entering the CC Transactions, the customers & their Banks flagged them as fradulent charges, because the “transactions” were now showing up 90 days AFTER the Customer was at my Establishment. Plus it was coded as a”Manual Entry – No Card Present”.
I now have thousands of dollars in Chargebacks.
It caused me to close my business! Not to mention the negative impact on my reputation in this small town, because everyone feels like I was stealing from them & manually entering sale amounts on days they weren’t at my place of business.
Its been the worst nightmare!
For a web based company I find their merchant services website incredibly poor. It is not at all user friendly, and incredibly slow, I feel like I am back in the 90s with dial up connection and some primitave windows system. Only laziness has stopped me looking for an alternative provider so far but I have had enough.
This company have just taken out the same card payment 3 times instead of one! Payment requests were made 2 months apart – they ‘stole’ my money and left me with not a penny to my name and no reason as to why they had ‘messed up’ and deprived me of £3000 ‘ in error’ – No apology, no reason, no excuse….. Disgusting all round
This company are a joke. My account was set up wrong as the trainee made several mistakes. They then decided to say they would not release the money from payments which I had taken for 4-6months which is embarrassing. Santander my business and personal bank recommended them I don’t know what they was thinking. Do NOT Join this company as you can be transferred all over the world to resolve an issue. I will be going back to my previous card provider for card payments. I would not even give them a 1 star rating.
Maikel,
I notice you said they did not release the money from payments for 4-6 months?! Were you able to final get these “lost” transactions?
I am in the middle of a Huge potential litigation with Elavon – they “lost” all my transactions for a 40 day period which equally roughly $60,000. Once they found them it was 3 months laster. As they started manually entering the CC Transactions, the customers & their Banks flagged them as fradulent charges & I now have thousands of dollars in Chargebacks!
It also caused me to have to close my business!
These people are crooks, I have fought for my money almost at every occurrence. I used them for over a year. If you get a couple of chargebacks they will try and cancel your account. IF you use your terminal for another transaction that you did not sign up for they threaten you. STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!
Horrible horrible customer service. One of the worst places I’ve had to deal with. Basically accused someone of stealing when there was a charge on their card.
I would like to say that Evalon and associate Victoria have redeemed themselves …I am glad to say the service has been quite good and as a four year customer I will be staying with Avalon for my debit and credit service
CG HAIR
We are new owners of Seaside Oregon golf and restaurant. We meet with Melisa of Elavon on Dec 2016. Its been 2 months of horror. She promised so much and has failed to deliver. Do not give these people access to your bank account. they have taken unauthorized money, promised to refund, promised to help set up our POS , Promise after promise and have not come thru. Gavin, her boss in portland oregon has indicated she did not have the authority to make such promises. Our bank, recommended these people and now they are even shocked by them. We are having to close our account to stop them from taking more out.each of the first 3 months they have taken out different amounts and a has caused us to be overdrawn. In Feb I put a stop payment on AUTO WITHDRAWAL and they changed the amount and so it slid by the bank. I can’t believe I didn’t check them out first. DO NOT GIVE THEM ACCESS TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT. Our system is still not up and running and they have thousands of our money.
Very poor service Account person”Victoria’ who processed my new debit machine did not know what she was doing..
I have been with this company for four years and had to get t a new machine cause the other was obsolete..
Decided on wifi because it is faster…Account specialist processed my request and a few days later I received my new machine.. Unfortunately could not use it because she forgot to add the debit feature to it…Contacted her and she needed me to sign a new agreement which I did and sent back ….Then she had to make up another agreement because she put the wrong percent on the credit and debit …If this wasn’t bad enough I find I have also been charged the startup fee of $150.00…Now I was to have this waived because I had been a loyal customer for four years..I was also not explained to about an insurance which I would definitely have purchased..Instead I was charged an additional $20.00 for not taking it..hmmmm. This lady was to get back to me after she spoke with her manager..When I didn’t hear back I phoned in to find she had gone home.. Also find it hard to get ahold of a manager to help me with this problem…. Very very dissatisfied customer..Would never recommend this company to anyone.
Cheryl Graham
CG HAIR
BRUTAL company. Terrible customer service.
We were put in touch with COREY JOHNSON and he was rude, disrespectful, and completely obnoxious.
AVOID THIS COMPANY!
Two weeks ago I began the process of changing my banking info. After navegating throught the sight I finally found the forms {( it was not easy to find them) I printed them off and emailed. After three days I called in because I didn’t get a response. Customer service told me to resend them which I did. Two days later I received an email stateing I hadn’t sent in the proper forms, however they neglected to send me the appropriate form . I had to call in again to have the forms sent. I’ve completed these forms and have resent them 3 times now each time it takes days to get a response. If there was a problem with the form I had to resend all the forms rather the just this missing information. The last email asked for information I already sent in the first email!! Its been two weeks and I haven’t been able to process any payments I’m moving my business over to TD
Month in and Month out I have to contact Elavon as they do not seem to update their systems with information from Trustwave etc. I have numerous emails from Trustwave confirming our PCI complaince then to be told today that they do not believe Trustwaves explanation just about topped it all. I am now looking for a new Merchant Bank to host our payments. I have had enough !
Signed up to SagePay and unbeknown to us Elavon handle the payments. Their staff are the most unhelpful ever. They dont inform you of fees coming off and you have to try and negotiate their horrible online system, which apparently will NEVER accept a user password to download a really bad statement which gives no information at all! Always take off more than the documented “fees” from payments but no record of where they money goes so accounting is a nightmare! Stay away from Elavon, SagePay if you can afford their monthly scheme are absolutely great but if you are a small business like us… AVOID!
Elavon has no morals they make the rules up as they go along. They charge you what ever they want and it makes no logical sense. My rates are as high as 6% with other hidden fees of up to $80.00 a month. We are a very small business and it is ridiculous when you process less than 10 transactions a month that their fees are no less than $200.00 a month. We have had the same terminal for 12 years . Why is this kind of gouging not illegal??? Do not recommend them at all !!
I had cancelled my services with Elevon. They did not cancel it and instead continued to charge me. I didn’t recognize the name on my bank statements and assumed it was from a different company, so I unfortunately did not check into it. I called Elevon to complain that here they see I have not used their services for over 1 year, and they would not refund me. I would not recommend them to anyone.
Our company used Elavon service for our check and credit card processing and they over charged us and they ruined our business almost put us out of business. They charged us over $40,000 for service that we have already performed for our clients. They caused us to lose a milti million dollar deal. They lied and did not deposit our money in our account like they stated in the contract. I would not recommend them to anyone.
Elavon’s rate and fee are higher than others’.
Equipment’s price is also extremely expensive.
I was silly I have trusted them because they work with Costco.
Had nothing but trouble trying to revolve a merchant issue. I’m sorry I ever did business with Elavon. Six days now still no resolution. Customer service folks need more training. Keep getting different answers to my problem. Not happy!
Absolutely disgraceful. These idiots never even managed to set the account up never mind process any payments, yes they felt it their right to take money from my account, despite canceling the direct debit FOUR times.
This was 3 years ago
Now theyve set a debit collecting agency on me for £47
MY PERSONAL OPINION IS THAT ELAVON SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS
DO Not USE ELAVON! I have used this company since i opened 15 yrs ago, never 1 chargeback, void, or refund! The customer service is horrible and will never amswer you! Jason Ross does not answer emails, phone calls, voicemails, and when asked to speak to his boss, he refuses to give that information. THE HIDDEN FEES THAT ARE TACKED ON MONTHLY AND RATES ARE SHOCKING!! I now have 5 NEW monthly fees that stay on and no statement! Its the biggest headache our company has! The cost is OUTRAGEOUS!! Ghost fees!! Customer Service is an F! Have not had problems with terminal because i bought mine from another company outright, rather than spend $4,000 for lease!!! Now the new EMV software they use is HORRible! Tech support is a waiste, no one evers answers the phone or concerns EVER! they have no care of my business and soooo glad to be rid of these SCUM BAGs! when i did finally get a luve person, they told me i had no account, it took a senior manager to find it because of my name has a & symbol in it! lol. really! Stay far away dont fall for no fees! I will glady join a clasd action for these fees i was never notified on, and who knows the issues i will have next month when i see if my account was actually closed and what fees they charge, no terminal, no contract, no transactions???
Same thing here, 15yrs now, jason is my rep, never answers any contact. Tried to get his boss, wont tell you! Cant find my account because i have a symbol also in my name!! What a bunch of incompetent ass*** ! fees upon fees upon fees, login is a joke to their online portal! Never works! Now i have to buy a new emv machine and need to change merchants but am reluctant to use any of these merchant scam.companies. have you found a better company? I cant believe they are allowed to operate and take any amount of fees they choose!
I am a small business that just does a few shows, was set up many years ago with elavon and was this was the way to process cards, had many months with no shows but pais the 41.00 with modern tech ways to process stayed with elavon until it was just to much out of pocket, well my last bill no charges so no income they up it from 41.00 to 101.00 what is wrong with this company, never use them, customer service is awful, I closed my account so no way to refund me, like you would so disappointed, have a 800.00 machine you told me I needed that is worthless how much of my small income can you suck out of a person. Sorry but you are not customer friendly and sure you will delete this but customer beware
I rate Elvalon as a “F”. I had Fraud money that was deposited into my account by a credit card my compnay took. After the money was in my account we realized it was fraud money. I contacted Elvalon ASAP and told them which they confirmed it was fraud. Elvalon charged me $274.00 on fees for that money that was fraud. I believe that I did what was right by telling Elvalon. They still charged me a fee! I dont believe that was right to charge me when I was the honest one. Elvalon could have been out $8100.00
Last time I work with them
I was suddenly charged $59.99 and they refused to refund $49.99 of it because they said they had uploaded the new fees to their website and it was up to the responsbility of the customer to log on to view the new fees but I had never received that website or option for a paper statement so I had no way to know that this was happening. Customer service ignored me and like a broken record stated that my account was open after the deadline so the fee was incurred. I explained that the representative that I had never explained this outside website or paper statement option and only said that I would be charged $10 a month if I didn’t swipe $500 worth of credit card transactions through the card swiper.
When I went to change my account in mid-December so it would be free again the US Bank rep said everything was done and I wouldn’t be charged the $10 merchant fee anymore. Again the customer service rep ignored me and refused to refund the $49.99 nor send me to anyone who may be able to.
I explained that they are punishing the customer by doing this and that I am left to write a bad review on my experience. She apologized and was quiet. Nothing more to say so I hung up.
Same happened to me. 49.99 charged with no explanation. Complain to the FCC>
… and no warning from the PCI compliant fees to remind me that had to be done for a new account. Where do you even find out about these changes?
Horrible scam artist, I am am AMAZED Costco goes they them. I called to get info, they took some info from me, and then charged my credit card $150, I keep telling them I dont want this, now they are charging my card every month, I never wanted this, just info, I have told them repeatedly please cancel this, they refuse, to the point I have to close my bank account. Seriously stay away. They just called me again last week to help setting up processing on my end, I tell them I dont want this, and they keep on some sales pitch, I tell them please cancel this, and quit charging my credit card, they have refused. they just ignore what I tell them and start on a sales pitch again. STAY AWAY FROM COSTCO CREDIT CARD SERVICES, there not run by Costco
With the “upgrade” to the Sabre-owned SynXis POS (in both senses of the term) we were FORCED to use Elavon by Wyndham for our credit cards. The integration is poor into very buggy software and there are crashes and other problems all the time. We’ve also received charge-backs, and trying to search via Elavon’s “Fusebox” is, frankly, a sick joke. Previous to this we had a separate CC machine that rarely had trouble and was pretty reliable–NOT ANYMORE!
I’m personally glad I’m not a Wyndham franchisee having to pay exorbitantly for this garbage and only have to work for the franchisee. I have yet to hear of a single good thing from ANYONE about Elavon. It’s no surprise they keep getting hacked.
It sucks! no one monthly statement for 5 years and charged 40$ for seurity test without notification. the rate is much high than any other company. the sales man cheated and push me to buy a very expensive terminal machine and refuse to return. I felt i was cheated by them for past 5 years!
Elavon is good IF you do not get a chargeback. If you do get a chargeback they do NOTHING to support you. Worse, they automatically assume that you as the merchant are at fault. Even when your customer withdraws their chargeback (like mine did) they let things slide until you are at the pre-arbitration stage where either you agree to accepting the chargeback or you risk incurring a heavy fine for not doing so. Of course, there is NO mechanism to complain to management… which is why I posted this review.
There are legal options for all of us to use. We need to band together and sue Evalon for their own good! What an unpleasant experience it has been to deal with these people.
I agree if enough get together and bring a law suit against them . They are scam artist at the best . Cancell your debt machine saying it is not to standards anymore and leave you hanging with the lease.
We’ve experienced the exact same problems. Elavon staff could not be less helpful. I was asked to send them chargeback statements from our last year with our previous processor. After spending several hours compiling and sending statements that showed zero chargebacks, they decided to disregard the reports and close the account, then be intentionally unhelpful when we need to refund customers. I don’t appreciate my time being wasted and being treated by a criminal by someone who answers phones for a living. I can’t say I’m surprised to see so many bad reviews of this joke of a company. We will be keeping a close eye on our accounts to make sure they don’t try to screw us over even more.
If I could give ZERO stars I would! Triple the fees and total rip off! How they can get away with doing this to small business is beyond me.
They charge you a crazy high lease that you cant get out of. It makes no sense. You can go get a credit card plan where you don’t pay a $4,000 lease to pay off for them lending you the credit card machine. Its a waste of money if you compare to other companies.
One word. Disaster. I recommend you stay clear of this company. after only two weeks of service they claimed false accusations about my company and decided they want to discontinue service… over the course of 24 hours. No merit, no justification. leaving me and my business high and dry in time for the weekend. I mean if you don’t want my business that’s fine, but to make false statements about my company that is not. rude, disrespectful and otherwise un businesslike. I will be pursuing defamation. Beware.
We had the EXACT same experience.
The compliance manager COREY JOHNSON refused to let us know what we had done wrong.
Never go with Elavon, I ended my contract back in April 2016 I carried on paying my monthly fee for my pdq terminal until October 2016 despite me informing Elavon I’ve terminated the contract due to faulty machine. I stopped the direct debit at the end of October 2016, now got an unexpected bill in from greedy thieving Elavon for £83. I don’t think so let’s have this out in court shall we and let the judge decide at what point was I aware of this ghost fee. Look forward to seeing you.
i cancelled the company more than a year ago and they were still taking money out of my account , when i called them they told me they would cancel it right away. what happened to all that money they took, i demanded a refund and they told me they cant do it because i just cancelled. what a rip off don”t use them they do not honor anything.
Having had Elavon/ Costco since 2004 I never had a problem until the new Chip Card Terminals came out. The ability of their team to program and solve problems is poor and the Management has been equally frustrating. They are giving you products that have a lot of error and illegal spacing for signature protection. They have no regard for waisting your businesses time. Literally I have over 8 hours and the problems are still not resolve. They refuse to restitue or make the damages correct. They also keep failing to get my autobatching correct and I have not had funds deposited as contracted due to their error. They don’t seem to care. The receipts for a standard visa charge are 10″ long the used to be 3-4″ so each sale I am using 20″ of thermal tape. Very disappointed in Randy, manager.
I have been trying to cancel my Evalon services since June 15, 2016. Customer service took all my information and informed me I would receive a call to confirm cancellation in the next three hours. No one ever called after I left 5 messages trying to cancel. I then was able to get Roshina to email cancellation forms (Its Now August)! I returned the forms cancelling both merchant services and data insure. On Sept 2, $199.60 was deducted from my bank account listed as “data insure closed”. Then on Sept 28 another $1,169.00 was deducted from my bank account listed as “data insure closed.” I was told the $1169.00 was for equipment ($475) and Quickbooks ($199) that I had received, the remaining $495 charge couldn’t be explained . Evalon has NEVER sent me anything because they didn’t even have my correct address on file! I was able to get a $475 refund for equipment that I never had, but can not get ANYONE to return calls from this business to be refunded for the remaining $694 owed to me. In addition Evalon is still charging me monthly merchant service fees! I had to alert my bank of fraud and place a stop payment to this company! I think Evalon owes me $694 plus all the monthly charges they have charged since I tried closing with this terrible company in June. Evalon is a scam and the WORST company I have ever dealt with in my life!
NEVER NEVER trust Evalon or let them have access to your bank account. Customer service is the worst I have ever dealt with. I have been trying to close my account for over 4 months and have been told over 10 times that someone will call me back within an hour. NO return calls (and yes they have the correct number). I finally got data insure closed and got charged over $1300 in closing fees and equipment that was never used (closing fee was stated to be $195). Currently still trying to recoup $600 that should not have been charged! Still getting charged merchant service fees! This is the most unprofessional dishonest company out there!
Leaving Elavon after many years. They now charge me for a declined card, only a small fee but why am I paying for a customer presenting a card with no funds on it! Also the provider I am moving to supplies an up to date contactless machine for less monthly rental and with fees almost two thirds cheaper than Elavon, my estimated savings are over £1000 per year! dont know why I stayed with Elavon for so long.
Don’t use ELAVON, its a big fraud, they are the worst merchant service ever, I have been in business for more than 30 years and a sales rep convinced me to switch to Elavon, big mistake, worst service, ghost fees, and not to mention the customer service I was on hold for more than an hour to resolve nothing, Please Please don’t even consider them even if it sounds like a good offer do not be tempted.
Silvia Hernandez
Please do not ever work with ELAVON, ITS REP Pierre Stehlik and Northern Leasing company.Its a such a big scam to trap your life and take away money from your business. Learnt it hard way.Its a scam to trap you with leasing companies for years and years …thank to Mr. Pierre Stehlik.
Taylor dietz the compliance manager who sits in Knoxville is of no use and work on behalf of ELAVON agents.Big SCAM and syndicate…Keep your self away
I Made The Mistake Of Leaving Heartland And Going To Elavon . i had one large swipe and they will not release my money .first they said send me a copy of the invoice and i did now they want more information which i provided i call the repeatedly and they dont even answer the phone . heartland im sorry for leaving
I left Heartland too for Elavon. It has literally cost me thousands. I canNOT believe that Elavon/Ladco are still in business!
After 5+ years of continually escalating costs and unhelpful service, we quit Elavon last year and immediately saved over $1000 the first six months due to the lack of “junk fees” that Elavon routinely tacked on. It seemed to us like they invented a new fee almost every month, and the rates they quoted never matched the rates actually charged. They even want to charge you for a statement!! Also, the company they contract with for PCI scans cannot produce accurate, consistent results we had to hire another company to perform this function…so it is no surprise to us that they have problems with the Credit Card companies. Beware of this processor and verify EVERYTHING they tell you.
Do not work with this company. Their customer service is horrible and will just give you the run-a-round transfering you from one department to “someone who can assist you”
Back in June a gentlemen Michael Watts from “Smart Card Merchant Services” with the title of Senior Account Executive to try and have us change over to their merchant processor. We had a contract drawn up but the deal ultimately fell through. He told me don’t worry the contract will be cancelled yet for the past 3 months I’m being charged $15.95 on both merchant accounts that I do not use.
I follow up with Michael, he says he is no longer with the company and gives me the information to someone at Smart Card Services. They tell me they do not see any charges, I have the merchant statements in front of me and we are charged $15.95 for 3 months even after I’ve told them to cancel.
I finally find out the correct person to speak with, after being transfered and hung up on for about an hour only to find out that I will not be credited for the charges because someone at Smart Card did not notify Priority Payment of the cancellation.
Why am I being charged for services that were supposed to be cancelled before even taking effect?
And now I won’t be reimbursed because of an error on their end?
This company is horrible with communicating as well as their customer service.
They now want me to fax over my bank statements to prove that the $15.95 was taken out of our accounts for a total of 6 times. They say nothing shows up on their end of the ACH Payment regarding these charges. So I guess the money debited from our accounts for the past 3 months just disappeared into thin air after it left our accounts?
Elavon is the most AWFUL AND I MEAN AWFUL company that I have EVER worked for. They are so EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL and they DO NOT care about there employees. Today I got fired because the ONE trainer said I was acting some type of way towards her. Like seriously? And when I asked what I had done to her that had bothered her I was given NO ANSWER. I’m not sure if these two white women were racist and trying to intimidate me but I felt EXTREMELY threatened and I had a very bad anxiety attack to the point that they had to call the ambulance. I was COMPLETELY blindsided. I would have felt that if another ADULT (Which I assume Lisa McLain Anderson was not) if they would felt I did or said something they made them feel some way they would come to me and tell me because I did not mean to anything if I even did anything! I will tell everyone I know not to do business or work for this AWFUL unprofessional company and I would love to talk to the director of HR and complain to the correct person! I don’t want my job back but I would love for the company to know what kind of employees they have.
After three times in six months of my credit card terminal going down and causing me HOURS of aggravation in on-hold wait times, never being able to talk to a human and having to hand run credit cards that cost me a MUCH HIGHER FEE. I am finished with this company. If there is a class action lawsuit, I would gleefully join. Disrespectful of small business and ones time. Save yourself the hassle and run away from this company as fast as you can. a NEGATIVE ZERO rating from me.
Do not use Elavon.
If you switch from them they will not put your terminal back to programming before you used them. They are absolute S***.
M
I sign a new contract with Elavon (I used to work with them for almost 10 years before). This time I ask for a Mobile device service. When I read the cost I already knew that I was going to pay 149.00 for the new equipment. Well I was charge $312.95. That overdraft my account. I called them and they told me that is a charge for the software, which a download myself and is free. I just call them because I never received any letter with my user name and password. I try to cancel and they say that if I cancel I have to pay anywhere. That totally illegal. Because they do not tell you the real cost in the beginning so you can decide to go for it. I don’t know what to do. Call the corporate office and nobody answer the phone. Somebody please HELP!
dont work with elavon any more they only looking to stealing your money i dont used any services from them also i didnt receive any services and keeping charges $10 and they are bigs liers please dont work with them thanks
I own a small business. Swatched to Elavon thru US BANK because of the rates they were offering. They did not follow the contract that we signed for over a year – the time frame is my fault, I should have been watching much closer. At any rate, they owe us a LOT of money back. Just got an email a week after they promised a refund saying they were still trying to figure out what they owe us as the number is large. Please be extremely cautious of this company!!!!
How did you get them to refund your money?
I felt this was something needing to be done by myself as I thought the issues we have been having all stemmed back to Elavon. We were wrong, and with that let me say that emailing customer service is not same as speaking to a real person but it was very prompt replies, with very insightful and helpful information. I am not sure they are getting a fair shake when it comes to some of these reviews, how many others realized they were pointing the finger at wrong Company, but were to embarrassed to retract or admit?
THEY CHANGE RULES -DON’T TELL YOU -THEN PENALIZE YOU. We can relate to all the horror stories here. We were trying to launch a new business, where we needed to make a splash. we were not therefore advertising through the usual channels, but needed to cement a deal with a large industry player. The upshot of this was that we did not expect to see any transactions ‘dribbling through’. This was explained to Elavon.
Every couple of months, or after any code change, we would run a test transaction.
Three times in the first two years we discovered that they had closed the account. We had not been informed. They had our telephone numbers, postal address and email address, but not so much as a one-liner to tell us.
This most recent time, we were actually speaking to a concern who could offer us a foot in the door, only to discover that Elavon had closed it again!
When we contacted them – they hadn’t advised us of their actions, of course – it transpired that they had changed the way fees were to be taken.
Previously, they were taken at source, and we had received the reduced sum into our account. Without telling anybody, they had altered this procedure so that the fees would be taken out of the FOLLOWING month’s transactions.
Clearly, in our situation, there would be no following month fees. They had closed our account because of two outstanding fees due, each of 68p. We kid you not!
Had they told us of this change, as even the slightest professional body should have done, we would have made diary notes to pay. Unbelievable.
Here we were, after years of trying, finally speaking to somebody who could change our lives only to find that our website (the absolute core of our business) had been broken because of an inactive payment gateway.
Elavon told us we would have to re-apply, which we did and three weeks later they said they could not offer us an account. Nothing had changed at our end at all.
At no point was there any apology or embarrassment shown by them. We have never dealt with a more Mickey Mouse operation.
We are now with Braintree. Like chalk and cheese. Their customer service – both in terms of knowledge and attitude – is the best we have ever experienced.
Don’t trust your business to Elavon. Why risk it, when there are so many alternatives?
Elavon, formerly known as Nova Information Systems, partner with Costco and is a subsidiary of US Bank. Watch out what they would do to your credit card processing account.
1) They used no-exist excuses to hold your money in the credit card processing account.
2) Suspend processing account before send you any notice.
3) Suspend account even from an customer’s inquiry. (They cancel my account even the customer cleared the inquiry)
4) They don’t let you contact the department handle your case. ( I have to find the US Bank investor relation to contact them)
4) Apply non-exist and undisclosed processing amount limit. (They asked you monthly average and then they said it is your monthly limit)
5) Even inquiry was resolved, they still apply suspension and withdrew money from bank account.
6) Multiple huge withdraws to empty your bank account without legitimate reason. (Think about 5 time of $4600 – $23000 in total )
7) Charging fee without reason or explanation.
8) Their employees are rude and ridiculous.
9) Charging service charge after cancellation ad making up excuse. (They charged on Sep 1, and Sep 3, after they received cancellation Aug 2)
10) Even you sent cancellation 30 day in advance, they still say not enough 30 days. (Their assistant legal counsel said Sep 3, is the 30th days from Aug 2)
11) They change the term of the contract without sending any notification. (They totally changed the contract and applied it 14 days later but send you no notification at all)
12) Making up non-exist document. (Sending a printout to proof they sent you email, but the printout does not have any email address)
13) Lied to authorities and Costco.
If you are a victim, try contact OCC, FTC, FBI, States Attorney, Canadian Authorities.
They should be punished.
This company shut down our credit card account without any notification after we’ve been in business with them for 4 years without any issues. Imagine coming to work and not being able to process credit card transactions and not knowing why. Once we figured out what happened, we contacted Evalon to find out what the issue was and simply stood behind their actions and wouldn’t even consider opening our account back up, even if we removed the item from our website. They wouldn’t tell us which item, they basically just blew us off. We pushed millions of dollars worth of transactions through their company and never had an issue for four years. We are simply sick to our stomach over this. DO NOT PUT YOUR BUSINESS IN THE HAND OF EVALON!
Small based business. Switched to Elavon thru Costco Canada to save some money.
Elavon is by far the worst company I have ever dealt with (for any service) the sales rep thru Costco’s website was quick to “sell” me on saving money. Much of my email discussion with him was completely false. I emailed Costco Canada with my concerns as Costco usually is good. I have not even had a response from them or the sales rep that was 4 months ago….I would not recommend changing to Elavon at all as there is no customer service, information is misleading and they will not fix anything. I am spending more money but because I paid a “fee” to open my account I will loose with whatever processing company I go with for another year.. I guess I’m just too small a business since reading how big they really are.
Just yesterday got a email stating to update my Androids or my processing will not work not even 24 hours notice. So if I didn’t do right away all my Andriod’s I wouldn’t be able to process any credit cards…Nice!!! What company gives under 24 hours notice…Elavon!
Caught them trying to charge us for “hidden” fees, not listed on the contract. When I called them on it they credited my account. “Just an unfortunate oversight”, they said. Cancelled our account after 30 days. SCUM BAGS
What can i say about ELAVON, i’m in Canada, running online sales business for clothing and electronics. Recently got couple of chargebacks – usage of stolen cards, completely because of Elavon, they do not verify the address of payment before processing your transaction, it is same thing as running manual sales with keying card number. Address and the card number didn’t match, basically they are not verifying anything. I try to solve it, and got extra 400$ charged on my account, when i asked why, they replied – This is the Arbitration Commissions… Dispute Resolution department is not helpful and very rude. Long story short, after i tried to settle this, Elavon went into my account and reversed back all the transactions processed within 6 month = $ 25,000. I spoke to Resolution Dpt again and they told me that they are going to hold funds for 6 month to verify my account… I have all the evidences, if anyone wants to sign-up with Elavon i will not recommend doing so, i understand that 0$ cancellation is that makes people go and sign-up, but trust me, you will have more hassle than service. My feedback to Elavon is Negative.
Hey I’m in a very similar position atm was wondering if we could speak further on the subject..
We have been in busniess for over 10 years. we were with bank of america and switched to ELAVON ( WICH IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE DONE ON OUR PART)
WE HAD 8 charge back’s. elavon held our funds that we needed to return to customers. and after faxing the needed proof to the elavon dispute department of they released 7 out of 8 chargbacks. when we called elavon risk solutions and spoke to Mr PARKER.JONES AT EXT 8170 he said that the total amount of chargebacks are 7% so he is going to keep the hold in place for 30 days and then re evaluate . we mentioned that 7 out of 8 were leases in our favor and it couldn’t be 7% anymore becoz of the initial 8 chargabacks = 7% then 1 chargaback can not = 7% .
this is RIDICULES!!!!! ELAVON should be facing a class action law suit by now. i am going to speak to a attorney ASAP and taking them to court. if any other small business owner has the same issue please email me at [REDACTED – personal contact information] so that we can look into a class action law suit against elavon.
PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS MERCHANT SERVICES FOR ITS -C rated for a reason .
course of action
1. flooding all reviews with nagativne reviews
2. initiating a complaint/dispute with BBB
3. Contacting a attorney for a law suite for loss of income, inconvenience, illegal activity etc.
4. small claims court for Mr Parker him self .
stay clear from this elavon…. unless you wanna easy way to close up your business!!!!!!
I can honestly say that dealing with Elavon has been the worst customer service experience of my life. For the first couple of years, they were great. When the chip reader cards came out in the states, the hold times went up to 90 minutes. I had multiple machines that didn’t work, and was talked into purchasing a new machine outright, which I did. It went down within 2 weeks. I was promised a refund within 2 weeks, it took 2 months. I closed my account 4 months ago, and they are still charging my bank acct a machine rental fee. Please save yourself some trouble and stay away from this company. I used them through my Costco Canada membership and will be taking the time to write to the head office of Costco.
I am a consumer, not a merchant. Elavon processes credit card transactions for Virginia DMV, but not mine. When I entered the correct numbers in the demanded format, Elavon falsely replied: “The Credit Card Number supplied in the authorization request appears to be invalid.” The number did not appear to be invalid, as confirmed by the issuing credit card company. Elavon’s published telephone number was answered by a person who said they did not respond to consumer complaints, “You need to call the number on the back of your card.” Which I did, and was told that the card is fine, number right, this charge never sent to them.
Please do not rely on processing companies that falsely call credit card numbers “invalid”, but refuse to answer inquiries about them from the consumers affected. Elavon inconveniences customers, but ducks the job of responding to the squawks. This will hurt your business, if you trust them.
Elavon is not your card issuing bank.. therefore any response Elavon recieves comes straight from YOUR bank. Elavon does not decide whose card is “invalid” or not. Elavon is not authorized to make decisions on an individual’s credit card account. Elavon ONLY services merchants.. NOT cardholders. We have no information about a cardholder’s account.. therefore, we are instructed to tell you to call the number on the back of your card. Clearly you need to do some research on what a credit card processor is. If you were a merchant.. you would know this. Bye.
This is the most unprofessional response by a business I have ever seen. BYE
Agree 100%! So when you become a huge business as Elavon, you no longer need to be concerned with customer service or how your employees represent you? Yuck
This company takes payment from customer then delays funding yuor account and investigates your business to see why your company is being paid. I don’t get it this company will keep your accounting destroyed . I regret this decision. Please be aware this company will aggrivate you to no end .
The terminals garbage chute way overpriced huge scam just the way to sell terminals then about a month or two later they’ll close your account.
High fees, Im on the 3rd POS (which also stands for Piece of shit) in less than 2 months. They do not accept CIBC cards and the machines they send us are constantly failing. Customer service? Dumb people who cannot figure anything out, expect to wait over 20mins every time you call for customer service. I own a tax office and this company has so far lost me 8 clients this year because they were fed up with our machines EVERY YEAR. This is is our 3rd year with them and last!
We were a customer of Elavon though Mindbody. Their customer service is the worst I’ve even seen. I had a customer dispute a charge she made online. I refunded the customer her money back and let Elavon aware of this. They proceeded with the charge back anyway. I called them several times on the same issue. The first time the rep actually said “get the money back from the customer”!! I finally spoke with a manager who said she’d take care of it and to call back. I did call back and she refused to get on the phone and the rep refused to give me her name. The rep said the case was closed and there is nothing they could do. So I called Mindbody and switched merchant providers which I didn’t even know was an option. I will never do business with Elavon again and I’ll make sure to read reviews prior to signing up with any company.
Nicole Phillips / Inner Me Studios
This company almost our small cafe/food truck out of business. We were promised in our contract next day deposits only to find out after our bank started to tack on late charges for late deposits that we expected to be there on time. The late charges began to pile up after missed and late deposits. After months of continual requests to resolve the deposit timing issue we finally had to bring things to head. Elevon has admitted their mistakes but we are still waiting to reimbursed the $10,000 in fees. Stay away from the processor. It will take us months to recover from these incompetents. They pretty much admitted that they are on breach of their contract.
OMG…in my 45 years of doing business and working with 5 other merchant service credit card processors, i have NEVER seen a WORSE merchant service…Their rates are ok, but their customer service/tec h support is a NIGHTMARE. In my 2 years with them, i have never had a wait/hold time of less than 20 minutes, and often it is 30 to 60 minutes! With the other processors, the wait time has always been in the seconds, or max 1-2 minutes.
But, when i have a line of customers waiting to pay, and the credit card machine goes on the fritz, i LOSE THOSE SALES, as hardly anyone pays with cash anymore.Their reps are good and knowledgeable, but again, my biggest complaint is the INSANE length of time we are put on Hold to speak with tech/customer support
I am a small business owner who understands the need for short hold times. I am also a logical woman in knowing that there is a reason there is a long hold time. Elavon has been nothing but great to me and my business, great customer service. Their hold times were bad for a couple months and now they are great again. i was advised their hold times shot up because people ignored the notifications we were given to update our machines so they all did it around the same time, granted i was one of those people. I just don’t think hold times are something to complain about because it’s out of a company’s control.
Terrible customer service. They take an hour (or so) to answer calls, and don’t allow for call backs. I went with another provider last Fall and cancelled my service. They told me my account was closed and that I did not need to send the (now very old) terminal back and that I would not be charged any more. After 4 months of monthly fees ($33.60) per month, and several promises to stop the charges, they have still not done so. I can’t tell if they are corrupt or just incompetent. Either way, stay away. I am surprised that Costco has ha relationship with such a poor service provider.
I have dealt with Elavon for over 4 years. The last 6 months have been a complete nightmare and am happy to say that I have finally terminated any further relations with this company.
In September 2015 I called Merchant Support to order a new credit card swiper since the one I had was shorting out. They convinced me that I had to upgrade to a chip enabled terminal- which was not the case.
In October 2015 my charges increased significantly and after hours and hours of time spent with your IT department they agreed to refund $138 in overcharges.
In November 2015 I spoke to your Merchant Connect IT department again because my charges continued to increase and after many hours of being on hold they admitted that they had a glitch in their software and that all transactions that I swiped that did not have a EMV chip on it was being processed as if I “hand-keyed” the transaction. They agreed that I was due a refund of overcharges and it doesn’t take a rocket scientest to LOOK at the statements to see that I have been overcharged ever since I started using the Ingenico reader. Since then-they have not refunded these overcharges nor have you, but I do appreciate that you were able to cancel the lease on the Ingenico reader.
And here we are 4 months later – Now Elavon tells me me that all I am due is $74 some dollars. I first spoke to them 4 weeks ago and we are still having the same conversation and I am still out over $400. I have asked to speak with someone that can make decisions on this and all they say is you have to rely on your research department. This is definitely unacceptable and they leave me no choice but to seek legal counsel, file in small claims court which will include time & labor plus all the charges above and also file a complaint to the Better Business Bureau.
Lease Payments $104.00 (4 months x $26 October thru December)
November overcharge: $148.45
December $109.00
December Processing Fees $15.50
January Processing Fees $59.99
Total: $436.94
DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THIS COMPANY. THEY WILL TAKE FUNDS FROM YOUR ACCOUNT AND IT WILL TAKE HOURS & HOURS OF PHONECALLS PLUS MONTHS AND MONTHS TO EVER SEE A REFUND.
After 4.5 months of begging, pleading, crying, threatening, nearly having several mental breakdowns -Elavon has finally refunded the overcharges. Of course this was after a complaint was filed here and also with the better business bureau, bank accounts had to be changed, payroll accounts had to be changed, all automatic withdrawls from this bank account had to be changed. IT is not worth it- do not use this company. They will not treat small businesses fairly and you will waste alot of time dealing with them.
In over 20 years of dealing with different merchant services ELAVON was by MILES the WORST I’ve ever dealt with.
After having a point of sales machine breaking down I requested a new machine just to find out the rental charges almost doubled, their excuse was the old terminal had been discontinued so I had to incur the extra monthly charges. After receiving the new terminal I noticed they didn’t sent me a returning label for the broken one, after requesting a couple times and being on hold for over an hour every time I finally decide to close the account and requesting return labels for both machines. To my surprise they only sent me one label, so I phone them again waiting another an hour on hold just to request the second label. When FEDEX showed up to pick up both machines they had a box and the second requested label. To my surprise again they only received one of the machines and kept on charging me for the second machine so again back on line for another an hour to find out what happened. I phoned FEDEX three times they were not able to tell me where the machine was since I forgot to write down the tracking number. Five months later and about numerous calls and being on hold from 45 minutes to an hour and 15min they finally told me that they received the second terminal but wouldn’t refund for the extra five months only for the last month because the rep I spoke to didn’t bother to put on the notes on my first call that the machine was broken and I needed a return label.
This was not a BAD EXPERIENCE it was a NIGHTMARE!! . STAYYYYY AWAY!! from ELAVON they will ROB YOU BLIND!!
Elavon should be a terminated Co. After my client”s card was charged and I received approval and sent all information requested, It was still denied by Elavon. Waste of time and money dealing with robots. Go elsewhere !!
Our business has been a customer with Elavon for many years. We started out directly with them through our bank, then switched to processing through COSTCO because the fee structure is dramatically better. I have had many CC Processors contact me, or stop by our business, trying to see my statements because they would swear they could “save me money” even after I told them I was processing through COSTCO at a great deal. On the few occasions I would let a sales rep see my statements, even my new bank rep, they all came to the same conclusion that they could not beat the rates I am currently getting.
For example: For the month of JAN 2016 my statement shows a total of 73 items, for $24,359.35 and a total for Charges and Fees of $405.96.
If you do simple math, that equates to an Average of 1.67% for ALL items. That includes all card types, (10) were DEBIT for $2,523.91 and fees of $22.97, or Average of .91%; and $21,835.44 of Qualified and Non-Qualified cards for VISA, MC and Discover.
However, it is important to know that only (4) cards were commercial non-qualified and only for a total of $370.99 at a rate of 2.65% and $.29 per item. (1) was a Discover Non-Qualified for $342.19 at a rate of 3.35% and $.29 per item, (1) was a Visa Partial-Qualified for $40.93 at 2.65% and $.29 per item. Nearly 1/2 of the items (31) and amount of $11,962.71 were at 1.99% and $.19 per item, the rest (26) were $9,118.62 and at 1.22% $.12 per item.
I certainly cannot complain about these rates!
I think the real differences are for businesses who accept phone payments and online payments that are not completed with face-to-face contact. You do not really know who your customers are, whether the payment forms are truly legit, and the processor is definitely going to charge much more for assuming a dramatically higher risk.
Our business is an auto repair facility in WI and we will not accept payment or release a vehicle after repairs without customer visit and payment on site. We make an exception for regular customers we personally know over the years and we tell them up front that we will add a 3.5% special handling charge to the total bill because our processor will charge at least that much for key entered non present card charges – due to the higher risk they assume. We have NEVER had any holds, chargebacks or other fees assessed over the years. Our credit card charges for each day arrive promptly in our bank account within 48 hours.
You have to be diligent with any and all business transactions. You are responsible for tracking you activity and for balancing you entire days work – every day! You bear that responsibility, not the processor.
Yes I do agree with the many complaints about the slowness of getting to talk to a live person. That is something that the company needs to address, especially during peak call periods during the day. But if you need assistance that is not critical at the moment, you can help yourself by waiting and calling during lower peak call times. They are staffed 24 hours and you certainly would be less inconvenienced if you would choose to call during lower peak call volume times.
BTW I just called them today to ask about replacing our terminal. Yes I am not a fan of the current terminal prices, $389 for a VX520-CTLS when I can buy one reputably online for $199. That is why I have waited so long to take care of this. But I talked to Tech Support and they were very helpful in giving me the correct product/part numbers that I would need, to be sure that any terminal that I would buy would work, and they told me to make sure it was a NEW and Unlocked Terminal. Then I could call back any time and they would work with me to complete the process of switching out my terminal and installing/upgrading the software required for the new terminal. They said to allow 45 minutes and recommended calling when our business was closed, off-hours to complete. All-in-all a good experience for me.
I will be ordering my new terminal soon…
Hi JoAnn,
Please reply to this comment with your business name and location in order to authenticate your testimonial. Thanks!
This comment has been successfully authenticated.
Hi JoAnn
Did you order your VX520 online yet? Is it works?
Please reply coz I plan to get one too.
This company has offered services thru Costco network. We have been in retail business for over 15 years and switched to Elavon last year with hope to save money. We audited the statement for last few months and realized that the debit card transaction are processed as credit card and are charged at higher rate. Upon asking the rep I was told that debit card offered by banks are credit card even though people punch in pin for transaction. When I challenged the argument, I was told that the processor does not have capability to process pin bad debit card hence change all debit transaction as credit card withou notifying merchants ” what a fraud this company is playing” we are auditing how Uhc money we have payed extra to this processor due to their limitation. We are waiting for reply since last three week, and ready to place legal call as class action law suit for this processor for committing fraud with merchants. Sure it’s at large scale since many merchant has had time reconciling their statements.
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We use this merchant and have had NOTHING but problems.
Months and months of figuring out problems with the company. Lost many clients and business, asked the representative on around the 13th time calling them that they will not refund us fees charged due to their faults and problems.
To top it off? they do not accept CIBC, Island Savings, Coast capital Bank cards. Was told that CIBC is too small of a company thus why they do not service their cards.
What a load of shit. Changing companies after being with them for 2 years. Should of done it a lot sooner to save the headache.
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Big F for being on hold!! 27 minutes and counting!!! how am I suppose to run a business with this kind of response time!!
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Grade of F- on hold for 1.5 hour’s only to get a unknowledgeable service rep who could not answer my questions, he did try to transfer my call & I got a dropped call sound, so tried to get online after another hour with passwords I gave up, AMAZING !
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This company is horrible. We have been with them several years and their mistake and solution is just unacceptable! We recently had our merchant account transferred to another business checking account. After about a week we noticed that we were not getting the deposits into our account. We spent 2 days talking to several people at Evalon trying to figure out what was going on. The first day they told us that a couple days of deposits were sent to our old account and the rest to our new account. We were told that there was no problem on their end and we would have to contact our bank. We contacted our bank and they told us that there was zero deposit activity from them…so we called back and tried again. Finally got in touch with a supervisor and we sent over our paperwork(again) that showed the request to change accounts. This time they realized that THEY had transposed the account number and the funds went to a different account. Then we asked about the deposits that were suppose to go to our old account….they said they all went to the other (wrong) account. How these people can have different stories about where our money goes is unbelievable for the business they are in. When we asked them what they were going to do, they told us that it will be a minimum of 2 weeks for them to recover the money and send it to us. We told them this is unacceptable because it was their mistake and not ours. After arguing with several people they would not budge on trying to resolve this problem. They all told us that it will be a minimum of 2 weeks to resolve this. This is thousands of dollars that we need for our business cash flow and now we have to struggle because of their mistake! This is not the way you do business or take care of customers. It does not make sense that our business suffers because of their mistake. Stay away from this company…they lie….have incompetent people and will not make any effort to correct their mistakes.
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Elavon is bullshit and garbage, Elavon employees are piece of shit, i had bad experience with elavon. they don’t deposit your transaction money, and when you try to do refund, they take refund money from your account, So you don’t get transaction money plus taking money from your account for refund without deposit anything.
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I’d not recommend Elavon. Their customer service is third rate and in general I’ve never had the help I’ve needed when calling or emailing. I’ve been hung up on when routed to the wrong person and asking to be put to the right person. I’ve had to deal with people not sending me the right forms as well as not having things explained to me in a way that is understandable making things take weeks instead of days.
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I have been sitting on hold for over 20 minutes now with a customer staring at me waiting to make a purchase… which she can’t do until my issue gets resolved…. which won’t happen until someone answers the phone. Seriously? This is the worst customer service ever, and it is directly affecting my ability to do business. When this customer walks out (which I won’t blame her for), I will have lost a $60 sale… because a) your machine is not working and b) you won’t help me with it. Thanks.
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ELAVON IS THE BIGGEST RIP OFF !
We were forced Elavon by our new bank.
After the signing of contract they charged 489.00 from our bank account.49.00 for card reader and 369.00 for third party software CONVERGE ! Not mentioned anywhere in contract. After disputing they reversed card reader charges but not Converge fees.
In two months they had to replaced card reader several times . As after week 10 days card reader were failing. Sep 15 2016 Elavon gave us notice of termination ! We switched to paypal and returned all their card readers. Guess what Elavon started STEALING from our bank account 139.92 every month from OCT,NOV,DEC,JAn.Their excuse we didn’t gave them notice of termination ! Loadging complaint with DOB Cal, FFIEC,and Small Claim Court ! Elavon ARE SCAM and THIEF ! Will be contacting Costco !
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Since most of my problems with my machines are eventually corrected, I cannot comment on the machine. BUT the process to correct any problems, the extremely long on hold times ( ONE HOUR +) is very frustrating. They might be the worst at customer service. After your Long on hold time, you get to speak with a condescending person that should not be in the customer service industry.
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I too am very dissatisfied with their customer service. No willingness to help and very rude. Never again. Once contract is up, if not before, I will be terminating.
Elevon is far the WORST company out there. they play games all day dont take there job seriously. i spend on hold 45-1 hour on hold trying to talk to customer service. there machine keeps breaking and i have to pay for it out of my pocket. they wont reimburse you back. when i first signed up with them they put $3000 in my account for no reason, i paid back of course but i needed to see proper documents, alot of Admin work on my end. they transfer you to Atlanta and half the time the people are not there do to bad weather. Costco is going down for doing business with people like this, i will not be a costco member anymore! they also have hidden fees!
DO NOT SIGN UP WITH THESE PEOPLE THEY ARE LIARS!!!
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I co/own a small family restaurant that in a very small town. A customer service rep contacted me regarding switching to Elavon and there it began. He gave wrong information and did not supply us with all the details, or false details in a way that it could be read either way. After we realized he lied to us we contacted the company and I was told that he no longer works there, and they did not disagree when I suggested that his actions and deceit to customers was the cause for his dismissal. We had difficulty with getting the entire matter straightened out and are still dealing with it months later. They promised that they would pay for half the cancellation cost from our old supplier and after we paid $500 to cancel they said that the manager who promised this action was misinformed and that they will not help with the cancellation cost. Had there employee not lied to us in the first place we would not have had to pay this at all. The nightmare with this company has been great, and today I received another bill from them to cancel their account. We were told there would be a no charge cancellation fee. People often think that because you own and run a business you are rolling in money. They do not realize that we have bills as well. I also know that you need to read the fine print and we do. What do you do when the fine print is not done truthfully and the actual employee lies and those above him can’t be bothered to right any wrongs? We have had a tough time in the almost four years that we have been open. I believe that this will be our last year and it is not that we do not like our business but as a ‘small’ business every single dollar counts and when there are not many dollars left to count due to a large company like ELAVON taking advantage or not caring for the small fish in the sea then what are we to do?
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How many Evalon customers were affected by the October 19, 2015 crash of hypercom models including the T4205?
I am searching for answers to this event. These devices today can still be found online for sale. Is not the word out to the public that these are useless. December 7th, 2014 was the first occurance of hypercom models crashing. Does anyone know if Evalon was continuing to lease hypercom devices after this event? These devices contain a cryptographic certificate which expires the device on a certain date without the merchants knowledge. Can this be legal? I never heard of this practice until this happened to us. We have been leasing this model for over 4 years.
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I work in the Information Technology Department for Marion County Oregon. We have approximately 17 VISA devices throughout the County. We changed over to Elavon VISA devices last year and it has been an absolute support nightmare!
We first started with the VISA and pin pad devices attached to computers. We had nothing but problems with the Equinox and Elevon software crashing and constant calls to our Service Desk because the VISA devices wouldn’t work. I ended up knowing more on how to “temporarily” fix them (they would always crash again) than the people I spoke with at Elavon technical support. It was basically a COM port issue with the software that would reconfigure itself randomly and render it incompatible with the COM port settings on the pc. After several months and countless hours trying to get these devices to work, we decided to abandon the pc attached devices and go with standalone network VISA devices.
The issues did not go away on the standalones. We use static IP addresses for the VISA devices for security and for some reason they quite often change back to DHCP (automatic IP address assignment). We don’t allow DHCP on the VISA network for PCI compliance so when the devices switch back to DHCP, then they have no network connectivity and again we get Service Desk calls. I have spent countless hours supporting these VISA devices since we switched to Elevon. Each time this happens, I call Elavon support to make sure the file on the affected device reflects the static IP address that I have configured on the VISA device, and each time I call, the file has been set back to DHCP; so when the VISA device does a download, Elavon’s file overwrites the network configuration on the device and sets it back to DHCP and then it doesn’t have network connectivity.
I finally got fed up one day and asked to speak with a manager at Elavon. He admitted there was a software glitch that when a new device is ordered, it resets the Elavon’s files of each of the VISA devices on that account back to DHCP. So if we have 3 devices on that account, all of a sudden none of them work! I told him what a support nightmare this was causing our IT department and asked when it would be fixed. He did not know and we continue to keep having these issues.
I cannot tell you how frustrated our IT department and our customers are with Elavon! I would not recommend Elavon to any larger scale operation due to the frequent and repeated support issues.
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Elavon Equpment did not work properly- poor quality!!
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ELAVON Customer Service is horrible! I wasted an entire hour today and requested a supervisor, as the original person could not figure out a solution, and then was on hold another 15 minutes before I hung up. The rep kept wanting to transfer me to the Costco Merchant Services without resolving the primary issue. Very poor behavior.
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I’ve never left an online review (good or bad) for any product or service in my life. But, after dealing with Elavon for the past 5 months, I have to vent a bit. The communication from this company could not be any worse. Literally, their follow-up is almost non-existent. Their idea of communicating with their clients is to send a letter that arrives 2 weeks later. This company is caught in the stone ages. I’m very happy that I moved to a new processor recently who actually wants to partner with me as I grow my business.
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These people are the Worst Service that I have ever encountered. They do not know how to handle a claim and they do not communicate well with either the customer or themselves. They keep sending out the same thing over and over via mail and fax. And when you call them you are on hold forever and its back to the same thing. I would never use them again
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I have been using Elavon for more than 10 years. Everything was great when they had a local representative. He closed shop an moved to Florida. Elavon never notified me about it. My Equinox card processing machine had an error message making it unusable. I tried to get help from their support services. I had one voice mail and return the call. Nobody called me again even after several email and attempts to talk to somebody on the telephone. I waited sometimes for more than an hour. When I was finally able to talk to someone, they told me that they no longer had a local representation and referred me to their regional representative. I called that office several times and left messages but nobody returned my call. After 3 weeks of being unable to process any cc, I decided to call [REDACTED – promotional content]. I am delighted by their prompt response and good rates. Now I am facing with the problem of closing my account with Elavon! Stay away from this company.
Elavon contacted me via email and snail mail letting me know that I needed to upgrade my machine to be able to accept chip cards.
Okay so I called them, finally got through to a real person and they said the upgrade required a 45 minute software download of two packages. I did not have the time for that so I needed to do it all over again. So I took time off my day-job to call them again, wait 20 minutes, finally connect to a person and begin the software upload. 40 minutes later….I had completed both and the agent said I was good to go. I arrive back at my shop on Saturday ready to accept customers and the machine says “call maintenance”. What? So I call and 20 minutes later I get a real person and she informs me that, well, some of the machines do not have enough memory to handle the upgrade and I need to buy a new chip-compliant machine. But they can’t get it to me until Monday. Um, but customers are coming any minute, can you help me set it back to factory settings? She said, no your machine is permanently disabled. So I downloaded the square app to my iphone and was up and running in 30 minutes, just in time for my first sale of t he day. bye-bye elavon.
There’s NO customer service,,. I don’t call that “customer service”.
They put me on hold forever.
Don’t waste your time, time is money.
For everyone’s information….Evalon is not going to answer the phones or emails….They are in serious trouble….
My bank Suntrust has contract with evalon and even Suntrust is telling me they can’t contact Evalon either……..
Don’t waste your time even trying…they are probably going out of business….and they should go out of business…..anyone who stays with them really need to examine their thought process………
So, now that I am going with another provider – how would I cancel my service if they are not answering calls? :(
Thanks!
I have a T4220 terimal…same problem, can’t contact anyone, it has been two weeks now. I am trying to cancel my account, I sent several emails,,,,no reply. I read in the terms and conditions to send in a termination form. I couldn’t find it on there web site, but a internet search I found this ( http://www.ccimerchant.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Closure-Form.pdf) I tried to FAX the form to 2 different numbers. There Fax machines don’t answer either. I sent it to customer services via email……no reply. Next step will be to send it registered mail with receipt.
THANK YOU CHUCK T. WHAT ADDRESS(ES) DO YOU HAVE?
I DOWNLOADED THE FORM. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.
Call the corporate office # 1-678-731-5000
Totally agree, our terminal has been down for almost 4 weeks, elavon have done nothing but fob me of, lied about who our contract is with and they have failed to show any customer support. Bye bye elavon and Ladco. Rubish, rubish, rubish…
It started with upgrading my Costco membership to Executive to get financial breaks on the Elavon/Converge processing. Sari Rivers was the salesperson and Linda Jones was our Manager and I was very impressed with them. Well, that was the one and only time I was impressed with anything/anyone about this entire situation and by the end neither was helpful.
We were sent the wrong equipment int he first place, so when it was time to activate the system, after an hour, Marvin told us we needed to mail that equipment back and they would send another one. We waited.
The new equipment came and we finally got set up with a tablet and software and PC access, but we soon found out the Converge reports were horrible and we could not get nearly enough information from them to balance our bank statement at the end of the month. Repeated calls to Elavon yielded nothing useful to us. What was the $5.00 charge for? How can I access good reports? How can I find a breakdown for the charges on my statement??? Call to Delona on 8/7/15, at 11:10am – transferred to Chris, transferred to Michael (Manager), Email to Sari Rivers 8/7/15. Call to same number at 11:20am same day – Clinton, transferred to Michael (again) . 8/1/15 Sari Rivers – finally answered her phone (I was feeling like she didn’t want to speak to me after she signed me up!) I asked about purchasing a terminal since we were having difficulty with the tablet and PC software – she ended up hanging up on me. I left messages with each person to have someone call me back – but no one ever did. No help here.
8/18/15 talked to Amanda – she was helpful but could not solve my tablet/PC software problems. And no one had called back letting me know how much it would cost to just purchase a terminal after all the tablet problems.
Out of the blue, on 8/19/15 Linda Jones called back. I told her about all the problems we were having and she sympathized with me and would ask how much a terminal would cost and call me right back – to this day 11/4/15 – i have not heard back from her.
So, we are switching again to a bank sponsored system. Twice in less than 5 months. It will cost more, but I have a person to contact about ANYTHING!
I wish I could complain to Costco since they partner with Elavon – but, alas, no one at the Costco store knows anything about Elavon. I am very, very disappointed. I will certainly think twice about partnering with any company Costco advertises.
I am trying to contact them and I wait for 2 hours already and still nobody is picking up the phone. They just play the music over and over again.
Francis, Don’t waste your time. They will not answer…I tried for 10 days…all hours of the day and night..was on hold one evening for 4 HOURS AND 22 MINUTES.
My bank, who has Elavon under contract, can not get in contact with them……they will not answer phones or emails…..have sent many emails over the 10 day period and get not response
You would be better served to stop dealing with elavon and select a better provider for your business…
I am currently sitting on hold for customer service. It has now been over an hour. Tried resetting my password and never received the reset code via email. I plan to switch services as soon as possible. Terrible support.
DO NOT USE EVELON FOR ANY PURPOSE.
They overcharge merchants with hidden fees, bill you for equipment you never receive and are extremely slow in making any adjustments to the merchant even when they are in the wrong. Will not answer phones or emails. DO NOT USE EVELON FOR ANY PURPOSE. THEY ARE TERRIBLE.
Totally agree with above….Evelon de-activated my current machine so that it would no longer work at 1:27pm on a Wednesday afternoon with no advance notice. Received a terminal message to call them when I tried to run a sales transaction. They informed me the old machines were no longer being supported and I would have to get a new Chip Reader card processor. I would be charged $570.00 for the new machine, but it would be a week or two or perhaps longer before I could get one programmed and shipped due to the backlog of customers that they did this very same thing to………….And you are correct, they will not answer phones or emails……..anytime of the day or night……..Many years ago I saw one other company like this that was bad..really bad…but not as bad as these people. STAY AWAY AT ALL COST…………..
Unbelievably horrible customer care. They’re super slow answering the phone. 30+ minutes on hold is BEYOND unaccaptable. Cryptic machines that seem to have been programmed by a child. Now tip adjustment is a thing of the past because of EMV but everyone else somehow manages to do it? I’ll be done with them within a few days. I waited two years too many to get rid of them.
Worst merchant company i’v ever have. Customer service try to make money on me. The terminal broke down without warning. When i call them to ask for help, they know that i got stuck in their trap, so i need to pay a lot of money so they can pullme out. I decideto switch the service. Bad people. I lost lot of money, but that is ok, i am not going to be poor because of them. Do not work with Elavon or you will be cooked.
I have a small restaurant and i am Elavon’s customer over 10 years. Today, they cook me to dead by putting my machine out of date without notification. Before i had asked the sale rep Gary Bell if it is ok for me to keep the old machine; his answer is “Elavon is not guarantee for any tpye of fraud” but he did not mention about the new program to push my machine out of date. I am a little bit mad with Elavon right now, because i am losing a lot of business and getting frustrated, i decide to switch the account to other company today. If you guy are new customer, don’t sign up with Elavon because you will be cooked like me in one day and they try to get your money. Good luck.
Oh my, that must be what is wrong with ours. We are getting a sign app requested error, and I have been on hold for 2 hours waiting for them to answer and help me.. We have machines that are years old and were not notified of any changes either. This is BULL!!!!
I used to have First Data. Their fee structure and they way were charged between individual transactions and more charges at the end of the month, it was worse than a used car contract.
Elavon gives you every dime of each transaction then pulls all fees at the end of the month making much more sense and much easier to track and know what you’re paying.
Elavon is not a good merchant. I have problems with the chip reading, and you can never get ahold of anyone.
When we contacted Elavon to upgrade our terminal to chip accepting one we were given the price of $500. When called to cancel the service they drop the price to $250. We still decided to cancel the service but they continue to charge us monthly fee.
We found very difficult to reach them on the phone or by e-mail so we gave up complaining to them. This is a rip- off company.
Card reader went down this morning so unable to process payments. Stuck on hold for 2 hours, then told I had to be transferred to another line. On hold 3 hours more…. Finally hung up. Now on hold another 2 hours but still nothing. Losing tons of money. WORST customer service of any company I have ever worked with. And we have paid them ALOT of money over the years. Hard to believe they can stay in business when they are such idiots. Wouldn’t they want to expedite service if it would bring them more revenue? These guys will be studied some day as an example of why businesses fail.
ChergEtoday—-Elavon Merchant Account
This seems to become a new sickness in the payment processing industry. If you have a chance to select a payment processing provider, stay away from ChergEtoday. They have been OK, buggy unrefined interfaces and single-currency only but reliable for many years now and have recently begun to withhold funds from merchants unannounced and unexplained, for no reason.
They withdrew $28000 without asking me or my consent and then they could not find the details that why did they do this for 3 weeks and kept ignoring my calls. After 3 weeks when i sent complaints to senior members faxes and emails, they replied that they took this money out just to secure their business and keep in reserve for 9 months not 6 months. So had very bad experience with them. Be careful and keep your business safe.
They evade questions, don’t respond to any means of contact and withhold funds in order to get merchants to sign new terms which grant them liberties to suspend or withhold funds unannounced and without reason. At the same time they are trying to lock merchants into a new 3-year contract term in the fine print of the terms document. They use the withholding of funds in order to pressure merchants to sign this deal. We’ve had great relationships with them for many years, but as sad as it is, it looks like a fraudulent company now all of a sudden.
Hi Nick,
Did you intend to post this comment on our Elavon review or on our ChargeToday review?
Is any one still alive over there at Elavon??? My machines are crapping out on me and I cant get any one on the phone?
Elavon is a thief!!! Period! Not sure why I didn’t do my research on them but I just believed MindBody Online Software where I registered my spa. They recommended me to a guy from Bluefin Payments (Edward Ferko). Because they were referred by a company I trusted I signed up with them. Next time I will do my due diligence regardless!
Too many incidents to mention but these 2 made me decide to let them go. For a few years they charged me extras on my monthly rent of the machine. It started with $30/month and increased to $97 in just a couple years! Yes the PCI Compliance was also another bullsh*t charge they added, but I didn’t sign up for that.
I had a client who came back for another high-end treatment, thank goodness she was honest and asked me why her credit card wasn’t charged the $550 she paid for a month and a half ago. I was so stunned! Elavon said they had a glitch and eventually sent the money to my account, charged my client’s and I got the money a few days later. This made me wonder how many of these instances have happened the past few years that I didn’t know about right? I mean why would a client tell me they didn’t get charged. I was lucky to have one honest enough to let me know. My fault yes I know but to trust a system like theirs is really hard to forgive! Why then did we bother getting a machine??? I could’ve stuck with Paypal, taken cash, do e-transfers or gone with my bank’s.
Since then I was on my account like a hawk. And just a few days after that incident, $175 didn’t go through my bank account and they promised to fix it within 10-14days and debit the money to my bank account but it has now been 21 days and it still hasn’t shown up. Then they threaten to charge me if I don’t send their machine back? Well I’m not sending it back if I’m not getting my $175. Small amount yes but it means a lot to a business owner.
After this I’m also going to Small Claims to sue them. Curious if any other small business have sued them? I don’t care if I lose $300 to file a claim against them, I just have to try. If any small business has sued them, please come forward and help me! And in return I will help future victims of this corporation as well.
Thanks in advance and good luck to us all.
Be careful about not returning their machine. They have access to your checking account and will just zap you for it. When I gave them 7 months notice that I intend to cancel, I told them that I would return their machine in advance, also, via registered mail. They told me that I did not have to return the machine as I had obtained it from my previous processing company that got absorbed by Elavon. I did not trust that and said that I would ship it back, anyway. They told me to keep it as they will just destroy the machine, anyway. So, I documented all of this, just in case. So, that being said, don’t mess with them while they have access to your money. Just get the heck out, ASAP with more than minimum notice. Or, just close your checking account on them, if you don’t need it for further transactions from them. (If you don’t give minimum notice, they will zap your account for that, also.) None of this has happened to me because I read all previous complaints and was well armed. PCI compliance fees and that stupid statement fee that is forced upon us, even though, as a small business, is obsolete, is my biggest complaint, along with crappy customer service reps that caused me to spend excess money that was unnecessary if they had had knowledgeable reps. (FYI-Their errors work the other way, too, by double paying. LOL!)
Thanks for the idea of just closing my bank account although where would they now put the $175 they still owe me?
Today I called and emailed them and Bluefin and they said they never received a copy of the transaction ($175) so I resent them the email I sent last Aug/12 to one of their employees (who I was on the phone with when he confirmed he received a copy of the transaction). They denied that employee receiving so now I have to wait another 10-14days????? It’s now the 1st of September and they will charge me again on the 15th if they didn’t receive the machine. So yeah I’m gonna have to close my bank account for this. Such pricks.
I helped to form an email group of small businesses who were all victims of Elavon/Ladco Leasing’s dirty tricks.
The DA’s office of Ventura County, California, filed a lawsuit on behalf of about 100 of us.
The ruling came down AGAINST Elavon/Ladco and they were forced to pay a settlement. I got almost all my
money back that I’d paid to these crooks in the form of fees and leasing “software.”
Here the link to the press release issued by the DA’s office in 2013:
http://www.vcdistrictattorney.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/12-030-Ladco-Settlement-Disney.pdf
What we discovered as a group, in general, was that the businesses who chose to “fight like hell” generally fared better in terms of getting out of their contracts and getting some fees back. Bottom line: ignore all their scare and intimidation tactics and fight them every inch of the way.
For more info about these crooks, check out my blog at http://merchant-scamology.blogspot.com/
Good luck.
Thanks for this, Deborah!
Hi Maria. I have lost sleep dealing with this fraudulent company. I would love to share my story with you. Dealt with a fellow by the name of Ernesto and then Harvey. I swore they were the same person. I have had to close my account and open a new one . They have every excuse in the book as to why my account was debited.THIEVES!!! I too was promised a refund.
At first when Elavon dropped us without notice after over 20 years with the same account we were upset. But after moving on to another company “Stripe”. We never looked back and thank them for forcing us to see what crooks they really were. They bought out the provider we used over 15 years before they came into play. They’re really behind in a tech sense, totally unable to help you with questions and problems. We had to trouble shoot it all ourselves and when it came to getting certified they preferred to have us pay their penalties than get things fixed. Not sure why the hell Costco would work with them but I’m sure many people sign up due to Costco then find out what crooks and how bad they really are. Even square i a better company to deal with. Years back we did not have many options, similar to the Paypal issue with them forcing you to use them. But today with more options don’t fall for their scams, lies and games to get you to go along with them.
Worst customer service ever. Never respond on time and professionally. I have told them we have urgent to update our account information. They kept changing person to handle my case. And none of them gave me a completed list for what I needed to provide. And they did’t respond back after 24 hours. After a week, my case still couldn’t resolve. They passed my case to a credit manager Sonyna.C., who sent me the most rude email I’ve never seen. And threaten me that if we don’t provide the document they need they will close my account in 5 days. After we have used the service for years, that is the way they treat their customer that just trying to update account information. This makes us feel it is a risk for our company’s operation. And we decided to sign up another merchant service immediately. A week after the rude email. She sent me another unfriendly sentence for final notice to close our account. Elavon, thanks for your attitude. You don’t deserve we are paying thousands of dollars to you every month.
I am disappointed that I didn’t do more research before signing up w Elavon a year and a half ago. I was persuaded to switch to Elavon w promises of saving. I’m now spending twice what I was before w a different company. When I had enough and wanted out, I was told it would cost me thousands to get out of my contract early. This has been one of my biggest lessons in business: don’t trust what the salesperson SAYS to you, READ the fine print! I hate this company!
Worst company ever!!! Get away from this people.
they have the worst costumer service . And the worst part they pit on hold $ 14000 from my restaurant’s sales and now they took from my account $19701.9 because they think some people use stolen credit cards to pay.. I have been a victim from both sides ( the people that used stolen credit cards on my place and this company) the problem is that they have all my sales.. not just the ones that was paying with stolen credit cards.. I am with a lawyer now spending thousands of dollars more taken this headache to the court.. and I found that I am not the only bussines with this problem suing this crap company because they do the same to them.. Run away from them!!!!!!
I called this morning as our credit card machine bit the dust and spoke to Brandon Lucien in the sale department about a new machine. from the start i felt a lack of confidence in working with him. he was hesitant in speech, less then enthusiastic and lacked interest. we are a small business and need our machine. i was told that a machine could be shipped out at no cost to us for shipping overnight so we would have it the next day. This is what we wanted. We were given the option of purchase outright, or lease. we chose lease, and then when we were close to the wire of when they could ship out to have it arrive the next day Brandon informed me that with a lease it would take 1-3 days more to push the paperwork through. i was not happy, he insisted that he had told me this in our previous calls. Even if he had mentioned it, (which is doubt) he certainly did not emphasize it as he should have, given that WE NEED A MACHINE ASAP. i asked to speak to a manager and he said someone would call. he also said there was a tape of the calls, i asked that someone listen to the call and i definitely wanted to speak to a manager. it is now three hours later and i have received no call. this is extremely poor customer service. i would not recommend using them for new machines.
as an aside, i read through the lease wording, would not sign this lease. we are getting a new machine through our bank.
vicky H
I work with a very small non-profit organization – 100% volunteer. The organization thought it could increase donations by having a credit and debit card processing. We develop programming and activities for at risk youth. We chose Elavon – a huge mistake!!!! Our first major fundraising effort which brought in nearly $4,000 has been held in a security reserve now for 4 months. We received a letter saying “This security reserve account may be maintained by Elavon for a minimum of 270 days…” We have been on the phone weekly with them to try to get the funds release so we may continue offering our programs.
What a shock that a company the size of Elavon can operate so fraudulently!
Is there any class action lawsuits that can happen? I saw one was done in 2011.
I am quite surprised to find negative comments regarding Elavon here. I am thinking that for sure, the majority are in the U.S. and/or that all the problems are due to the sales office since Elavon abides by the contract written by the rep and the sales office…at least that is how it works in Canada.
I have contracted with 2 sales offices for Elavon over the last 2 years and no one who has ever cancelled that I know of has ever paid any cancellation fees. Both sales offices offered ‘rate lock’ for the life of the relationship and a ‘rate match guarantee’. I have come across Merchants who signed with my current sales office 7 or more years ago and have never had any rate increases.
Here in Canada, all the sales offices selling Elavon I have come across offer interchange plus pricing and flow through assessments. Plain and simple.
They have a dedicated line for all of their MSP’s and I have never been on hold…every call answered within 3 minutes. I call a few times/day and have had the best service bar none. I have access to all of my merchant accounts online and receive an email every time a client calls in…it is all recorded, transcribed and delivered to me on my phone – on the go. I can follow up if I think it is necessary or see any negative remarks.
Makes my job a breeze and my merchants are all happy campers.
As far as PCI, it does not take long to answer the questionaire to be certified compliant and avoid non-compliant fees. If a merchant has any trouble with it, the help number to Sysnet in Ireland is indeed most helpful.
If you are a Canadian merchant and you are having any trouble, I highly suspect your sales team is the source of your problems; not Elavon. All I can suggest is ASK FOR REFERRALS from your sales rep.
I’m in Canada and nope, I didn’t signup for any PCI charges so no one should force me to answer anything that I didn’t signup for in the first place! even if it would take me a few minutes to do, THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT. They have No Right to charge extra and force their clients if it isn’t in the contract!
In Canada and the PCI compliance was not a few minutes of my time, it was hours, and calls to Elavon and my Rep that did not answer my questions. I ended up having to call several places and when I was still confused by this questionnaire and the other items in becoming “compliant” I ended up calling a computer technician to come and go through it and check everything, and do the scans and figure it all out. I am constantly getting other emails reminding me to run scans to stay compliant. As a business owner I have other things to do, this process should not be passed onto the businesses, it should be the responsibility of the merchant services provider, and as a business I should not incur any additional costs because of it. If they want to charge me it should be because they are doing the work to ensure compliance. Not charging me and giving me more work to do.
AVOID this processor. Elavon lured me into purchasing their terminal T4220 back in 2013 and promised me that this device would for sure handle EMV in 2015. However, I got an email from Elavon on May 20 2015 stating that T4220 is not at all built for the new technology. When I called them, I was simply told that they didn’t choose T4220 to install EMV tech. I felt so betrayed because they promised me it would work just fine when I purchase the terminal for $509!! Now I’m getting a completely OPPOSITE answer! Their customer service staff never did apologize for delivering wrongful advertisement or they don’t even care about one particular disappointed customer because they are the only processor affiliated with COSTCO, the tycoon? I can see my $$$ going down the sewer. Moreover, Elavon’s T4220 doesn’t separate the sale tax from the total. Meaning that they charge us merchants the service rate out of our total sales which includes the sales taxes. Honestly, the terminal is quite lousy. We need to calculate the tax part by ourselves because the machine wouldn’t! We need to do the math on our calculator and then add the tax into the total and then input the tax separately as it prompts, confused hah?! That how it works. In this case, we need to manually separate the sales taxes and report the number to IRS. Elavon fails to provide the tax information on their monthly summary or any other reports. I sincerely have no idea about their intention on doing this. They refuse to get the problem fixed, either. I was told numerous times that this T4220 is built this way. Being an affiliated partner of Costco is somewhat prioritized and ignorant? Great job on that part, Elavon!
Angelina,
It sounds like you need to call Elavon and have them do a partial update to your terminals download file to fix the tax issue. I would call customer service and request to conference in file build to make sure the parameters are set correctly then do a partial update download on the terminal.
Paying $500 for the 4220 tells me that the rep who sold it to you made a decent commission off the sale. Sorry to say but you can find those for a little over $100 online. However that 4220 is going to be obsolete at the end of this year so it would be smart to upgrade to an EMV terminal. I recommend the Verifone VX520 terminal and if you require an external PIN pad then you can use the Verifone 1000SE. Unless your average ticket is above $60 though I would forego the external PIN pad and use Chip N’ Signature versus Chip N PIN. Also when you do upgrade make sure the processor doesn’t lock your terminal. (Terminals are like cell phones, they can be locked to the provider)
Don’t let them coerce you into a lease either as you’ll end up paying far more than the terminal is worth. Terminal leases are 48 months and cannot be cancelled and you have to call on the last month to let the leasing company know your lease is up or they’ll continue to bill you. The only leasing benefit is insurance on the equipment however you can always add it to your business insurance instead.
This is probably the worst company I ever dealt with! It’s run by whole bunches of rude uneducated people. The customer service wait time is anywhere between one to two hours!! They charge you for something stupid then promise you that they will reverse the charges only to find out 3 months later that they haven’t done that so. They sound to be annoyed on the phone! very unprofessional!! Only if I knew, In million years I would have signed up for this shit :(
I signed up with Elavon via Costco about 5 years ago. Everything seemed wonderful for a while. I purchased my card reader ($1000 or so) . Then came Christmas . I had some large ticket items that sold. (Duh-….Christmas…!) Then I took a one week vacation. People do that at Christmas time also. While I was away they tried to contact me about the customer purchases. Nothing bounced for me -ever, and it didn’t this time either. Because I didn’t respond quickly enough, they closed my account and that was it -no discussion. Rude and abrupt. I still have the card-reader hardware in a drawer somewhere. I have since done my processing with another (Canadian) company, Couldn’t be happier.
Elavon is not a good company. They have bad customer service…bad service period. Their excuse is that they are a large company and large companies get more complaints. How about Apple? I think they are an even larger company but they don’t get as many complaints as Elavon. I’m glad their customer service agents don’t work for me. That’s not the way I run my business.
3/19/2015
BEWARE.
1. This company (Elavon Merchant Services) will charge you 7.78% (unqualified rate as of March 2015) processing fees. Practically anything will bump you to unqualified. All in All, for the year 2014, our business paid to Elavon in processing fees, PCI compliance fees, transaction fees, non-use fees (when I finally got rid of them late last year I had a couple of months of low activity where they would charge me $35/month for under usage) and 4 other fees for over 10% in total processing fees to Elavon. Next year they’ll probably be at 11-12%! That’s Outrageous. A few years ago after many phone discussions; they lead me to believe I was just paying 2.75-3.75% and no more, they said never any more than that.
2. I was told in 2011 on the phone by customer service that my rate was 3.75% (unqualified) when actually it was 6.75 (maybe they’re trained to lie!). Currently they are at 7.78% + per transaction fees. Most of my transactions for last year were unqualified for on reason and one reason only according to their supervisor; because of the type of credit card my customer was using! (i.e. Business to business, international, Corporate, World, Visa Signature Preferred etc. are all unqualified). And on top of that the Elavon supervisors blamed the high rates on VISA and MC when SQUARE INC can somehow do it for 3.5% (see below).
3. Customer care supervisors seem shady and WILL NOT answer many questions.
4. I cancelled Elavon (I’ve been duped long enough) and currently I am with SQUARE INC. and am paying no more than 3.5% unqualified for manually keyed (verified; 2.75% qualified w/card swiped) with no per transaction fees. No additional fees for i.e. Business to business cards, international, Corporate cards, World, Visa Signature Preferred cards etc. These rates were verified by an easy phone call to Square and easy to read daily statements in my email. This is thousands of $ per year in savings! GO FOR SQUARE!
Additionally:
1. Elavon requires you to request rate reviews to keep your rates down. And who wants to be constantly requesting rate reviews in order to not be ripped off! (In other words: Everyone has a different rate). They are not going to tell you that you should request a rate review, you will find out after you’ve been ripped off.
2. The company is (probably purposely) confusing, and a total rip-off.
3. Final complaint: All the different stories I got from each different supervisor just added to the confusion.
I’m tired of getting ripped off and decided to start fighting back with on-line reviews. I was delaying a couple weeks in submitting this review because the Elavon Supervisor said that they would look into everything and get back to me. Of course they didn’t.
Best regards,
Philip C. (the Very Unhappy Customer)
My Chauffeur Transportation Co.
Portland Oregon
Your comments about elavon roughly mirror my own experience, and I did switch to square as well. So far, 18 moths of Square have worked perfectly for me and no one beats their overall cost of service as you mentioned.
There are a lot of people with Elavon-like experiences with square though too – holding money with no way to get it, etc. We operate in the Bay, so at least we have the perceived advantage of being able to show up at their door if there is a problem. There is really no way to telephone Square, so I’ll probably always be a bit nervous. I wish Square would get a customer service number. Still more, I wish my bank, Bank of the West would stop “upselling” customers to Elavon. Why partner with the worst processor?
I was forced to go via Elavon because they bought out the smaller mom and pop merchant services company I originally signed up with. Elavon was always behind the times with technology from our experience, poor website integration and lousy tech support always blaming problems on everyone else.
They are very picky about anything you do but on the other end they create most of the problems. Shame on Costco who works with them, hopefully that will also change as I don’t care if they’re with Costco I’ll never use them again due their practices. I’m using Square and Stripe both of which I’ve been using for about 2 years now and with ZERO problems.
Like other complainers here Elavon will try and lull you in with promises of cheap rates, but user beware you’ll end up paying more in other fees and fake penalties they create. They started billing me $20 a month for PCI compliance issues and never told me about it. I’d been doing it fine for 20 years. Calling them, OK they have a number but its useless and who answers rarely can help you.
I’m with the new people “square” and “stripe”. Switched and never looked back, no regrets and hey its 100% better and easier.
The worst company in the universe, BAR NONE, is Elavon. I found then through Costco, and I have complained to Costco as well. Elavon is truly a bunch of liars and will offer you little to no customer service. It has been a disaster from start to finish. I ended up having to fight for all the extra charges to be reversed for nearly six months. When I got down to the last $20 and got no response, I gave up. It’s not worth it anymore. Please do not use this company for your credit card processing.
Elavon simply engages in unethical business practices. In our case we never see a bill as they are conjoined to Regions Bank and it was the bank that set up our Mom and Pop size of business with Elavon. Immediately there were fees which were unexpected and unethical. We were penalized for not having our business insurance company “prove” that we had coverage in case our humble VeriFone were to be stolen. Even though we were in compliance we paid heavily for not having our company “prove” we were covered soon enough into the contract. The monthly fees as described in the sales pitch and what reality brought were completely different.
Very bad experience.
They recently closed my account claiming I have not paid the bills without ever having sent the bills to me. The phone support was extremely rude saying he can’t do anything to help since I have not been paying and claiming the bills come by post.
TRUTH: no post came, even they have sent and the mail got lost, no one bothered to give me a call or email me. They have my full contact detail. I really do not understand this kind of customer treatment.
This does not make sense because they have our checking account info in order to deposit credit card sales. And, that same checking account is how they get their merchant fees by debiting that account at the first of the following month. (But, I agree that their customer service is crap. This is my last month with them. I gave them a 7 month cancellation notice, to prevent them from claiming that they did not get enough notice. I quit running my credit cards through their system 4 months ago and used only my Square account. I checked with them, in advance of my last day of their service, which I am not using, to make sure that they have accurate info as to my final service date. Of course, they have been debiting my checking account for just maintenance, every month, even though I am not using them. This, I expected, anyway, just so that I can see “freedom” from them without complications. So, hopefully, I won’t have to battle with them for continuing to debit my account after my final date of “service”at the end of this month.)
The worst company or business I have ever had to deal with. I have never been so frustrated, stressed or angry as I have been with this company. No customer service at all. I constantly get bumped to the next person as no one seems to know anything! Excuse after excuse. They withhold important information regarding fees and many other details and only tell you what they want you to know. Fees that come out of my account 2 months after account closure. What huge scam! DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY…TANGERINE OR PIVITOL PAYMENTS. They all seem to be linked together. Not sure how that works but what a pain in the ass!!!
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.
Bruce, make sure you keep checking your statements and doing the math yourself… my statement also said they were charging 2.25% but when I added up all the charges on the rewards cards, etc it was more like 7% and on another store it worked out to 10%. I thought I had a good deal until I really looked closely at what was actually happening…. Wish I had not trusted them sooner… I am happily happily moving away
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.
I have just being charged 8.70 EUR for 5.89 GBP which, according to VISA webpage ( http://www.visaeurope.com/making-payments/exchange-rates ) is a commission of… 4.60% over VISA daily rates!!! They only appear to recognize a 3.50%, but over an “intriguing” index (“Exchange Rate Mark-Up 3.50%. Reference Rate Provided by U.S. Bancorp”). There is no dude: “Currency conversion provided by Elavon Merchant Services”. Although is a small quantity, I have filled in an online complain form, asking for a refund.
Be very careful, take your time, read ALL the messages and do not hesitate to reject any quantity which appears to be written down in foreign currency: it is a fraud. This company plays with the trust, the hurry and the ignorance of customers. I think nobody expects such a commission, and that we are supposed to look very close for the “reconfiguration” option of the merchant’s dataphone in order to be charged our credit cards in the currency the merchant asks us for.
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!
I AM DEALING WITH THIS EXACT SITUATION!
I have only been with them for a month and have had over $1,000 deposited but all of a sudden a spike in sales DURING THE HOLIDAYS they froze my account withholding almost $6,000 in sales. I was told since December 11th they would release funds in 72 hours and kept stringing me along with long wait times bouncing me from department to department leading to voicemails and never getting a call back until December 21st. I felt something was wrong because as a processing company they should know that sales increase during holiday season so there’s no need for holds, so I stopped capturing payments until they released the $6,000 to me. So I have another $5,000 in orders just sitting in my shopify that have yet to be collected. Anyways on the 21st I got a call from a very rude rep who told me they are parting ways with me and holding the funds in reserve and when she feels it’s appropriate she will release the funds. I asked what about my customers who ordered things how am I supposed to refund their $ or ship their item when I’ve never received payment and her response was “that’s on you to figure out as a company”. WHAT COMPANY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD SEND AN ITEM WITHOUT BEING PAID FOR IT? IT MAKES NO SENSE! ELAVON RUINED MY COMPANY BECAUSE NOW I HAVE NEGATIVE REVIEWS AND PEOPLE THINKING MY STORE IS A SCAM AND THEY RUINED OVER 100 OF MY CUSTOMERS CHRISTMAS!
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Are you with Elavon? Learn how to resolve this complaint.
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.
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
Unbelievable!
As a new business owner I was happy to receive my Elavon poynt terminal. Everything from the customer service, to the convenient apps was ideal was for my business.
Then things went down hill fast!
Sometimes I would have to manually type in the card info, and I would often get a message saying the customer’s info didn’t match what was typed. It said it was declined, when in reality it was not. If I ran it again, it resulted in the customer being double charged.
Annoying, but it wasn’t a deal breaker.
The final straw for me was when a customer was mistakenly charged the wrong amount for a purchase. I immediately voided the transaction and corrected it. A few days later, I receive an angry phone call stating that I double charged him, which caused an overdraft fee. I went through my recent transactions, and it appeared that the void went through. For 2 weeks, me and him went round and round because he was accusing me of lying to him, and being deceitful.
Finally, I called customer support and had them go over EVERY transaction made that day. Come to find out, he was right. The void didn’t go through, and he was charged. What sent me into orbit is because of a misleading error, I was forced to refund money or a transaction I tried to correct. And Elavon’s response was basically “Oh well” …
I do NOT recommend this company!
This post will help: Best Merchant Accounts for Great Customer Service
-Phillip