Financial Transaction Services Review

When I asked FTS:

How do your rates compare to these that I was being offered by another provider?

Monthly: $14.95
Qual Rate: 1.54%
Authorization Fee: $.20
Effective Rate: Typically about 3%
No Annual Fee, No Setup Fee, No Fee For PCI Compliance, No Application Fee.”

Vice President Frank Bernackie responded, “Your rates with us will be much cheaper.”

He did not quote any numbers and actually refused to.

When I got my paperwork their qualified rate is 2.32%

They do charge an annual fee, a setup fee, a PCI Compliance fee, and an application fee. Their monthly rate is $20-25.

And the effective rate is over 4%!

Aside from these, they have the highest early termination fee I’ve ever seen at $750 and the longest contract period at five years.

Frank claims they are “probably the most transparent company in the industry” but refused to ever quote numbers to me. When other companies offered us lower rates he insisted that they were lying. Perhaps the industry has that much of a lack of transparency. But, to me, that is the opposite of transparency. One might call it dishonesty.

I was surprised to see that they pulled a credit check on me without my permission. I signed up for the merchant service but cancelled 2 days later because he guaranteed that it could work through my computer system via router. I do not have a dedicated land line and he knew it. Pulling a credit check without my knowledge disappointed me and I am glad I was able to get out of the contract. I never was able to use their services. They would not refund me most of my money that they debited from my account. I had to go to my bank and sign paperwork to have the debit stopped.

I believe my troubles with FTS originated from a merger with Boaz, who used to be my credit card processor. I discontinued my service with Boaz over 4 years ago at the end of our contract term, with no problems (or so I thought…). I have been charged an annual PCI fee from FTS for the last 4 years. The problem is that I have taken and passed the PCI compliance exam every year and pay all appropriate fees to Sage, my current processor. I have talked to Sage and FTS and both indicated I should e-mail cpies of the charges incurred to FTS’ refunds Dept. I did that on Dec 11, 2012 and have not heard anything back or received reimbursement to my account. I spoke to my bank to see if there is anyway for me to block them from placing such charges to my bank account and unfortunately there is not. Now I see here that this sort of thing is happening to so many other people. I think it’s a crime and there should be some sort of law to protect us-MAYBE FTS NEEDS TO TAKE A COMPLIANCE EXAM TO ASSURE US CONSUMERS THAT THEY KNOW TO DESTROY OUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION WHEN WE TERMINATE SERVICE WITH THEM!!!

fts is the worst card transaction company you can deal with. I asked to have service stopped and faxed a letter of cancellation like they asked, the next month I get a statement deducting out of my account for services i didn’t have. This has been going on for the past eight months and to no end. I have just been promised a refund for the past three months, which means they stole five months of income that I work really hard for. They just pretend they didn’t get my letter or calls. I will keep updates

I called to cancel our service in July. I called the phone number on the monthly statement. I called twice in August. Each time I left a voice mail for Joe T. I never received a return call. In September I called the number on the statement again and continued to hit options until I contacted a human. The human worked for First Data Merchants. The fist human had no idea what I was talking about. After repeatedly asking for a supervisor I was finally connected to a human with some semblance of intelligence. It took her some time but she found the correct phone number to cancel our service. She could not understand why Financial Transaction Services would list Fist Data’s phone number on their invoice.

I called FTS. I spoke to Ron S. He appeared helpful but once again I rec’d a bill for the month of September. Ron told me that Joe T would call me back. I told him that I would call back if I didn’t hear from him in an hour. Doing that now. Of course, I cannot locate a human at FTS

You cannot trust FTS. Our salesman guaranteed us that there was no “Early Termination Fee”. He crossed out the paragraph on early termination and it is initialed. When we terminated, the company charged our account $750.00. They said the contract had an early termination fee and sent us a scanned copy of the contract where the crossed out paragraph was whited out.

Call to our salesman confirmed that we had no termination fee. We are currently trying to recover the fee and will take this company to court and make a criminal complaint.

BAD COMPANY BEWARE

Very poor customer service. Company improperly withdrew money from bank account. Upon it being rejected by my financial institution, they withdrew a service charge. Problem is of the $102.50 charge, $3.50 was legitimate which is why they took the $25 fee from my account. They agree $99 was incorrect. I feel I am do $21.50. Company will do not budge. What is someone to do once the $$ are gone from the account???