Flagship Merchant Services Reviews & Complaints | 2023

I Found them on a top 10 list on a Google search btw. So I tried Flagship or Paysafe I guess they are the same company. However I signed up almost 3 weeks ago and I was told by my representative that he would get me next day funding if I gave him a week to work it out but the until them my transactions will fund on the second day after the day my charges batch at noon time. To be clear if I process before cutoff Monday Wednesday at noon I’ll have my money deposited into my bank. Until next day is worked out a week or 2 max. So I agree I made it very clear from the beginning that I was not interested in a processor that could not provide next day funding it is more important to me than the processing cost that is my second objective. So I charge a few things in the first couple weeks and every charge I make keeps processing in the late afternoon like 7-9 pm 3 days after the batch day so on the 4th day if you include the processing day that’s done before cutoff batch time. So a day and half longer than promised. I asked him about this multiple times because it kept happening from my charges and he just kept saying well let me get back with billing again this shouldn’t be happening,”I’ll handle this for you”. So I charge again and again same results so now it’s Friday almost a month after the first charges and sign up. I made a charge on Monday missed cutoff time so it batched Tuesday and it’s Friday still no money I try to call my rep again but he’s got the day off it’s like 5 pm eastern time so I ask for someone else that can help while he’s out. The rep gets on the phone and I ask why is this happening oh it’s right here sir your signed up for a 3 day hold for at least 90 days before your deposits can be made since your a new account with us. What the &$@? Is going on over there who flat out lies to peoples face to get customer’s did he think he could balance this for 90 days idk what he was thinking but my last transaction came in because I started using my old processor that funds next day at 7 am last Tuesday and am I glad because that have lost me in less than 30 days. My suggestion is hang up and don’t even give them your name “to risky”. Have a wonderful day and good luck in your search out there.

This company is a rip off and liars. They are always overcharging and penalizing me for crap. Their company policies are garbage. They lie to me and tell me they are forced by the major credit card companies to charge me a penalty for PCI compliance. Its only company policy. I have been with this company faithfully since 2014. I have had enough. At this point I am actively seeking a replacement company. To anyone who reads this that is currently using these folks, GOOD LUCK!

For the last 8 or 9 days they have been giving me the runaround about getting my my money that they owe me for a credit card processing and I’m about ready to get kicked out of my store and everything else because they owe me over $1,000 and I was 400 shorts and I can’t get to it because every day it’s another piece of paper that I need to sign and said bank account is wrong and it’s the same account number something different everyday with these people I don’t know if they’re ripping people off or what but I’m not far away from getting a lawyer they owe me and they keep saying I was supposed to get it Monday to Monday came never then they always say oh this piece of paper I don’t know why they don’t give them all at once but this place is a joke and you leave messages for your account manager and they just like laugh I told Mom I was going to be a big gated from my building if I didn’t have it they’re like oh okay this place is a joke and a half they make up something new everyday

I did business with flagship and regreted quickly. So, I wouldn’t do business with Flagship. Not only were they unprofessional, they withheld money from me for 2 weeks until I brought it to there attention. I asked them if they though the fund was strange why didn’t they contact me? They said they were busy?! They then held it for another month because they felt the transaction was unethical. Cody from Riskreview did not care about my issues. Even though I showed him proof of what I do in my business to recieve funds. He asked for my clients information and I gave it to him & then he proceeded to try to contact my client. Speaking of breaching confidentiality?! I’ll be honest Cody and the rest of the people seemed not very intelligent. I can tell they live in the back woods and are not tech savvy at all. Very unprofessional and I will report this company.

I signed with them and got their credit card machine ,the first day they withdraw their fees from my bank then i had issues with there machine and the money i charged get to my bank after 4 days instead of within 24 hours. so I keept calling to fix the issues but no body called me back or did a any thing from the sales man and the receptionist and the supervisor finally i send them email of termination of their services after 3 weeks and got spot on co.to do my services .if I have to rate the 1to10 they are zero

Buyer Beware! Flagship Merchant Services and their sidekick Woodforest National Bank are the worst.

As most commenters here, I was trying to save money by getting a reputable merchant service company. This was back in May 2019. I checked CNet.com and their rating was A-, I believe. They were soooo wrong.

I knew something was not right about this company during the application process – loads of red flags. I received emails from the same person but different “companies”: flagship.com, paysafe.com and some other one. Also a person from their bank was trying to get me to authorize payment processing. Before any authorization took place on my part, I told them I didn’t have a warm fuzzy about their business so I wanted to close/delete anything that had been started. Again, the entire process was never completed so when they said no problem and fill out the form, I did. I also disputed them with my bank before there was a charge to my account. I think doing so prevented them from stealing from my bank account. Trust your gut. Always.

I wasted hours on the phone over the next three months because they were still continuing to bill me (on paper- not from actually debiting my account).

Finally one of the many calls resulted in someone actually making a change. So the charges (on paper) stopped, but it is now November and I am still receiving monthly statements from Woodforest National Bank showing “Total Amount Funded to Your Bank -$24.95.” WTF.

These guys and cockroaches will be the only ones left after the end of the world. smh Flagship – you can suck it. You are shamelessly and fraudulently stealing money from so many hard working people – some of whom have invested their life savings into their businesses. You f-ers are ripping them off and trying to destroy these people. Go f**k yourselves.🖕

We were quoted a $4.95/month Customer Service /Online Report Fee plus interchange pass-through plus mark-up rates. What were not communicated during the quoting process are $10.00 monthly minimum balance requirement and the PCI Non-Compliance fee of $30.00. Adding these two fees would have changed the monthly rate structure to $44.95/month and cause me to choose a different merchant service provider for our low volume home business.
Lastly my Sales agent told me and listed in his email in bold font “***MONTH-TO-MONTH AGREEMENT! – NO CANCELLATION FEES!” But now I am being told when I tried to close my account that my agreement is for a three (3) year term and “will automatically renew for additional three (3) year periods, unless terminated by any party upon written notice at least thirty (30) days prior to the end of then existing Term…” I am also being asked to pay $495 early termination fee. This is obviously false advertising and deceptive practice of burying terms such as the above in the fine print of 23 page contract. Buyers beware!!

Flagship Merchant Services, and their associated AprivaPay+ and Paysafe, are absolutely the worst experience I have ever had with any credit processing company. I got 3 mobile pay devices from them that were not programmed properly before they were sent out and I have spent 5 weeks trying to get anybody in the organization to talk to me about the problems with the devices. I either get no answer when I’m transferred, or whoever answers just tells me I have to talk to somebody else and they transfer to someone who doesn’t pick up, or who tells me I have to talk to somebody else.

This has been going on for several weeks and I have had it. Unfortunately, I’m out several hundred dollars for the Clover Flex, the only piece of equipment they sent that works.

At this point, I simply want my money back, my account closed, and to warn the world to stay as far away from this company as possible. I don’t know why so many review sites recommend them, as far as I can tell they are a total scam.

This post will help: Best Mobile Credit Card Processing Apps

-Phillip

I opened an account with this company a year ago. The day after opening it I called and cancelled it. A few months later I saw they were taking money out of my account each month. I called again and was told to email a cancellation. I did so. They still continued to take money out of my account I emailed again. Same result. Talked with a representative again. They sent me a cancellation form to fax back to them. I did so. This month, a year later I realized they are still taking money out of my account. Called again, sent them proof of faxes and emails. They said my money would be refunded within a week. Two weeks later no refund. Called again. Now they are “considering a refund”.

From The Editor
This Post Might Help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee

Do NOT use this company, they do not tell you about all the fees that will charged to you upfront. They are a rip-off. Go elsewhere

I have been using Flagship for 5 yrs. Unknown to me they have been charging me $19.95 a month for Company.com Bus Site. for over 2 years. I have payment drafted and don’t check my statements. ( Will from now on) with a new Merchant!! I never signed up for such, they said when I signed contract (million pages long) that i said it was ok. And “who” actually reads all that crap?! So… After speaking with “Bitchy Supervisor” She said she would refund “half” of payments, as long as I stayed with their services. Kiss my ASS! You are willing to lose thousands of dollars from me , for $480!! ZERO STARS!!

I had been exploring credit card payment processing options on behalf of my company to see how we could minimize fees. We used Flagship for less than a year following a very unsatisfactory experience. Once we made the initial account set up, customer service was practically nonexistent. The rep that signed us up had zero interest in assisting with our account or providing any sort of customer service whatsoever following the initial sign-up. It would take up to two weeks just to get a reply to an email. Getting help with anything was a struggle, met with long hold times, and a chain of reps that didn’t know how to help. When we finally decided to close the account because Flagship was too difficult to work with, we were told that we were all set and have closed our account. It wasn’t until 15 months later in digger deeper into our accounting for tax purposes, did we discover that it was not completely closed at we were told, and that we’d been charged a monthly fee of $17.95 that whole time. Beyond a lackluster apology, no responsibility was claimed for this, and we were still left with the bill. Even worse, just to make it stop, I’m not sitting on hold for the next representative for 30 minutes and counting. Not only are we not going to get our money back, we’re wasting time trying to make an unauthorized charges to our bank account stop from reoccurring. I would not work with this company– absolutely any other credit card processor would be more efficient and operate with more integrity.

Being a business owner for 37 years I wanted to be known that Flagship merchant services is the biggest rip off that I’ve ever seen in my 37 years of doing business. My advice is to use anybody else at least some Bon that would stick to your side with any kind of dispute on a credit card. They would rather just pay off The customer that is disputing and then rip it out of your account without even calling you and letting you know

If you’re considering working with this company, run in the opposite direction. They have been nothing but a huge pain the entire time.
First, in order to work with them, you must be an active account holder for Flagship, Authorize.net AND iPayment. For one service, ridiculous!
Second, my business grew very quickly in the beginning because a celebrity was writing about me on Facebook. Flagship thought my sales were “suspicious” so they froze my account and refused to turn over my money to me. I needed that money to go into production on items that were selling out and needed to take out a loan to cover my costs, even though I had the money to cover production in my Flagship account. Completely ridiculous.
And lastly, they have charged me for every tiny little thing they could think of and my company is very small, practically a micro-company.
Do yourself a favor and find another company because these folks are the worst.

Totally RIP OFF, they were charging me $40 for last 3 years under Misc. fee.
When i called to question they said because i am not a PCI Complaint.
Did not email me or called me about it.
please do not do business with them.

They stole $400 in undisclosed “processing fees” love the first 3 months of service. DO NOT GET CHEATED BY THIS COMPANY AS I DID.

Don’t bother with this company. You will regret it like I and many others do.
I never received one payment deposit from my sales; 13 days in I am finally notified my account is in review “for an extra day most likely”. 15 days in I am told we are to part ways as they don’t offer services for my type of business, when I thoroughly explained it to my sales rep. 30 days later I have most of my money back, and by most I mean what I have been told is “a non-significant portion will be held as a reserve”. 6 days later I ask for the 4th time for a statement detailing what they’ve been doing with my money. I actually get half of my sales records pasted into an email only to find out I was charged a monthly end fee for half a month of service (wait till I call back in 30 days to find out how much of my reserve they decided to chip away at). I also find out that 26% of my sales are in reserve; I may not have a Ph.D. in statistics, but 25% is a VERY SIGNIFICANT portion.

I’m amazed they’re still in business; if I pulled this kind of customer treatment on my clients I’d be looking for a new job within days.

All in all, a royal waste of time and money thanks to Brice. Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere for a company that treats you better for giving them money

I have been with them for over 3 years with minimal issues up until recently. Their sales representative, Elsie Bernaiche, reached out to me regarding an upcoming change in the system I was using and how I needed to change apps/mobile swiper. Long story short, she gave me the wrong information via email on who to call set up my account which left me without being able to charge credits cards for 2 days and had to close shop for those two days. After finally getting back up thanks to everyone’s help but hers, I sent her an email letting her know that I was very upset about how this was handled. She responds back in a very insulting manner as if it was my intelligence that kept me from charging cc’s and not her very clear error on the phone number/company I was supposed to call to get set up. After this I asked to speak to her supervisor and she refused to give his name or number but offered to transfer me to him instead. I can’t believe they treat customers this way. I have been a loyal customer for over 3 years and when they clearly make a mistake they can’t stand behind their mistake. I’m in the process of searching for a new merchant service provider. Go anywhere but here.

I cancelled my account with Flagship after finding a better rate with another provider. They continued billing my account, even after repeated calls and I am now going through the messy process of trying to get over $2k back through my banks fraud department.

Set up account got everything ready then they decide that we can not use it unless the card was swiped. We told them from the start we are a B to B wholesaler and most of our charges would be manually input. Oh well, back to First Data

I’ve been a customer for over three years. Never had any real issues until this past year. Over the last 6 months or so, they have at two different times, included fees to an additional product that I was not interested in. This happened without my knowledge. When I called to ask about the fee on my statement they said that my free trial for the service had ended and this is now the monthly fee. When I mentioned that I never signed up for the service in the first place, they mentioned that it was in my “welcome package”—that I received over three years ago when I first created an account!
I never received a single email or notification of any kind that I had been opted into this new service, that a free trial had started or that it had ended and I would now pay a monthly fee. Nothing. I called in and despite all of this, the best they could do is opt me out for future monthly fees–they would not refund me the statement from last month that I called in about and there will also be a charge on this current month as well. Ridiculous. I’m just glad I noticed it in the first month that it showed up since it cold have easily blended in with the the monthly transaction charges had I not looked closely at the fee section.
Now that I called in I am officially opted out of this particular service. Who knows how long until the next sneaky tactic comes along. Moral of the story is if you use this company (which I don’t advise), comb over every statement–this place is as deceitful as they come. I’ll be shopping for a new provider. SHADY!

Flagship takes $100.00 out of $1,600.00 of my sales for the last 20 days that’s about 6%.
It will be a lot more money as the fishing season starts.

If I could shout from a mountain to tell other merchants to choose another company I would.
Sales rep totally misled me and lied to me. Promised 1.98% + .21 fee plus $4.95 monthly. (which the latter was not told to me until after I was basically all signed up) THEN the real fees come in. 3.96% plus all the fees on top of that! I explained in great detail that I was a business to business merchant- which he knew meant 3.96% – and I was still told 1.98%.

Beware – Flagship/IPayment will hold your funds, give you stupid reasons why, invade your customer’s privacy, hinder your business and charge you additional fees….initial fees are taken out of the transaction and then – weeks later….more fees are taken out. Crazy reason given by customer service. See my letter to Flagship below…..
Dear Flagship Rep: Please let me start this email by saying that I realize that none of the issues that we are having are your fault…however, I feel that when signing up new customers – you should probably inform them of the holds that will be placed on their accounts. As you know, we have only processed two credit card transactions and both have been an issue. This is not a very good “start up” reputation for our business or yours! From the customer’s stand point – the transaction appears to have been processed without a problem…..how do we explain that our credit card company has put a hold on their money therefore they must wait to heat their home?
We are a small business in a very small town and we changed all of our advertisements to list that we accept credit cards now. Unfortunately, we have lost a sale because we had to tell a customer who needed heat in their home that although we do accept credit cards – it could take up to a week for the transaction to be processed. Well, of course…time was of the essence so she decided to use another company. We cannot afford to have this type of reputation. We have been in business in this town for over 15 years, have developed a client base (heck, every time we go to the local gas station, at least 3 people say “hi – how are ya – how’s your mom?”) Many people do not understand the small town mentality but again, we have a reputation of being honest, fair, timely, well-known and caring about our customers.
So…maybe we didn’t read the fine print….because we trusted in you and Flagship to help us through the process of utilizing your company. Never did we imagine that taking money from a customer and putting it into our account would require such extensive approvals and investigations….it simply does not make sense. Our past credit history should have nothing to do with the process. Our recommendations, reputation, length of licensing and service, are what should be considered. Nobody has to investigate us when a customer pays cash….because the customer trusts us. However, our credit card company that we chose has to investigate a transaction that somewhat invades the privacy of our customer by asking for details of the transaction?? I would think that if there was a necessary investigation – it would be from their credit card company. Technically, you are a third party asking for details of a transaction that is really not any of Flagship’s business. In all honesty….what if we sold “sex toys”….would our customers consider your investigations an invasion of privacy? I would think so!
So, in summary – there we sat on a Saturday….not working…not providing heat to a young couple with a few kids and have lost a customer due to the practices of Flagship. I can only hope that our reputation in this town and surrounding areas does not suffer.
Flagship as the company of choice because a respected friend utilized them in a past business where she worked….her recommendation was not based on the lowest rates…it was based on your reputation. Word of mouth, reputation and customer service far exceed rates in our opinion. Yesterday (March 28), nearly a week from the date of service – a deposit has been put into our account. Our customer contacted us to let us know that Flagship attempted to run their credit card multiple times resulting in a “decline” result. This quite honestly, was the last straw with Flagship! Attached is the Letter of Intent to Cancel Merchant Services Account between our business and and Flagship based on these horrible customer service experiences.

Your Risk Management Department has treated us as if we were conducting illegal business practices. In total, we have spent in excess of 16 hours trying to rectify these situations resulting in multiple phone calls all while we were conducting business with other customers in order to maintain our business. Again, this is not in line with the reputation that we have worked so hard to achieve. Again, yesterday was the last straw….while I was working under a customer’s home…..I was contacted by Risk Management to again verify personal customer information. This resulted in my current customer questioning me as to the time spent that I billed them for. In closing, again – we realize that this is not your fault personally but you are our rep. with Flagship and you need to be kept aware of the issues. Our termination request is attached to this email.

I was charged fees after I attempted to close my account. I spoke on the phone to a person who didn’t seem able or interested in helping me. Then GENO DeAngelis called ME from Massachusetts to take care of closing my account properly. Who calls on Friday afternoon to someone who is closing an account? GENO DOES!!
Thank you Geno for your help!!

Flagship and Womply are crooks. They apparently opted me into a product that i did not authorze and billed me 29.95 monthly, times 2, or almost $60 per month for 5 months. THEY WONT PROVIDE A REFUND. I intend to get my money back, hopefully with damages, in court. STAY AWAY from this company. They are bad people.

I signed up in May 2016 and had all kinds of equipment/PCI compliant problems. It was very frustrating but they assured me that their rates were going to be better than my previous company. I didn’t really scrutinize my fees while I was busiest from May thru July. At the end of September I put my business on “seasonal hold” which was supposed to have a $14/month fee. I was fine with that. Starting October 3, I was charged $72.90. I called and asked what it was for – they told me I was not PCI compliant ($40 charge) and they were charging me a $19.95 Company.com fee (whatever that was!). Bare in mind that none of their fees were on their statements, they just showed up on my bank statements;I got those two fees reversed. So I’ve been charged $72.90 and $73.95 for October and November; each time I called they told me I was not PCI compliant. Their reason was always because when the “scan” ran it couldn’t be completed. I never got a clear answer from any of them, just the runaround. My last fee was in January for $63.95 (they told me it was for reporting to the IRS). My husband is in charge of all the credit card terminals and processing at his job and he said there’s no such thing! I’m going to contact my bank and get as many of these charges reversed as possible. Just despicable!

RUN!!!!! I wish I would have seen this page before I enrolled. It’s a bait and hook sales pitch, don’t buy it. Whatever their base fee percentage is, effectively double it and that’s what you will be charged. Oh and don’t forget their annual fees, monthly statement fees, minimum fees, overuse fee, underuse fees, “helpful” automatic PAID enrollment in programs that they don’t give you access to, and additional surprise fees every three months with no explanation. They don’t answer the phone at customer service but once a week, and when they do it’s always a “new” employee that doesn’t have answers, even after transferring six times and waiting on hold for 15 minutes between each transfer. Initially you are contacted with a ‘dedicated’ sales rep that enrolls you in the program and then doesn’t answer the phone or return messages once your application is accepted. Worst company I have EVER dealt with, bar none. I cancelled my account, but not without a fight for that too. Had more more in fees than I collected on the machine from customers. Good riddance to this company. Please do not enroll with them!!

Horrible company! I was searching for a new processor and talked to Flagship (Aleshia Morin). I thought they sounded OK but I told Ms Morin that I did not want anything done until I could confirm the cancellation of my present processor. She went ahead and signed me up anyway. I wanted her (and told her) to hold everything until I was sure about my present processor. They took money from my account, ignored numerous emails, phone messages, fax’s etc. I was finally informed to fill out there cancellation form and the account would be closed and the money returned. I sent it in imediatly. Almost a week later I get an email stating they cant cancel my account at this time. REALLY????? This is ridiculous!!!! They ignored my stated (and recorded) wishes, lied, etc. I would avoid this group like the plague!!!!!!!!!!!!

From the very start the salesperson was very misleading at best. For instance we were told that all fees would be taken out at the end of the month at one time and that we would get a statement explaining all charges. Never happened. Fees were taken out of ever single charge creating a book keeping nightmare. Worst of all was that after about one month into our contract with them we completed a very large job. The customer paid with a credit card at the time of pick up. It was right at Christmas time and we had gone on vacation a day or two later. While on vacation I start getting notifications that payments I had made were bouncing. Flagship had determined that the amount that the customer paid needed to be reviewed because it was too much and refused to put it into our account even though they had no problem taking the money from our customer for the work that we did. During our repeated attempts to the customer no service number we were told over and over that “That’s the way all merchant services work” and “we are not responsible for any of your bounced items”. They would not release the money into our account until we sent them copies of all of the paperwork for the invoice that they had stolen the money for then would not release it for about 3 days while they “verified that it was a legitimate charge”. I pray no one ever gets stuck using this “company”.

Signed up with flagship. Fine print of contract said they have option to sign you up for paid services with their affiliates, from which you can opt out if you notify them. They send an email signing me up, and I didn’t see it because it was a marketing email that when to spam. Even if I did, I would have had to scroll all the way to the bottom to see the note saying I’m going to be signed up and charged if I don’t opt out.

Not knowing I’d been signed up, I was reconciling my CC statement and saw three months of a $29.99 charge. Again, I had no idea I had been signed up.

After contacting the company (Wambly, an affiliate of Flagship) they told me they’d only refund two of the three months.

This is a very deceptive business practice and I would now never recommend Flagship to anyone.

Upon creating a new Merchant account I was misinformed about the types of services that would be available on an online Merchant account. I was mislead by Merchant representative David Dwyer at [email protected] upon the Merchant platform’s interface’s and its’ charges, misinformed about pricing, and was never connected with information on how to integrate my website’s Gateway Interface. It took three attempts to correctly confirm my checking account to the Merchant gateway to make deposits available. No attempts have been made through out the first week of creating my Merchant account of any communication. I get transferred from representative to representative on any questions and concerns I have. I highly recommend NOT working with Flagship despite their supposed high ratings.