UPDATE 8/14/2021: FrontStream was acquired by Marlin Equity Partners in May 2018. The company continues to operate under the name FrontStream in the non-profit sector, but its conventional merchant services division is now called FastTransact. However, they do appear to still process payments for the charities that work with them under the name Frontstream Payments.
A Focus on Nonprofits and Charities
Founded in 2007, FrontStream (also see FrontStream Payments here) is a merchant account provider that appears to be a reseller of merchant accounts provided by Chase Paymentech, Elavon, First Data (Fiserv), and TSYS. In the past two years, the company has radically shifted its focus away from traditional merchant services in order to provide an all-in-one payment fundraising platform for non-profits and corporations. This new emphasis appears to be accompanied by some new executive leadership at the company as well as a new location in Cambridge, Massachusetts. FrontStream also appears to have once operated under the name of Direct Technology Innovations (DTI).
FrontStream Payments Payment Processing
FrontStream as FrontStream Payments processes all types of electronic payments or charitable donations, including credit cards, debit cards, ACH payments, electronic checks, recurring billing, payroll deductions, stock transfers, and personal checks. They feature PCI Level-1 compliant and tokenized processing and distribution, the ArgoFire payment gateway, Level 2 and 3 processing, and a complete lineup of POS terminals and equipment from basic EMV card readers to Clover Station. FrontStream Payments supports a variety of connectivity options, contactless payments, Apple Pay, and Google Wallet. On their charities and donations side, the company offers a variety of fundraising creation and management tools.
FrontStream Location and Ownership
FrontStream’s corporate headquarters are at 11480 Commerce Park Drive, Suite 300, Reston, Virginia 20191. FrontStream Payments, Inc. is a registered ISO/MSP of Esquire Bank N.A., Jericho, NY; Elavon, Inc, GA; Citizen Bank N.A., Providence, RI; Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Concord, CA; and Peoples Trust Company, Vancouver, Canada. Chris Broderick is listed as the CEO of FrontStream Payments.
A nonprofit fundraising professional
This companies fees are ridiculous, both on the organization side, and the donor side. What they don’t tell individual donors or companies who use them for direct donations through payroll, they will deduct $20 for every check they send to the benefiting nonprofit. I doubt they tell the donors this. If I donated $35 a month to an org, and $20 of it was being put in the pocket of this company, I would be PISSED.
Jean bell
Very difficult company to work with. Impossible to get real help. Must have a large staff turnover.
Alisa Smitherson
Who is this company? DTI? or Frontstream? I signed up with DTI years ago, and the service was GREAT. Now I call Washington for support and the people cannot help me. I am out of the term of my agreement but apparently it autorenewed. well thats just GREAT. I am a small business owner and these people are charging me thru the ROOF for their service and threaten me with early termination fees. Ridiculous. RUDE.
I have a merchat account with them
I have been with this company way too long, how stupid I have been to put up with thier every changing management, company name changes, customer service, bogus explanations of how thier service works, holding funds in a reserve without telling us, increase in fees every time they changed business names, putting our company down because our monthly charges are not large. Today I finally decided to leave just to find out that the funds they are holding will be returned to us in 270 days of closing account. We have been with them 5 years, this was our first merchant services account, Please do not do business with this company, This is a warning to business owners. You do not have to take my word for it, but you will sure understand the lack of service and increase of fees if you decide to go with this company. Research yourself. How many times did they change names, I should of left at the first name change, Front Stream Payments is terrible. This company is unorganized, not recommended. I was stupid because I did not know better, but now I do and it was a expense learning ordeal.
Prairie
I would not recommend this company. I had a hard time getting anyone to help me update my account. When I had to get a new cord for my machine they sent it to the wrong address. When I tried to cancel my account it took awhile for that to go through as well. They told me it was too late in the month to cancel so they would charge me for another month. I had changed my bank, so I told them to send me a bill for the outstanding amount. I never got a bill, instead they tried to charge my old account several times and charged me $25 for every time they tried and failed. Weeks later I finally got them to email me the invoice with at least $75 worth of these fees. I thought that this was all just ridicules, but I paid them to just get it over with. Three months later I get a note from a collections agency that they sent my account to collections with even more late fees, even though they had cashed the check. Shop around; there must be better organized companies somewhere.