Harbortouch POS 2023: Reviews & Complaints

Harbortouch Logo
2.2
full star full star empty star empty star empty star

How did they treat you? ▼

Note: As of 2023, Harbortouch is now SkyTab. We will soon be updating this review to reflect the change.

Company Overview

Harbortouch is a merchant account provider based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Launched in 1999, the company provides, merchant accounts, credit card processing services, point-of-sale systems, electronic cash registers, and mobile credit card processing to U.S. businesses. The company previously operated under the name “United Bank Card” and now operates as a subsidiary of Shift4 Payments.  They claim to provide merchant services for over 120,000 businesses and to process in excess of $10 billion annually in credit card transactions.

Payment Processing

Harbortouch offers payment processing services that allow businesses to accept all major credit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. With Harbortouch, businesses can accept payments in-store, online, and on-the-go using their mobile devices. Harbortouch also provides Authorize.Net as a payment gateway powering virtual terminals for e-commerce credit card processing.

POS Systems

At this time, the Harbortouch POS features an Onyx point-of-sale software, portable credit card readers, and SkyTab, a pay-at-the-table system. All are designed to provide credit card acceptance services for food trucks, cafes, restaurants, retail businesses, spas, and bars. The Onyx point-of-sale system comes with a screen, receipt printer, cash drawer, and card reader. Each system integrates with their POS software and related services. Their POS systems come with a range of features that make managing transactions simple and efficient, including inventory management, employee management, and reporting tools.

Mobile Payments

Harbortouch offers mobile payment solutions that allow businesses to accept payments using their mobile devices. The mobile payment solutions are easy to use and come with all the security features that businesses need to protect their customers' data. Harbortouch's mobile payment solutions are ideal for businesses that are always on-the-go.

Gift Card Programs

Gift card programs are an excellent way for businesses to increase sales and customer loyalty. Harbortouch offers gift card programs that are fully customizable, allowing businesses to design their own gift cards and track sales data in real-time. Harbortouch's gift card programs are easy to set up and use, and they come with all the features that businesses need to manage their gift card programs effectively.

Merchant Cash Advance

Harbortouch offers merchant cash advances to businesses that need quick access to capital. Merchant cash advances are an excellent alternative to traditional loans because they are easy to qualify for and provide businesses with the funds they need to grow. Harbortouch's merchant cash advances are easy to apply for and come with flexible repayment terms.

A New Lease on Business

Business owners previously reported issues with predatory contract terms in various online forums as well as in the comment section of this review. By and large, the company's early termination fee was at the core of those complaints. However, Harbortouch has reformed its contract terms in response to these complaints. The company no longer charges an early termination fee and has lessened the length of its contracts from three years to a one-year term.

Location & Ownership

The company is a registered ISO/MSP of Merrick Bank, South Jordan, Utah, and Citizens Bank, N.A., Providence, RI. Jared Isaacman is the founder and CEO of Harbortouch. Shift4 Payments is headquartered at 2202 N Irving St Allentown, PA 18109.

Video Summary

HarborTouch retail businesses
HarborTouch POS systems cater to a variety of retail businesses. 
Pros & Cons
Pros: Cons:
Easy to use interface Long-term contract requirements
Competitive pricing rates Potential early termination fess
Reliable customer support Monthly service charges
Versatile hardware options Limited international functionality
Free equipment program Variable customer reviews
Integrated POS system Additional fees possible

Harbortouch Customer Reviews

Here's What Their Clients Say

Customer Reviews Summary
Total Online Complaints 100+
Live Customer Support Yes
Most Common Complaint Long-Term Contracts
Recent Lawsuits Yes

High Complaint Total

Harbortouch, despite its size, has garnered a significant number of negative reviews, indicating moderate to high dissatisfaction among its customers. Many grievances revolve around alleged deceptive sales tactics, equipment malfunctions, hefty cancellation fees, and subpar customer service. However, it’s worth noting that Harbortouch has abolished its early termination fee, a fact that potential customers should consider. Moreover, it seems that Harbortouch has engaged with Ripoff Report’s corporate advocacy program, allowing the company to address dissatisfied customers, although some critics argue this tactic floods the platform with generic testimonials, potentially overshadowing genuine complaints. Interested parties should scrutinize both testimonials and original complaints to gauge the veracity of issues raised.

Harbortouch’s Response

In response to the proliferation of negative feedback, Harbortouch’s CEO published a blog post attributing many adverse reviews to competitors dissatisfied with Harbortouch’s free point-of-sale (POS) business model. While acknowledging the existence of genuine complaints, the company appears to adopt a somewhat dismissive stance toward negative feedback overall. Despite this, it’s evident that a significant portion of complaints originate from actual customers and business owners, suggesting room for improvement in Harbortouch’s operations and customer relations.

Addressing Complaints

Harbortouch representatives, including the CEO, have directly engaged with customer complaints, refuting allegations of contract nondisclosure and justifying their cancellation policy and associated fees as necessary costs of providing equipment and services. The company offers various support channels, including email and phone assistance, alongside comprehensive equipment and software manuals, indicating efforts to address customer concerns and provide assistance.

Efforts Towards Resolution

Previously, Harbortouch actively participated in a complaint resolution program, signaling a commitment to resolving customer grievances. However, its cessation of participation in 2018 suggests a decline in proactive customer service initiatives. Nonetheless, the company’s past engagement in such programs reflects a positive intent to address customer dissatisfaction.

Legal Matters

While no ongoing Harbortouch class-action lawsuits or FTC complaints have been found, settled cases and legal disputes with its parent company, Shift4 Payments, have occurred. These include allegations of violating do-not-call regulations and antitrust concerns. Dissatisfied customers seeking recourse beyond litigation are advised to report grievances to relevant regulatory bodies.

Customer Support Options

Harbortouch offers a range of customer support options, including live chat, tech support, telephone assistance, and an extensive knowledge base. These resources aim to aid merchants in resolving issues and maximizing the effectiveness of Harbortouch’s services.

Persistent Challenges

Despite attempts to address concerns and enhance its reputation, Harbortouch’s complaint rate remains consistent, with little apparent improvement in the nature or volume of grievances. This stagnant performance falls short of expectations for a leading service provider, resulting in a “C” grade assessment.

Overall, while Harbortouch offers a range of services and support avenues, persistent complaints suggest areas requiring attention to meet customer expectations and maintain a positive reputation in the industry.

Harbortouch Online Ratings

Here's How They Rate Online

Online Ratings Summary
BBB Rating 1.2
Trustpilot Rating 2.3
ConsumerAffairs Rating 1
Average Rating 1.5

BBB Rating Analysis

As Shift4, Harbortouch has an average customer review rating of 1.24/5 stars on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website, based on 17 customer reviews. The company has also received 176 complaints closed in the last 3 years, with 67 complaints closed in the last 12 months. Common themes in the reviews and complaints include issues with product/service, billing and collection disputes, and dissatisfaction with contract terms and customer service.

Negative Feedback

DO NOT USE this company. Everything that was promised was a lie. I was told no fees just a % of the total. Guess what I have a $25 every month plus a higher % than promised. They won’t let me out of the so-called contract. – Review from April 18, 2023

Hello, I own a restaurant and my agent talked me into getting a credit card machine from Shift4 company since Feb. 28th, 2022. During the year, we found a couple of times our customers got charged twice. When I received my Dec. 2022 statement, it charged me TWICE on the annual Regulation Compliance Fee. Now, my 1099-K shows $18,000 above the actual number. I cannot trust them and want to cancel the contract but they won’t let me. – Complaint from March 4, 2023

Positive Feedback

There are no positive reviews published about Shift4 on the Better Business Bureau website.

Source: Better Business Bureau

Trustpilot Rating Analysis

Harbortouch has an average customer review rating of 2.3 stars on Trustpilot based on 188 customer reviews. The distribution of ratings is as follows: 5-star (40%), 4-star (11%), 3-star (8%), 2-star (6%), and 1-star (35%). Common themes in the reviews include complaints about customer service, issues with the software and hardware, and dissatisfaction with the company’s response to problems.

Negative Feedback

The software sucks……..customer service is almost 2 hour delay everytime you call. Nothing gets fixed ..all I can say is get a good lawyer if you sign up for this system. – Review from March 2, 2023

It took me over 6 months to get them to send me a ‘new’ credit card reader – the one they finally sent me won’t read chips and never asks for CID code. I believe it is intentional because they charge you more money if you type the numbers in and also when there is not a CID entered – so we are forced to use the machine in the most expensive (profitable for them) way!!! – Review from February 10, 2023

Positive Feedback

The POS system is easy to use and has been great. The remote access back office allows for easy addition and changes to inventory, pricing, and items. – Review from December 22, 2022

Switching from ShopKeep to HarborTouch has been like a breath of fresh air. Their back office features are amazing, as well as their prompt customer support. My smoothie shop now feels complete. I will definitely be using them at future locations. – Review from March 21, 2021

Source: Trustpilot

ConsumerAffairs Rating Analysis

Harbortouch has an average customer review rating of 1.0 stars on ConsumerAffairs based on 507 reviews. Common themes in the reviews include issues with customer service, contract terms, and system functionality.

Negative Feedback

We requested that our account be put on hold indefinitely but recently realized that we were still being charged for services we have not been using. They were charging us over $300 a month and have refused to give us a refund. – Review from Nov. 2, 2023 by Jennifer, Waynesville, NC

After multiple problems with the system and after calling for service and being on hold for a long time, I scheduled a service call through their automated call system. I received three calls where their service people called back and immediately hung up and disconnected the call on me as I answered the phone, three times! – Review from Jan. 8, 2023 by Andy, Knoxville, TN

Positive Feedback

I am satisfied with the process of transitioning our point of sale over to this company. They took a lot of time to work with us, find the right fit, and make sure we have everything we need. – Review from Nov. 22, 2020 by James, El Paso, TX

Getting our point of sale system changed over made all the difference for us. The system works smoothly and the support network is incredible. Every single time we have a question, or a problem, they have someone who can answer our questions and solve our problems. – Review from Nov. 17, 2020 by Nia, Allentown, PA

Source: ConsumerAffairs

Harbortouch Fees, Rates & Costs

A Closer Look at The Contract

Cost & Fees Summary
Processing Rates Interchange-Plus or 1.79% + $0.10
Monthly & Annual Fees Yes
Cancellation Penalty No
Equipment Leasing Yes

New Contract Terms in Response to Harbortouch Reviews

At the time of our previous Habortouch review, the company’s terms and conditions imposed a three-year contract term with a costly early termination fee. This was the basis of most of the complaints left in customer reviews on this and many other consumer review websites. However, Harbortouch has revised its terms and conditions in response to this outcry from clients.

Harbortouch’s current terms and conditions convey a one-year contract with a tiered pricing structure. Business owners are charged either an interchange-plus model or tiered rates of 1.39% plus $0.10 for swiped transactions while keyed-in transactions are charged 1.79% plus $0.10.  Harbortouch does not charge an early termination fee any longer; however, the company does require former customers to return equipment within 15 days of the end of a contract, or else it imposes costly equipment fees. Businesses that do not return standard credit card terminals within that period are charged $200, contactless terminals are charged a $300 fee, and POS systems are charged a $500 fee. The lack of an early termination fee provides business owners much more flexible contract terms while its transaction rates are much more affordable than in the past.

Harbortouch POS Pricing

Harbortouch offers the new Onyx POS system along with its mobile and tableside options. We do not have reports on the current prices of these machines; if you do, please contact us in the comments below. Previously, Harbortouch offered clients the option between 2 different POS systems: Echo POS and Elite POS. It may still offer these stations in addition to the newer ones. Each client agreement conveys fairly basic pricing along with upfront costs: Echo POS charges a monthly fee of $29 per system, while Elite POS has a $39 monthly fee for each. Echo POS charges an installation fee of $150 for the first system and $100 for any additional. While the Elite POS business agreement does not include an installation fee, per se, there is an upfront cost of $250 for additional wiring needed to install a POS system. Though neither agreement includes an early termination fee, business owners who cancel their contracts must return any POS equipment within the prescribed period in their merchant agreement or be charged an equipment return fee of $500.

In addition to those fees, each POS agreement details a range of products and services and their additional monthly costs. These products and services are categorized as optional add-ons and come with additional monthly fees, though they can be purchased outright at a one-time cost as well. Other less expensive items, from employee authorization cards to printers and scanners, are billed as one-time purchases.

Virtual Terminal and Payment Gateway Pricing

In addition to its storefront payment processing services, Harbortouch’s terms and conditions also disclose the cost of its virtual terminal and payment gateway services. Harbortouch charges 1.79% plus $0.10 per transaction and a batch fee of $0.35.

Your Agent’s Word Is Not The Final Word

Although these are the company’s official terms, the company’s use of independent sales agents means that transaction rates and fees may vary from agent to agent. A representative of the company confirmed in the comment section of this review that any verbal guarantees made by sales agents will not overrule the language in the company’s contract, so business owners are advised to trust the documentation above an agent’s word. Multiple customers have described a situation in which a sales agent verbally agreed to waive or alter certain fees and then failed to follow through on those changes. There are also multiple claims that agents failed to disclose the contract length and early termination fee associated with the company’s merchant transaction processing agreement. If you suspect that you may be paying too much in hidden fees, we recommend obtaining a cost analysis from an independent fee reduction service.

A New Grade for New Contract Terms

The company’s approach to POS sales has received mixed Harbortouch customer reviews. Yet, the basis of most complaints concern issues with the company’s previous terms and conditions; primarily the costly early termination fees. Since Harbortouch has revised its terms and conditions for its merchant agreements and POS systems, we award the company a “B” in this category. Though there are many monthly charges and some one-time fees that come with the Echo and Elite POS systems, the flexibility merchants have with no early termination fees and shorter one-year contracts mitigates the expense of those costs, which is a drastic change from the company’s previous policies. We encourage business owners to check out our list of the providers of the best merchant services.

HarborTouch point-of-sale
HarborTouch’s Onyx POS system

Harbortouch Employee Reviews & Sales Tacitcs

Should You Work For Them?

Jobs & Marketing Summary
Uses Independent Resellers Yes
Telemarketing Unclear
Misleading Marketing No
Discloses All Important Terms No

A National Team of Agents

Harbortouch hires independently contracted sales agents (ISAs) to resell its merchant services. This is a standard practice within the industry that often results in unregulated or unsupervised agents reselling a provider’s services without effectively disclosing contract terms. On this website and elsewhere, several Harbortouch reviews report a sales representative promising to waive fees or provide month-to-month contracts only to fail to follow through, leaving the client on the hook for some unfavorable contract terms. This does not compare favorably to our list of best credit card processors.

Watch Out for Harbortouch Free POS Claims

Numerous other Harbortouch customer reviews complain that a common point of miscommunication has to do with Harbortouch’s heavily promoted deals for free equipment or a free POS system. Harbortouch likes to phrase its promotion so that the equipment itself is technically free, but it requires the business owner to sign an automatically renewing, three-year service commitment so that Harbortouch can recover its upfront costs. In this way, the business owner still has to pay for at least three years of access to the equipment, which to some businesses may seem indistinguishable from having a long-term equipment lease.

If You Cancel, Do It Before Installation

Some business owners also report that they agreed to receive free equipment or software but canceled before receiving or implementing these services, only to be charged with a cancellation fee in the amount of the remaining cost of the multiyear contract. Business owners who cancel before the Install Date should only owe a $250 restocking fee. After the install date, Harbortouch offers a 30-day trial period. If merchants cancel after this 30-day period has concluded, then they will be responsible for the full cost of the service agreement, despite the claims of any sales agent. If customers cancel within the trial period, they are still responsible for fees incurred during the trial period as well as the costs of shipping equipment back to Harbortouch.

The Harbortouch Contract Outlasts Your Business

A smaller number of customers claim that they were not made aware of the fact that they are responsible for the full cost of the service agreement regarding whether or not their business closes permanently. It appears to be Harbortouch’s policy to enforce the fine print terms of its agreement even in the event that a merchant goes out of business.

Harbortouch Sees It Differently

A Harbortouch representative has stated on multiple occasions that the company offers rigorous agent training and has procedures in place to discipline ISOs that act unethically. The company also clearly discloses its service agreement terms and monthly fees in its paperwork and requires follow-up communication with clients after they open an account.

Not a Recommended Sales Approach

Despite its claims to have improved its sales approach, Harbortouch still routinely receives complaints that describe misrepresentation or nondisclosure from the independent customer service reps they hire. This indicates that despite the company’s efforts, a significant number of customers are still having a negative experience with Harbortouch’s sales team. We have accordingly left the company off of our list of best POS providers and assigned the company an average grade of “C” in this category.

Our Harbortouch Review Summary

Our Final Thoughts

Harbortouch is a large merchant account, credit card processing, and point-of-sale provider. Over 170 Harbortouch reviews complain of fees, contract terms, and service quality. That said, the company rates as an average provider in almost every section of this review due to its practices being fairly standard for the credit card processing industry. Harbortouch’s use of independent sales agents has also generated a decent portion of the complaints about the company. On a positive note, the company is making efforts to improve its reputation with its most recent contract revisions, which became effective on July 1st, 2020.

Harbortouch isn’t quite at the level of our worst merchant account providers, but it has some ground to make up if it wants to rank as one of the best.

If you found this article helpful, please share it!

Which is Most Important for You?

If you had to pick one, which quality would you say will be the most important with your next credit card processor? Tap or click your selection to register your vote:

  1. Low Transaction Fees
  2. No Monthly Fees
  3. No Contract
  4. Reliable Customer Support
  5. Quick Signup

Testimonials & Complaints

How Did Harbortouch Treat You?

102 User Reviews

  • Scott Jacobs

    The Village Inn

    Harbor touch is a terrible company to deal with. As a small restaurant/bar owner, I can tell you from first hand experience to stay away from this company. They will use they’re large extremely confusing contract to trap you into significant payments if you try to switch to a different POS. You will be trapped trying to buy out your contract and they will make every effort to ruin your credit if you refuse to pay their RANSOM!!

    • Neil

      Country Mart liquor

      That’s true never understand there policies about free equipment
      I have submitted cancellation form in December since then they be charging my account 75 to 80 and today they just charge me $1400

  • Ericka Nicholson

    Center Pivot Restaurant and Brewery

    Our business closed in Dec of 2022. Today is 02/13/23 and I STILL CANNOT GET A CLOSE OUT AMOUNT TO PAY to close out our account. I was not disputing any charges – I was simply wanting to pay to close our obligations with Shift $/ Harbor Touch. I was issued 6 “ticket numbers” between 01/09/23 and today (representing each time I called). I am not impressed and I now understand why everyone in our area is switching to TOAST or CLOVER. I wouldn’t use them again if we ever reopened. They have poor communication within their company.

  • Haydn

    Michael's Pizza Acquisition, LLC

    My comments may be common to all processors. It just so happens that I am moving on from HarborTouch for the reason that I don’t think they were flexible enough to accommodate my restaurant needs. However, the real issue is the termination date. I gave notice that I was terminating my agreement before my agreement expiration date which they automatically renew if you don’t give notice. So I made sure I was two months ahead of that date. I tested out a SkyTab product and by the very fact they sent me that device they extended my date by 12 months. The rep I spoke to said that the original agreement usually supersedes the individual agreements; however, management over ruled the Reps so that they could get additional fees even though I packaged up the equipment to send it back in March. So be forewarned before you get additional equipment, it will extend your additional termination date. Buyer Beware.

  • Michael

    Restaurant

    Do not use harbortouch total nightmare. Be prepared to be on hold for hours to talk to anybody. About anything. Batches are supposed to go to your account next day. But will take days. During prime time could not process credit cards lost lots of business. Do not even think about closing account they will not work with you and will send you to collections even after you send equipment back they will still try to charge you for it. I was greatly affected by COVID but they don’t care. Saw their add on bar rescue show on tv. Biggest mistake I made.

  • Shanna Terry

    Ranch House Diner

    Using the lighthouse system for a year, constant problems. System shuts down, looses tickets in payment process. Discontinued their gift cards without any notice. Updates with no notice or explanation that completely alter reports and how tills are run, so neither the manager or the employees know what to do. Recently we have noticed descrepencies in totals of tickets, visa tip totals, etc. Are they skimming money? I am on with tech support every couple of days and the problems persist

    • Elizabeth Porter

      Double D's Tavern, LLC

      Harbortouch/Shift4 has frozen my deposits totaling over $ 9,000.00 over a email change. It has been 2 weeks and I still get the run around on when they will release my money.
      This company needs to be shut down.
      Look for a different merchant processing company if you want to stay in business.

  • Angela

    Marino's Pizzeria

    From the 1st day of install up until I cancelled the contract it has been nothing but issues on a daily basis. System would freeze up for no reason, even tech support didn’t know what was happening. Trying to run a restaurant is impossible. Trying to get an answer is also impossible. Robert Terry, a representative-doesn’t reply back to emails or phone calls. This POS should run out of business.
    Save your time, skip the POS and look for one that will suit your needs.

  • Summer

    I would advise anyone who is not a finance or legal professional to stay far away from this company. If you do not have the time or inclination or experience to understand all of the T&C’s – do not get locked into this company. They have excellent sales people who don’t tell the whole truth – they make the system sound like it can do everything – including walking the dog. It can not. They will auto-renew your contract – watch out for this! If you stop using their POS POS (don’t get me started on the absolute blah this system is – and we have spent hundreds of hours with their Tech Service – do not believe them when they say their ‘software’ will work with Quickbooks – it absolutely does not. You want to email a report? Good luck!) So you finally say – this isn’t helping my business – to find out – they auto-renewed you and you can’t get out. You send back the useless system and then they even charge you a Non- Use fee of $75 a month. So to not use this ‘system’ we are getting charged over $200/month. And if you ask for a cancellation – keep track of it because you won’t get it the first time, and there won’t be any record of your request in the customer service file. We went back to an old school cash register and once we get out from the nightmare of Harbortouch, our business will be much more cost effective.

  • Serpil

    My pos system doesn’t work last 4 weeks and I’m calling them every day they telling me is gonna be fixed by tomorrow or some one gonna call you back they never calling back or fixed my system I can’t believe is 4 weeks they keep lie to me and today earlier they told me again some one gonna call you back in 3 hours and again no one call me I call them and they told me give us 48 hours this is really how I can trust you guys telling me same think last 4 weeks this company is like nightmare I don’t recommended 😡

  • Michelle L

    I found this site while looking for a different processor other than Harbortouch. I would not recommend them to anyone. I have an S corporation which is 50/50 ownership. The other owner signed us up with Harbortouch and for yrs there were no issues. One day the credit card machine was no longer processing the batches so I called and they wanted a form filled out to process and pay us for those transactions. The other owner (ex-husband) was MIA so couldn’t sign the form and they refused to accept mine, even when I sent all the incorporation documents and the signatures/authorizations for the business checking account, in which the payments and fees were processed. They said I had to open a new account to ensure they had my signature. I was told I would then receive the past due payments on the account. They also increased my fees under the new contract stating the old ones were outdated, and didn’t say anything about the 3 yrs auto renewal when I later went to cancel. The old credit card machine (that malfunctioned) would need to be sent back and I would receive a new one. I urgently needed a functioning CC machine to run my business so I completed the paperwork. What they did next: 1) charged my account $450 when my employee didn’t send the broken credit card machine back fast enough (they did refund it when I sent it back after that). 2) refused to give me the payments that didn’t batch due to the broken machine (approx. $3000). 3) In addition to the higher charges from the new account, they continued to charge the base fees from the OLD account. Multiple emails, phone calls, etc and they refused to do anything. I finally had to close that checking account and open up a new one for the fees to stop ($450 by that time). Then, they charged me $25 to update that checking account number on the new account.
    And, they DO charge a yrly $89.95 PCI compliance fee (per terminal! and they charged me for the one I returned AFTER I returned it.) They also charge a $79 yrly fee AND their charges are much higher that what’s listed in the description on this site.

  • Catherine Allen

    WORST COMPANY EVER!!!!!!!! Customer service is the worst ive ever dealt with, they are holding tens of thousands of dollars of ours and have not given me a straight answer on how to get them. I tried updating bank information and they are asking for information, I provide it and they tell me there is more and more information. THEY ARE THIEVES!!!!!!!!! Avoid this company with all costs

  • thierry

    Harbortouch intentionally lies and cheats merchants.
    When I received the POS system it was totally different from what the salesperson told me. Access online with limited function, very old system, contract you can’t cancel without fees.
    I tried to reach the salesperson never answer, tried to reach Harbourtouch many time, spending hours and hours to try to cancel, never answer, the answering email was it’s because you don’t know how to use the sytem.
    they started to take on my bank amount with out any invoice or justification.
    I had to hiring an attorney to have an answer

  • Kelly in Hawaii

    Hi Jared, your post seems so believable. I have not used HarborTouch since the system went down 5 years ago, after multiple phone calls and sending in your company’s Cancellation Request Forms, you are still taking money out from my account. I’ve tried to have my bank, Bank of Hawaii, stop those payments, but your company comes back with a “Collection Notice” and took out the fees TWICE! Now, it’s back to the usual monthly fees and I don’t know what else to do. Imagine 5 years of Free Money for you! And from the reviews everywhere, it looks like i’m not the only one. It’s no wonder your company can grow! I will await for your comments and assistance here.

  • Danielle Haddad

    Sad to say that Harbor Touch, which has a user friendly POS face, is absolutely NOT the company to use if you want accurate payroll, if you want to use the POS system to track your employee hours (for clocking-in and out), if you want the credit card processor to function each time you run a card, or if you want HONEST customer service who care about YOUR company. In any business, there is nothing worse than unhappy guests for reasons beyond your control. Unfortunately, HT’s credit card processor was down multiple times, every single day for over 2 months. They simply did not care that we had to reboot with guests standing there waiting to pay for their food (it takes at least 20 minutes to reboot) literally, multiple times every day. Some guests could be appeased by free appetizer/dessert cards and would allow us to take down their CC info to manually input when the system worked again, but many would not, and we had to COMP their entire check. This happened DAILY and we spent an astronomical amount in COMPS those months. HT finally replaced out whole system and promised us a measly $375 total in credits, which they have never given us. They say anything to keep you. But they do not care and they do not follow through with any of their promises. It’s actually very sad how quick they are to tell you they will resolve your issues and then do nothing. This does not even begin to outline all of the issues, such as our employees clocking-in for Dec. 3rd, 2019 (let’s say), working 5.7 hours and showing 36.62 hours of work for the ONE day! Obviously, there aren’t 36 hours in a day. This is cost us insanely for the inaccurate reporting of hours. It has employees clocked in on our daily reports who do not even work for us any longer and every employee is clocked-in as having worked for days in the future like 3-6 months. ????? Totally doesn’t work and they will say they are working on it, but they never fix anything. Terribly, terribly sad.

  • Stephanie Marino

    Harbortouch would like you to believe that they are a stand up company which is not even close to the truth. Their representative did not disclose any early termination fees after the five year period agreed upon. Instead they tell you that there is an automatic renewal for another five years unless you call them and cancel. I sold my business and the new owner called them to transfer the account. Instead they talked her into new machines which meant she was opening a new account which she was unaware of. Now they are trying to charge me inactivity fees and early termination fees after being with them for 7 years. Very shady company and there should be a class action suit against them.

    • Thu K Pham

      This is a very bad company overall! Please be very careful doing business with them. After I found out their shady fee charges, I decided to cancel my contract and returned the POS system. Up until today I still have to pay for the “unknown automatic renewed contract” that was locked in by their own terms. Even that you returned the POS, and asked them to cancel your service, you still get charged for the monthly processing fees, and worse a slap in your face with a yearly “Regulatory Compliance Fee”. Best recommendation is stay away from this company at all cost, go shop somewhere else.

  • Kristina C

    This company has fully taken advantage of me as a small business, just starting out and has taken money from my account , with promises to refund these amounts which were mistakes they made and admitted too. I was told 4 different times they put in my request for refund and told it takes 7-10 days to refund on 3rd attempt they then told me within 48 hours and I still do not have my money, forcing me to stop using them for my business. As of now I am 107.00 negative in my account. This all started Oct,2019 and now Dec 20,2019. I am beyond disappointed especially because I trusted them to come through and fix their mistakes. I then requested to end my service with them and they said that the request takes 72 hours to send an email with the cancellation paper work, what a crock . I sent in device ( which was never used) with a letter requesting cancellation and all necessary information for immediate closing of my account. I am not waiting 72 hours more so they can rip me off again.

  • gary teetsel

    stay clear….have been on hold 20 minutes now trying to close out sales have two credit cards that will not process…one customer called AMEX and they said transaction went through problem is on my end (harbortouch) sent email to harbortouch got email back saying problem resolved…not resolved

  • Lindsay

    We were sold rainbows and unicorns and given torrential downpours. I do not recommend this company unless you want your rates hiked whenever they fell necessary. If they offer you free receipt paper make sure you ask about shipping cost because it is more than just buying the paper elsewhere. I am just happy that our 3-year contract is up and we will no longer be ripped off by this company.

  • Addison Schulberg

    Steer clear of Harbortouch. They are so stuck in the past with obsolete hardware and software, TERRIBLE customer service, and scams and fees up the ass. They try to trap you and wring you out. Go with a modern company and leave these legacy dinosaurs in the dust. Currently we are trying to get out of an automatic renewal of a 5 year contract (contracts are for dummies) and they want to charge $12,000 to cancel. Go with Toast or another forward thinking, no contract POS.

  • Ricardo Guerra

    I had a bad experience with Harbotouch,
    They do not meet what they offer ,
    They over charged me in my monthly statement,
    They Offer free supply and charge you anyway on the statement, You can’t get in contact with anyone to get your account back credited for their mistakes. I canceled and they charge me 2.500.00 early termination fee,
    If any one wants to do business with Harbotouch it’s a total nightmare I don’t recommend it !!


    This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee

    -Phillip

  • Martin C

    Terrible company to deal with. I have had the system for 5 long years, when my renewal date came up, I was planning on canceling the service, but the company automatically renewed my contract for 4 years. Now there is early termination fees and other fees. The just “upgraded” to a pin pad, but now there is less functionality that the old swipe system, they made transactions more difficult and time consuming. Customer service is TERRIBLE! System is expensive and they lock you in. Be careful.


    This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee

    -Phillip

  • Jed Somit

    Canceled service several years after retirement. Harbortouch representative told me I didn’t need to return the equipment (one piece, telephone jack rather than internet). Six weeks later, with no warning, Harbortouch withdrew $450 from my bank account. When I complained, the service representative said they “were unable” to remove the charge unless the equipment was returned. Requests to talk to a supervisor ignored. Promised follow-up call never came. They still have my money. Use another service.


    This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee

    -Phillip

  • Jeffrey Sweeney

    Don’t trust the outsourced sales people! Sales person lied to me about being able to cancel my service whenever I want as long as I return my machine at no cost. Smooth talked me through the docu-sign explaining everything on it, but brushed over the part where I was signing a 3 YEAR COMMITMENT and I had to pay them every month or pay them the whole amount for the three years all together. But they are saying it is not there fault because they pay a different company to make the sales. The other company will not call me back…. what a surprise! DO NOT get tricked by these people, they just want to trap new business owners into their rates. I have never be so lied to and cheated in my life


    This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee

    -Phillip

  • Charline Quillian

    Harbor touch is to deposit funds regularly, almost daily. I have had their service for about 9 months and gotten the run around about not getting my deposits. They sent the funds to my bank different than on the checks so after 6 or so dwposits they rejected. 4 months ago called and let them know again not getting deposits. After not getting calls returned and spending hours on the phone and being told were working on it and then they dont know what’s wrong and always being sent to another person. I opened a new bank account sent all the info and now 2 weeks later still dont have anything. I also asked to please mail a check multiple times, I have bills to pay and nothing, what do they care they got their monthly fees every month.
    I email today 2 weeks after all the new paperwork was sent, where is my money??? I get a reapomse “what account is missing funds” these people owe me over 2 thousand dollars this is how I pay my bills, I am broke, borrowing money and they have been paid. I have even put in my emails to please call over 4 months I have gotten 3 phone calls all from the same lady who isn’t even in the area that is supposed to be fixing this.


    This post will help: How to Make Your Payment Processor Release Your Funds

    -Phillip

  • vivian williamsflowers

    The worst customer service ever!!! Average call on hold for 45 min. Had system go down numeous times with no compensation! had to check bank accounts for overcharges weekly. Did my 3 year contract and still charged me a cancelation fee. managers never call you back and when I tried to reslove it they sent me to collections! Every person you talk to gives you different information. Sean and Jason are suppose to be managers but never return your calls!! Horrible business practices!!

  • Angelica Ortega

    STAY AWAY FROM THIS MERCHANT!!! They have some of the most expensive fees and we have called several times to cancel this service yet they still charge us monthly fees. When we call they promise to send forms & do not it has been a complete nightmare

  • Gustavo Sanchez

    It is no suprised to read all the issues loyal customers have had with harbortouch, I myself have been with harbourtouch for over 15 years and for the most part even though they have messed up constantly with every single situation I got over it and continued ,but unless any business is ready to just close down and be out of business in 3 days of harbourtouch crooked ,shady,abuse I suggest you seriously check out any other company ,even if you see an ad on a bus. Please get that number and sign up with them. You all will thank me later, in short,harbortouch has in my file the equipment I have in my business which is a bar,and not only have I had to change it like every two months because of the cheap quality of their position systems which the brains just fry , I was told many times since I insisted that I have a chip enabled system built in the pos, however just last week I received 50 yes 5o chargebacks all from months of one regular customer and adding up to thousands of dollars. One set American Express and other set discover. Harbortouch took the money out of my acct of course even before I even got the chargeback letters. All the chargebacks we’re from banks that said the charge was not processed with a chip. I have every single receipt signed itemised and all with authorization codes ,that meant absolutely nothing ,then I assumed it was a mistake because I have had a chip capable system for over 4 years now. And although they on the recorded phone conversation with a technician and a POS rep they said I do have the proper system , they did not care that they were totally wrong and either lied about the system or just a mistake,but a mistake that basically is ruining my business because now I can’t and won’t process any credit cards with their system and they are deciding if I get a refund for a week and absolutely nothing done to help nor fix it, it is pretty sad after Soo many years of being overcharged this is how it ends. All I can do is wait till they decide my fate because of their lack of professionalism,and poorly trained technicians and representatives and even their higher management is still reviewing the case for days which is a totaly a joke , so please if anybody does not want their business to be subject to robbery and fraud and bad business ethics go with any and I mean any company but do not sign with harbortouch. But hey I believe in karma and since it is probably 90 percent that I won’t get a penny from these crooks, I hope their entire chargeback Dept prays that the karma doesn’t hit them u know where ,because it is well deserved it’s is just sickening how a company can abuse a small business that has overpaid them for 15 plus years.

  • Max Wyler

    These HarbourTouch guys are truly running a racket, the original sales guy made a lot of promises including a lower rate than what we were paying. He was very persistent and a likable guy and we decided to sign up. He assured us that we would be happy and it was cheaper and if we did not like it we could leave, no questions asked. From the start the fees were way higher than we were paying, they delayed the funds as much as 5 days from the purchase and their invoices were in my opinion, purposely confusing. We tried in writing to get resolutions to our issues and our sales person assured us that the service was cancelled but the services charges keep coming. We send letters and still the service charges kept coming, including threatening collection calls. We finally put a stop payment on ACH’s from our accounts and these slime balls changed the requesting name of their company from Harbor Touch to Harrbur Touch to fool the stop payment, this to me is criminal and shows who you are dealing with these slime. If they or a sales person calls or visits, hang up the phone or throw them out!

  • matt carter

    I have made a few big mistakes in running my business over the years.
    Among the top 2 are getting involved with harbortouch.
    I was told by the salesman that there was a three year commitment.
    During that three years I experienced a multitude of issues, and paid over 5% total for my “free” system.
    the first red flag was that I went into it with some concerns, but was told there was a 30 day period that I could return the system.
    A couple weeks in, when I called with some concern over the operations, I was told that the 30 day period was up, because it started the day the order was placed, and NOT the day it arrived two weeks later. That was the first indication that they were operating in bad faith.
    for the next few months every time they did a system update, it took place at noon. that was a busy tie for me, and the system shut down completely for 30 minutes or longer. Customers who couldn’t pay just left.
    I called every time this happened of course, and got zero response. No consideration for the fact that they were costing me revenues.
    There are many flaws in the system. The pool on employees contained all the staff that was ever employed, with no way to clear out all but the current employees, making it difficult or impossible to use. They could not calculate the hours for the staff.
    the daily reports had the credit line and the cash income line in random order day to day. Gift cards were treated as income when sold, and were treated as income when redeemed, so there was income tax to pay on both transactions.
    the screen had categories and items, the categories on the left could be moved around to where it made sense, the items on the right went on the screen in the order that they were entered in the system and could never move
    Many other things, that I have forgotten. I used to keep a list.
    but the main problem was that, after fulfilling my three year commitment I switched to another system which operates better, gives more options for tracking sales, hourly sales reports, etc., with many functions unavailable on harbortouch.
    This was not y first change of processor. I had at first used the first processor to cold-call me when I opened up in 2008. They had some bogus fees, which at the time seemed outrageous, but they were less than 100 dollars each to switch bank account numbers after my bank had been compromised, etc. I switched to Gravity Payments, and was assessed another fee that was hidden int eh fine print of the 50+ page contract. Then when someone came in to sell me another system that was supposedly lots cheaper, I switched. Had no fees from Gravity. Then I bought into the Harbortouch deal, thinking that they were representing themselves fairly. I have rarely been so wrong about anything. After fulfilling my three year obligation, they have automatically unilaterally extended my contract three years for processing and 2 years for the POS system, (or the other way around, who cares which?) That means that a person can never make a clean break fro their system.
    Now they are charging me over 3,000 for leaving them, they say they assess like 79 a month for all remaining months on the extended contract.
    I have been referring them to my lawyer for a year. They do not respond via the lawyer. They have not produced a contract where I agreed to this automatic extension. I expect to have to go to court, and the possibility exists that I will be forced to pay their extortion. This is NOT the way a legitimate business operates. if they provided a good service at a fair price they would not have to use predatory techniques to make money and keep customers.

    tl/dr:
    STAY AWAY FROM HARBORTOUCH
    if anyone is starting a class action against them i will join.

  • DAVID TURNER

    I was a customer for 9 years. At first the rates were ok, but they slowly raised rates and began mysterious fees that they could not explain. Their agents were often rude and unhelpful. As soon as I switched to a new processor they have been trying to charge fees and early termination fees even though their agent told me there would not be any. Now they will not close the account. I would never recommend this company.

  • Andrea McLaughlin

    The are crooks, just read the fine print in the contract. I used the POS system for 4 years, it was down more than it actually performed. At one point a Harortouch representative said my equipment was outdated and I would be out of the system for 2 weeks while they send me a new one! I believe that is a breach of contract on their part. I have images of all the times I had been on the phone with them, Over 30 minutes while I was at my sister’s rehearsal dinner because they broke down on a Friday night! I have many many nightmare stories with them.

  • Jila Jahanguiri

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint via our mediation process but was unsuccessful.


    After termination of my contract with Harbortouch on
    Jan 10th, 2018, with special instruction of No early termination fee, I get this e-mail from them:
    [email protected]
    To:
    [email protected]
    Cc:
    [email protected]

    Feb 7 at 12:13 PM

    Good afternoon,

    This letter serves to inform you that you are materially breaching the Harbortouch POS System Service Agreement (“Service Agreement”). According to the terms and conditions of the Service Agreement, you agreed that you would exclusively process credit/debit/gift card transaction with Harbortouch.

    You have not batched out your POS System since 12/30/17. If you do not immediately resume processing on the POS System within forty eight (48) hours of receipt of this letter, Harbortouch may terminate your merchant account. As a result, an Early Termination Fee may be assessed to your account, equal to your total monthly service fee multiplied by the number of months remaining on the then-current term of the Service Agreement, in addition to all other amounts that are owed under your account.

    Prolonged inactivity will result in action against your account.

    Harbortouch values each merchant it serves, realizing that exceptional customer service is just as important as competitive pricing and innovative products. I remain available to assist should there be any issues that need to be resolved.

    Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions regarding this matter.

    and I called and told them I have terminated my account, and they apologized, and to this day they keep sending me invoices.

  • David Sun

    Be careful, this company might stealing your money if you use their system.

    Each month, we found we receive a few hundreds dollars less than we should receive for our credit payment. I called customer service and some money has been held. They never inform us why they do that through email or mail.

  • Candi

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint through our mediation program but the complaint remained unresolved.


    To start with the person totally misrepresented themselves and being part of another bank. The processing fees are outrageous. They claimed they had great rates, not!!! If you are considering them as your processor for credit cards, read ALL the fine print.

  • Ramona Burris

    Harbortouch requested to have this complaint mediated but the commenter declined to participate in a mediation.


    A sales rep from Harbortouch/Lighthouse contacted me back in July. I was looking for a all in one POS system anyway and she sold me on the harbortouch basic model. The promise of saving on credit card fees was very enticing. However, this turned out to be a LIE. I will post the effective rate from each month I have had it for the year of 2017.
    After charging me over 7.5 % effective rate, they promised to give me a refund. Still waiting. Over all I would rate this as a F. They lied and lied and lied. Big scam. They want 2000.00 cancellation fee.

    Now the POS itself. It is super basic. Not user friendly for programming. The modifiers are difficult to put in. You can not move your screen around like you want to. It does have some nice back in modules for reports.
    harbortouch sales tax cc fees e cost

    $1,050.58 $63.03 $86.56 8.24%
    $5,769.90 $346.19 $347.09 6.02%
    $5,017.44 $301.05 $320.34 6.38%
    $3,559.56 $213.57 $230.90 6.49%
    $3,493.93 $209.64 $214.97 6.15%
    Look at the e cost this is the effective rate. This is the actual cost of them processing your credit cards.

  • Diana Woller

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint but the business owner has stated that the complaint remains unresolved.


    This company is a joke. Nothing we were told when we were sold their system is true. It WILL NOT sync with our website for inventory management as promised. If you don’t process a certain amount of credit card transactions (we are primarily a cash basis company) they lock you out of your system so you can’t use it. There is an undisclosed minimum transaction fee each month on top of their monthly maintenance fee, and even when paid, they still lock you out of the system if you are not processing the minimum amount of transactions. And, they will only let you out of your agreement when you pay all of the monthly fees for the remainder of your agreement and Faye Ethel receive your equipment back. There is no reduction in the cancellation fee but you have no equipment either. To top it off, their customer service absolutely SUCKS!! And when you try to reach someone to get your equipment unlocked all you get is voicemail to leave a message and your sales rep will only talk to you by text. When you demand to speak to a supervisor or manager, he acts as if their shady practices are all your fault and he’s never heard these complaints before and tells you it’s your fault for not respond to their communication. Save yourself the headache & frustration and use PayPal. There is no hassle, everything is legit and they don’t turn off your equipment and blame it on you. Harbor Touch will be hearing from my attorney and I’m willing to lead ge charge in a class action lawsuit against this company for whoever would like to join me.

  • Jeffrey Pevehouse

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint via mediation but the commenter has indicated that the matter remains unresolved.


    I have been using different merchant accounts for years and this one stands alone in complete incompetence. use someone else…anyone else!

  • Cider bros inc

    Harbortouch attempted to mediate this complaint but the merchant declined to participate.


    Garbage!!! Contacted Alex Vanderham and he told us 3-5 days for the entire process. We went ahead and signed documents to get this in our cafe. It took 1 week to find out we were approved, we were then emailed that we can start to set up or system online. The link was not working so I asked Alex for help and was ignored and never got a response (also was told they do the set up for free). Then a charge was on my account when we were told we won’t be billed until after the 1st month. We were billed and do not have system. Asked Alex for refund and they refunded partial of the money not full, emailed him again and called to tell him we want a full refund since they STOLE my money and now they WONT give it back. At this point I have called and emailed Alex with no answer 4 days now to cancel the entire order because we don’t want to work with them. I have called for a supervisor and no one calls back. I will be taking this to small claims court if I do not hear back soon.

  • Yolas Correa

    I have so many complains about this company that I do not know where to start. I start from the beginning. The first thing I was told was that I will not be under contract, that a 30 day notice will be sufficient to get out of the service. It turned out I ended up with a five year contract and I tried to break away twice from them. The first time they applied a $1400 contract cancellation fee. I had switch to Clover thinking I was going to be better but Clover was more or less the same unethical, unscrupulous, crooked crooks. I went back to Harbortouch and did not lose the $1400. I stayed with them despite the always increasing rates, the high pass through fee, the occurrence of new bogus fees, the obsolete technology (chip readers were not integrated with the POS making it much longer to process a transaction), the unjust charge back fees ($35 per occurrence even though I had the customers recorded when signing their charges), etc. etc. Along came Square with no contract, 2.7% fee per transaction and nothing else, specially no hidden fees, no surprise fees. I was using Square and did not cancell Harbourtouch to avoid the cancellation fees but was still paying Harbourtouch a maintenance fee and a minimum fee which all came to be about $70 per month. I had it with them when they tried to impose a “inactivity fee of $65” on top of the $70 I was already paying them. I cancelled them and had to pay $600. It bothers me a lot that they can modify their fees at their convenience. The contract I sign only has conditions for me to be tied to. Harbortouch has practically no conditions tying them through the contract. The can modify the contract to their convenience. What a bunch of crooks, unethical and so greedy but the sad truth is that most of the credit card service providers are like that. So, far I have had Square over a year and I am very pleased with them. They have kept their word: only 2.7%, no surprise hidden bogus fees. Square’s technology is excellent and up to date. I feel I am paying a just price for my credit card processing needs, that I am not being taken advantage of.

  • Veronika

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint through our mediation program but the merchant as indicated that she remains dissatisfied


    Most disgusting service provider you can find out there. They locked me as I wasn’t using the services often enough.
    Called them 4 times. Spoke with Debra Shea that hanged up on me and later responded to me via email

    On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 3:49 PM, Deborah Shea wrote:

    Good afternoon,

    I am sorry that we were unable to have a telephone conversation; however, we are here ready and able to assist you when you are ready to address your account. In the meantime, I have added your Salesrep so he is also aware.

    Your account has gone into default for breach of contract for not processing with Harbortouch according to your Processing and POS Agreements. The system has a safety mechanism and will lock if the terminal is not being used as per the intended purpose. That being said, we can unlock you system as long as you agree to resume processing effective immediately. You will need to process for (30) days in order to get your account out of default. Please let us know how you would like to proceed.

    Should retention not be possible, then you will need to close your account according to your Processing and POS Agreements by returning the necessary Cancellation Form (being sent to you via a separate email).

    I am sorry that we were unable to have a telephone conversation; however, we are here ready and able to assist you when you are ready to address your account. In the meantime, I have added your Salesrep so he is also aware.

    Your account has gone into default for breach of contract for not processing with Harbortouch according to your Processing and POS Agreements. The system has a safety mechanism and will lock if the terminal is not being used as per the intended purpose. That being said, we can unlock you system as long as you agree to resume processing effective immediately. You will need to process for (30) days in order to get your account out of default. Please let us know how you would like to proceed.

    Should retention not be possible, then you will need to close your account according to your Processing and POS Agreements by returning the necessary Cancellation Form (being sent to you via a separate email).

    Please do not hesitate to inquire should you have any additional questions regarding this matter or if we can be of further assistance.

    they want to charge me 2000 for early termination. Please be aware and don’t work with this company in future

    • Yolas Correa

      Don’t pay the cancellation fee and see how far they are willing to take it. They probably will not do anything. I went through something similar with them but my cancellation fee was only $600. What they are doing is unethical and should be illigal. If a lot of people complain and do not pay their cancellation fee I do not think it is ti their best interest to pursue these matters any further. Meanwhile switch to another provider. I recomend Square. I do not work for Square but that’s who I switched to. I ended up saving about 50% in processing fees plus more (about $600 per month). There is no contract. I bought all the equipment used from eBay and Craiglist. It has been over a year and no surprises from Square. They have worked the way they advertise and claim to work. Their fee is only 2.75% per transaction: nothing else.

  • KEITH A BARNES

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint through our mediation program but the merchant as indicated that he remains dissatisfied.

    They promised to match the 1.69% I pay with Payanywhere but after all their fees their actual rate is over 8%!! That is crazy, they lie and charge fees for everything they can make up and charge way more than their contract says that they will. They will tell you that somewhere in their contract it says that they can raise their prices anytime. DO NOT believe them when they say they will match a competitors price. All lies.
    We are compiling a list of complaints against Harbortouch to get them to fix or take legal action.

  • Bruno Teixeira

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint through our mediation program but the merchant stated that the matter remains unresolved.


    Our experience with Harbortouch has been horrible. They have charged us fees above what was agreed to, and charged bogus PCI fees, which no reputable bank charges. To get refunds from them is like pulling teeth. Our merchant ID is 18515325. Example: Looking at the December 2016 statement, I had total transactions in the amount of $802.34. Of this amount, $595.54 were debit transactions. Of the total of $802.34, I was charged $71.01, or 9% of my total. Square would have charged $22 for $800 in transactions at a flat rate of 2.75%. These alleged charges of “authorization” and “other” are included in the processing fees, not in addition to.

    Both their regional manager Darren Sellner, and their sales rep Sal Balisteri promised that any rates from other banks would be matched by Harbortouch. Complete BS! Also, their CEO Jared Isaacman basically told me I was stuck in a contract and no refunds for overcharges would be made.

    By the way, this so called “free” POS system costs us close to $100 per month, in addition to their outrageous fees.

    Also, there contract protects them from filing suit in your local courts, and that you wave class action status. Would a reputable company need this?

    • Yolas Correa

      My merchant ID number with Harbortouch was 16767078 and I have very similar complains about Harbor touch. Their “free” POS is not free at all and very obsolete. I had a Windows XP based Harbor touch POS on a piece of trash cheap computer. I was conned into a 5 year contract and hit with a lot of surprise, bogus, outrageous fees. It’s so unbelievable that they can be so greedy and unscrupulous when they can still make money in a legal way without needing to be so crooked.

  • mya

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the complaint below but the commenter has indicated that the matter remains unresolved.


    ok so i was swindled and i was told there was only a monthly fee to rent the pos systems.. yup that was a lie please read the fine print they will charge you yearly.. also they told me they just needed me to sine a monthly contract and they got me on a 3 year.. now they will not take the system back unless i pay the over $800.00.. there is so many problems with this system it does not do taxes right half the time it does not work.. if you call for help they say they will call you back and never do. i called my back and froze them out of my account.. now i need to find a lower because they are scammers Do not use them

  • Papis pizza

    Harbortouch is a nightmare company they will screw you all the time. Once you are signed with them that would be a beginning of your nightmare .don’t take my word just read all reviews about them in all websites. I don’t nred what happened to me could happen to you .agian befor sign up with them . Yau have to read all reviews about them.
    —–
    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint via our complaint mediation program, but the commenter declined to participate.

  • B Peyton

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint via CPO’s mediation program, but the commenter declined to participate.


    We received the Harbortouch ECHO POS system as our non-profit lodge failed to have the volume of business annually required for a real system. This system suffers from lousy programing and HT has failed to update the many known issues in the year and a half we have operated the unit. After repeated contact we finally gave up on any attempt on their part to resolve the software glitches. They will e-mail you as if they care but have FAILED to resolve several problems. They care about the appearance of service but will not solve the programming errors. If we were a for profit business I would have already abandoned the ECHO unit. Overall satisfaction “D”.

  • Paul

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the complaint below but the merchant declined to participate.


    Been having this system for almost 3 years and the last 12 months have been an absolute nightmare. We constantly have problems with the system going down. We’ve had to turn away more customers than I can count because the system is down and we cannot receive payment. I’ve asked multiple times to part ways with no Financial liability so we can get a new POS system from another company and they absolutely refuse. With the money we’ve lost the past 12 months I could honestly have bought a brand new POS system. It’s sickening and I’ve even had bartenders threatening to quit because it makes their job so stressful. If you’re thinking about this system…..RUN. Stick with a local company that can send a tech. out to service your system on the spot when problems occur. When you have your regular customers coming in asking if the POS system is working you know it’s bad. My staff and I are counting down the days that our contract is up because we are seriously dousing it in lighter fluid, lighting a match, and having a party.

  • Irwin Solon

    Habortouch attempted to resolve this complaint but the merchant has indicated an unsatisfactory outcome.

    —-

    I found harbortouch very insensitive I took sick in January 2015 I have been paying almost two years for the POS system I have asked to break the contract due to illness they refused to break it unless I pay the full contract but there is no plans of me reopening I pay for outdated system and they continually do nothing to help me

  • Doug

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint but the merchant has indicated that the matter remains unresolved.
    —-
    The 30 day trail if is a joke if you try to cancel. The sales reps lie and says no cost no risk for 30 days just return in 30 days. What they don’t tell you is that the merchant agreement is separate for the pos and they don’t tell you this .When you return the pos and have no way of using the credit cards they are still going to charge you the monthly credit card fees. When you return the pos in 30 day according to your agreement that’s the equipment you use to run your credit card so you have no way to run credits cards because you retuned equipment they are still going to charge credit card monthly fees.
    DON’T DO THE 30 DAY FREE TRAIL IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT RETUN IT BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO GET CHARGED MONTHLY CREDIT CARD FEES EVEN IF YOU DON’T HAVE EQUIPMENT TO PROCESS CREDIT CARDS. THE REPS WILL LIE AND DO ANYTHING TO GET YOU TO DO THE 30 DAY TRAIL THEY DON’T CARE ALL THEY WANT IS THERE COMMSSION.
    SCAM RIP OFF AND BUNCH OF LIERS!!!!

  • Mike Robertson

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint but this merchant has stated that the matter remains unresolved.

    —-

    Harbor Touch is the worst company to do business with – they have lost $4000 of my company’s money. We are a small business and when they did the automatic upgrade they “forgot” to set the autobatch – they got rid of manual batch options. We have been trying to get our $4000 for a week now with no luck. They just keep telling us they are not authorized to make a batch like that – meanwhile we are out $4000. We are a small company and this means I may not be able to make payroll on Monday, pay rent, etc… DO NOT PUT YOUR TRUST IN HARBOR TOUCH.

  • Alyssa

    Harbortouch attempted to correct this complaint using our complaint mediation program but was unable to resolve it to Alyssa’s.


    Nothing but a never ending pit of money I don’t have as a small business owner. I have been with the company since 2011 and finally just decided to cancel 2 months ago. It became a regular activity to struggle to survive because of the fees on the processing. I had a standard unit until I started taking cards thru my cell, and that’s when it went from bad to worse. I couldn’t swipe certain cards such as tdbank or metro and that alone was a battle I never won. Actually I say swipe, but the component that was sent to me never even worked on my phone yet the company could care less. I would have to punch in all numbers manually and did I receive anything for that inconvenience? Absolutely not! Also, to make matters worse…I woke up a lot of mornings in shock that there were 80 dollar charges…sometimes .50 cent charges and then the random biggies that came out of left field. I am a small business salon chair renter that works her ass off to be the best single mom I can be, and because of this nonsense there were days I couldn’t even get my household groceries because the charges that were taken left me with 0 dollars. Actually a lot of the times it was negative bank account shock. So now, I’m paying, paying, paying…processing fees, monthly fees, yearly fees, maintenance fees, and now lots and lots of bank fees to top it all off. All while manually entering c. Cards that a lot of the times, didn’t even go thru. I spent months trying to get certain issues fixed and at the end of the day just gave up all together on this disaster of a decision. I also had to put a block on my bank account because even though I had a cancelled account, I had a feeling this nonsense may not be over. Low and behold I just received a letter of a delinquent account for another 100 dollars. At this point, party is over. You lost a long term business owner who is 100% certain I’m much better without this huggggeeee headache.

  • Kunal desai

    This merchant has indicated that they are not satisfied with Harbortouch’s attempt to resolve this complaint.

    —-

    Worst service I ever got. And all employee or agents who wants your business are liars.they tell you some rate and charge you some thing else. And it’s Chinese company don’t trust in them.and they charge much then they commite.and this review is true not fake I owe reputade motel in NJ and I got service from them for three months and I kick them out. I never paid that much fee what I paid in three month to hourbor touch for same business to other company.

  • Tim O'Leary

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint through our complaint resolution program but the comment author declined to participate.


    Anyone looking at this system for ease of entry financially think again. The sacrifice you make is lack of accurate timely information and lots of frustration fixing problems.

  • Tera McElligott

    Habortouch attempted to resolve this comment via our complaint mediation program but the Tera McEligott has indicated that the matter remains unresolved.


    I don’t even know where to begin. Here’s an email I sent recently, but still no answer. I can’t get anyone on the phone to help, and they continue to deduct money from our bank account.

    August 15th, 2016
    To whom it may concern:

    I write this letter to express my dissatisfaction with your service and request that you will neglect to collect the early termination fee. The POS system provided gave us problems from the beginning and we made countless phone calls to your customer service department. As I have stated before, the list goes on and on, but here are some examples:

    -The machine would often shut down mid-transaction and when rebooted would not show the sale in the recall tab, leading to many customers being double charged. After settling the batch at day end, we could see the overcharge, but there was a significant delay in getting the refund to the customer. Why would the sale be applied so much quicker (days) than a refund?This also resulted in chargeback fees from customers’ credit accounts.
    -The tax amount on the X-Reports was not calculated correctly. Although if we went online the figures were correct, this made our bookkeeping much more complicated than it needed to be.
    -The numbers in the POS system were not consistent with the information on-line, so that our deposits were often “off”, and it would be days before we could reconcile our books. Our downtown store is very small, with no offices or storage space, which is why we were attracted to the size and look of the machine. We honestly do not even have a computer there, so having the information correct on-line didn’t help at those moments.

    Although we had been having problems with the machine since August 2015, we did not ask to have it replaced until November, so I would say we gave it a good go. Since we had no use for the functions of the machine for inventory purposes, etc, the smaller Verifone machine was really the best choice for us. It was never suggested that we try a different POS system, not that we would have anyway. After many months and hours spent on the phone, we finally received the new machine in June. We had it hooked up and began using it on June 16th, 2016. The POS has since been waiting in a box to be returned to you. I have asked countless times how and where to return the machine and have gotten no definitive answers. I have a copy of, and have sent to you twice via fax, a “Termination and Release” form which is notated (by our sales representative, Bill Long) that the early termination fee is waived as per Chris Rotundi. I have tried to contact him, unsuccessfully, as your associates apparently are “not allowed” to transfer me to him and I guess he can’t return a call either. I have also tried to contact Deborah Shea by phone and email, because I had been working with her previously, but have not received an answer. Of course this is before we canceled your service, which I assume you’ve been notified of by now, but still I would like to know how you would like the POS, and also now the two Verifones, returned to you.

    Furthermore, we would appreciate it if you would kindly refund any charges of $42.41 applied to our account since mid-November, since this is when we ultimately decided that the POS machine was not working for us, and began the process to switch to a regular terminal.

    Just as a customer is not going to wait ten minutes to buy a $5.00 item when our POS shuts down and we are trying to navigate your customer service prompts, I refuse to spend too much more time on this matter. As a retailer, customer service is my first priority. While yours leaves much to be desired, I will not reduce the integrity of mine for your benefit. Please respond efficiently.

    Thank you,
    Tera McElligott

  • Tom Moak

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint via our mediation program; however, the merchant has noted that the matter remains unresolved.


    Stay away, worst system period. Horrible customer service. Horrible overpriced P.O.Sh##. Our customers were double charged, system crashes all the time. No one knows how to fix anything. 3 days trying to resolve an issue and still unresolved. Please listen to me when I say RUN AWAY from anyone that is trying to sell you on Harbor Touch.

  • K.T

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the complaint below but the merchant has indicated that the issue remains unresolved.

    This business is pure garbage!! Their sales rep sexually harassed me verbally and through email! He then tried to sell me on his side business crap, and then disappeared after I signed the contract! I’ve called numerous 1800 numbers for them and they will not help me! They said they can’t transfer me to another rep, they don’t know his manager, and all they can do is email him to call me. Wtf? I sat on hold for 32 minutes and told them to cancel everything and they said “ok”! NIGHTMARE!! Wasted a month of my time. Please please please learn from me. It sound too good to be true? It is. Trust me.

  • Aaron Feeney

    I have been using the Harbortouch Elite for my restaurant and am extremely happy with its robust features. I’ve compared it to Aloha, Micros, and several other systems only to find that my system has just as many features without an upfront cost of $5,000. I only pay a monthly service agreement of $69 which covers all my hardware and software support.

  • Mayra Angel

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the complaint below via our complaint resolution progam; however, the merchant has indicated that the matter remains unresolved.


    Horrible horrible horrible!!! Would NEVER EVER EVER recommend this to any business especially for a new business. Such a headache reps at customer service are rude (most) ive had problems since day 1. First issue was printing multiple reciepts till this day 6 months later this issue has not been fixed. #2 system powered off couldnt fix till 2 days later lost 2 business days worth of sales! That means loss of sales and customers for a new business. You dont have local support all through phone and holds its a headache. Theres a few more situations that im not going to list all but please read the reviews, something i wish i had done before hand, most seem to be bad complaints. Im just trying to save a new business from these situations. I wouldnt even give then a 1% satisfactory just a plain 0 or below 0%…

  • Derrick Rennix

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the complaint below but the merchant has indicated that the complaint remains unresolved. Learn more about our complaint resolution programs.


    We were recently approached by a Harbor touch independent sales rep who told us he could save us $250.00 a month on our merchant fees. We were also told there was no contract and they supplied the terminal. We did not think this was odd since the company we were already using also had no contract and supplied the terminal. We agreed to switch since we are a family run small business and $250.00 a month is a lot to us. After waiting 6 months we were not seeing any savings, actually our fees have increased so we proceeded to switch back to our original company. Called Harbor touch to cancel and we were told we had signed a 3 year contract and had to pay the remaining portion of the contract. The rep had tricked us into signing without reading all the fine print. We were straight up lied to. There was no box to check that made you aware of any kind of contract. This is no way of doing business.

    • Brad Eaker

      Harbortouch attempted to resolve this complaint but the merchant has indicated that the matter remains unresolved.
      —-
      This is exactly what happened to me. Truly shameful. I have lost thousands of dollars to this company due to lies and mis-marketing. I own a tiny family business and 2016 has been tough on us, no thanks to Harbortouch and Howard Whitaker, the sales rep who got me into this mess.

  • bill

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the complaint below via our complaint resolution program; however, the complainant has indicated that the matter remains unresolved.


    I have had so much trouble with this system and I called my provider and he got angry and then tried to call in a fictitious order of 20 sandwiches and stiff us with it I then called the main office and they said basically to bad not our problem they have never been able to provide a scanner system for our grocery line and expected us to look up each item (upwards of 500 ) individually its stressful as hell and they only wanted your biz then once your hooked up they are unavailable after another bar and restaurant cancelled on them here in Duluth mn I too decided to as well and went with clover and instantly I’ve had customers thrilled we can scan grocerys

  • Vincent K.

    We have used Harbortouch since we opened last June. We initially went with a different POS system but at the last minute had to change because of it’s lack of capabilities. Harbortouch was recommend by the sales rep that handled the return of the first POS system, we ended up with Harbortouch because there was no time to shop for anything else based on the strict timeline to get open. We are so glad Harbortouch fell in our lap. All of our menu was installed before arrival and a brief tutorial was given by the guy who installed the system. I had to add a 4th POS and 4th remote printer 3 weeks before arrival with not problem. It’s very easy to use and have never had any major issues (*knock on wood). If we have ever had any questions there is always a tech to help. I would like to see more reports on the Lighthouse side and maybe some more loss prevention guards, or a scheduling function to better manage labor, but overall its a great system. I have read some negative reviews and glad I have none of these issues. I have not been charged anything that was not in the contract, never spoken to a rude tech, no problem with install.
    All of you merchants are business owners and know what damage these negative reviews can have on a business. If you have a legitimate concern you should contact them directly, not drag their name through the mud like a child throwing a temper tantrum. And some sound reviews sound like competitors (just my opinion). I would recommend harbortouch to anyone that asks my option.

    • SB

      Harbortouch attempted to resolve this grievance via our complaint resolution program, but the merchant indicated that the complaint remains unresolved.
      —-

      Hah! This company even though I cancelled in December after meeting my 3 year contract wants to charge an early termination fee. They say if you go beyond the contract it automatically renews and you still get charged an early termination fee. Thing is I would not have had to go elsewhere if they could provide a compliant machine that took the chip card. I have been waiting 6 months so had to go elsewhere. They are an awful company to deal with and they will blatantly steal from you after they receive their signed termination of services contract.

  • Gary

    Nov. 2015 had an issue with POS system, one of our units mysteriously could not see or communicate with the brain unit. Called Harbor Touch and to my surprise was answered in 3 rings. Spoke to a tech named Jamal and he was able to go online and fix the unit remotely. It took 5 minutes…..This is a great improvement to previous experience. Thank you Jamal. Meeting House Pub Bethel CT

  • Absolute Green Landscaping

    I personally am thrilled with Harbortouch. I have used several credit card companies in the past but Harbortouch has been by far the best to work with. Most companies have a ton of hidden fees or even introduce new fees mid contract but this company truly understands the importance of honesty and never charged any unexpected fees. Their services are fast and professional. Even their customer service is a delight to work with. I definitely recommend Harbortouch as a Credit Card Processor.

    • Yolas Correa

      Really? I had a totally different experience with Harbor Touch. It almost seems that you must be working for them and get paid to post such a positive review. I did have a lot of problems with them. I did contact them to try to solve them. I had to pay off my contract whcich I wasn’t supposed to be in. I had to get a different checking account to prevent them for continuing ripping me off. I switched to a different POS provider with whom I have been for 3 years now and haven’t had a single complaing about been overcharged or surprised bougus new fees. I saved abot 50% on processing fees with the new company. I don’t have a contract and I only pay 2.75% per transaction. I am so glad I got rid of Harbor Touch. They truly are greedy and unscrupulous, tricky, misleading, liers.

  • Ed Migliaccio

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the following complaint utilizing our Complaint Resolution Program. However, this merchant declined to participate in the resolution process.

    —-

    Omg Harbor touch is the absolute worst pos company I ever worked with. The software itself is okay. The problem is the people they hire. They’re morons and liars. The WORST customer service I ever had the displeasure of working with. You just want to curse them out and hang up on them. For starters the system arrived 3 months late. After installation the guy left without explaining how it works. Our menu was supposed pre installed. What a joke. They left 90% of it out. When you have the slightest problem you wait on hold for a ridiculous amount of time only to have your call answered by someone who barely knows their own name much less anything about the system . The rep who sold it to us was the biggest offender. Nothing he said was true. if he were in front of me now I’d choke him until he passed out. If it weren’t for my wife’s friend who knows the system back & forth I would’ve thrown the whole thing in the garbage long ago. Unless you have a friend who can reprogram the entire system for free your insane for even considering Harbor Touch. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst, Harbor touch scores a negative -50!

  • J.R. JR.

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve the following complaint utilizing our Complaint Resolution Program. However, this merchant declined to participate in the resolution process.

    —-

    You are being generous with the C-

    Expect fees to appear and multiplying everywhere they can. Try and dispute the charges and the robots repeat, “it’s in your contract”. You ask where in the contract, you will never get a straight answer. You are better off handwriting your tickets, or purchase orders and having a single cc processing company. Trust me. They bank (literally) on small business owners who are already distraught trying to make their business work. There must be many others involved and using this young kid as the front man. You don’t know here the contract ends, or where it began. A team of people pretend to be the CEO answering you. If your contract states 25. a transaction, you will pay 35. If your rate is 1.49 you pay 1.89. If your service fee is $7.50 you pay $61.

  • Leroy

    I own and operate a bar in Hawaii, we are coming up on our 2 yr mark of being in business. When we signed up with Harbourtouch, it was stressed to us several times that the term of contract was 5 yrs. we knew the risk going into this agreement, but we also didn’t have the money to shell out for these expensive systems. We have had a few situations where the system acted up in the past few years but when it did, we contacted their tec support and they remote log in and fixed it. Coming from a previous employer that has Micros, getting results like that is wonderful because with Micros and others like it, if they go down on a Friday night, your out of luck till Monday morning and that’s if the technician can fit you in. I understand that people get upset because their businesses fail, but there aren’t many successful businesses complaining. For us the system works great, the monthly fees aren’t bad, on a business that grosses about $40,000 a month our monthly fees are about $700 with 3 terminals and 1 kitchen printer(merchant service fees included) I knock on wood that my views with Harbourtouch stay the same and that our business continues to do well but some of you have to understand, the name of their company is not “St. Harbourtouch” or “Harbourtouch Assembly of God”(another words they are NOT a non-profit organization), they are in business to make money just like you are and I’m sure they do the best they can to develop a good name for themselves but they are trying to keep their business alive just like everyone else. blaming these guys for holding you to a contract that you signed is probably why most of your businesses failed, do your research, I did mine, I got equipment with no money down, by the time I’m done with my contract I will have paid them $42,000 but have you ever bought a car with no money or bad credit, the interest rate is crazy, but you do what you gotta do.

    • Curtis

      Leroy,

      Just to add to your comment, your 3 POS systems will only cost you $16,020 over the course of 5 yrs. ($89 x 60 x 3). The rest is mostly processing fees, which most of that is Interchange and goes to the banks. So it is much better than $42,000.

      Curtis

  • Jared Isaacman

    I am the founder and CEO of Harbortouch. I started the company more than 16 years ago. It was a start-up then and I was a teenager in my parent’s basement. Since that time, the company has grown to become a significant player in the payment industry. We have over 400 employees now and process in excess of 11 billion a year in credit card volume. I am responding personally, because I am the founder and I do take any negative reviews quite seriously. I imagine many of you, as small business owners, would react similarly.

    My thoughts:

    1. If you are a past or present merchant and you have a complaint, feel free to e-mail me directly and I will gladly look in to it. My e-mail address is [email protected]

    2. Just about any complaint I have seen for our service revolves around the fact that there is a big cancellation penalty if you close your account early. That is a fact! We give away a lot of free equipment in exchange for a contract term. It is no different than Verizon or AT&T giving you a free iPhone in exchange for a 3-year wireless contract. That is exactly what we do. We provide free touch-screen POS equipment. This is the same type of equipment that can cost tens of thousands of dollars from the big brands like Micros, Aloha, Radiant Systems, etc. The only real difference is you would have had to shell out a bunch of up-front money to get it. With Harbortouch we make that investment on your behalf. We provide that touch-screen POS equipment, the software, the custom programming, the onsite installation and the training in exchange for a 3-year agreement. When the 3-year agreement is done, you own the equipment and it still cost less than just about every other POS system available in the market. In the past our agreement was 5 years, but it was recently reduced to 3 years with our latest POS System model. If you cancel before the 3 years, there is a cancellation penalty. Most merchants when they start a business have grand expectations. They don’t think about the downside of having to close early and then a cancellation fee. When the business does close, they are usually not in the best financial position and get pretty upset about the penalty. It is human nature and I do understand it. I just think it is completely out of line to demonize my company over it.

    3. For those that say the contract term and penalty were not properly disclosed, I believe that is largely just an excuse to justifying not paying for the obligation. There are five signature places on the agreements: Three on the merchant agreement, one on the POS System service contract, and one on the confirmation sheet that is signed during installation. The purpose of the confirmation sheet is to reiterate the terms of the POS agreement one final time. In every advertisement on our website, brochures, sales collateral, we put disclose that the POS equipment is being provided as part of a service agreement. Then there is also common sense approach if all the agreements signed were not apparent. A big box of touch-screen POS equipment, cash drawers, receipt printers, etc is delivered to your business. You didn’t pay for it. Then an installer arrives. Someone else you did not pay for. They run wires, install the equipment and show you how to use it. The software, loaded on that equipment, is customized for your business. I would imagine, at that point, there would be some realization that all this consideration provided probably came with some form of an obligation. An obligation, that I might add, is less expensive than just about every tablet POS or legacy POS system available on the market.

    4. As for some of the ratings and reviews that this websites, and those like it, come up with and how “all these people can’t be wrong”. Philip Parker, Sir, that is just ridiculous!. First in business-to-business transactions, people don’t go out of their way to write great reviews! If they did, they are fake. Maybe consumers on Amazon and Ebay write favorable reviews, but in real business to business transactions people just don’t to it. When was the last time a business owner went online to write a great review about their office copy machine? Or how well their new industrial phone system works? How often do you call customer service on your American Express card just to let them know how happy you are with the service? People, especially in a B2B environment, only seek out websites like this to complain. So throughout my 16 years in business, having served now over 300,000 merchants, you believe you can appropriately rate us a 1.9 stars out of 5, because you found ~275 negative reviews? With those numbers, my math says I have a 99.99% satisfaction rate. Find any service business that interacts with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of customers and has no negative reviews? It is just unrealistic –unless of course, you compare us to the start-up tablet POS companies with 300 customers. I am sure in that environment customer satisfaction can be ultra micromanaged. Or perhaps how about Square? They have no contract term, no cancellation fee, no monthly fees, no penalties, just a simple rate and a free card reader. Have you seen how many negative reviews they have received? Not to use a tired cliché, but it is a service business and you can’t satisfy everyone. And the ones we sometimes are unable to satisfy, like the reviews seen on this website, are usually unhappy because they got stuck with a cancellation penalty after going out of business.

    5. To Terri S. I have no idea who you are, but you have my company wrong. “Rot in Hades”. “Lie, cheat, steal?”. What is wrong with you? Do some homework on my company. Hell, do some homework on boilerplate contracts that exist in any industry. Have you ever read the terms and conditions before you boarded a commercial airplane? Take a look at some of their limitation and liability sections. I imagine no one would fly commercial if they ever read those T&C’s. Most boilerplate contracts, in any service industry, are written to be favorable to the supplier not the end user. That is because we are trying to account for millions of variables for tens of thousands of customers, not just one. It is not because of any intent to deceive or take advantage of the situation. For that matter, our T&C’s are largely written by our sponsor bank, First National Bank of Omaha, and approved by Visa, MasterCard and the other card brands. We get very little input in to them anyway. We have been around 16 years. We have grown every year. We have added more customers every year. We have received numerous accolades from a lot of industry and business publications. Our company is a poster example of the American dream. A small business with little prospect of success in a basement, that grew to become a national company. I think that is the dream that every small business has. We were apparently the “good guy” when we were small and struggling back then, but in success we become the “bad guy” big company. Why? Because customers don’t like being obligated to their contracts? It is a no win situation really. The only thing I can really say, is that your perception of my company is just incorrect. You are welcome to reach out to me, like any unhappy customer, and address your concerns directly. My e-mail address is Jared@harbortouch and I respond to every single one of them.

    • Eric Heckman

      Thank you, Jarad. Our HarborTouch system was installed in our restaurant today as promised. Our sales rep Kevin was excellent. As a restaurant specialist it was clear he had the knowledge, experience and professionalism that closed the deal. Not only did he go over every section of the agreement but specifically made sure I understood the terms and conditions regarding early termination. At one point he put some one from the legal department on the phone to explain a section I was not comfortable with. My staff has experience with Micros, Aloha and most recently the Clover system that just isn’t ready for full service restaurants. Based on the training courses and webinars, and now some hands on experience they are all very excited. Customer Service so far has been very helpful and efficient. I have over 40 years of marketing and customer service experience. I have seen hundreds of complaints like those on this blog. Most of the time they are the result of businesses and business owners that are failing for lots of reasons, not their POS system or processor. I am confident that our good start will continue but if there are speed bumps I will contact you rather then whine and write snarky comments on blogs that allow people to hide behind screen names and provide little if any balance.

      • Yolas Correa

        What a bunch of lies the above comment is. I never experience anything like what is described in that comment in the 4.5 years I was with the crooks of Harbortouch. I experience: lies, tricks to get my money, obsolete faulty POS, bogus surprise fees, a rate review every three months to reduce the automatic rate increase, a 5 year contract that I wasn’t supposed to have, $35 charge back fees, an inactivity fee, a contract that have requirements only for me and can be changed at Harbortouch’s convenience… And no my business did not fail. I am still in business strong as ever with a very fair and transparent credit card service merchant provider.
        Yolas Correa
        Harbortouch ID: 16767078

    • Marcus Anderson

      I called in today to cancel my service after 3 years with the company. The rep. told me that my agreement automatically renewed last month and I would be charged a ETF of over $1300 because I have a new term of 3 years. Shame on me for not reading the 50 page agreement that I never got a copy of, and not remembering the exact date. So I decided to look through my statements over the past 3 years and low and behold. They didn’t even wait for the ink to dry before they started adding fictitious fees to my bill. “Other charges” section of my statement was 3 lines the first month. Now, 3/4 of a page. Here are some of my favorites, Preauthorization processing integrity fee, Undefined processing integrity fee and final authorization integrity fee. I bet they have contests for who can make up the name of next months new fictional fee. All that said, I just had to switch because of the nature of my business and I just waited a couple of weeks to cancel for a smooth transition and these unethical business practices are really unbelievable. Never got any kind of notification my term was coming up, up or renewed. Because I signed an agreement 3 years ago is not notification and is certainly bad business. Now they will never get my business back ever!


      This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee

      -Phillip

  • Curtis

    Every business owner will tell you, there are two sides to a story. There are no verification process of the comments on this site, so there is no way for anyone to know if it truly is a real client or a competitor that is simply trying to tarnish another company’s reputation [*Internal note added to this comment* – Curtis’ preceding statement here is false. Each and every comment submitted on CardPaymentOptions.com undergoes moderation prior to becoming published on the site.] I’m sure some of them are valid and legit, but I do not believe all of them are. I have a lot of happy clients. You would be surprised how difficult it is to get someone to post positive comments, even when they are happy. We are all busy business owners and naturally are self-centered. It takes a lot of effort to go out of our way to post positive comments about a company. We must truly be motivated to want to do it. But when someone wants to complain, we all are very quick to do that.

    How do you know what Harbortouch’s costs are? I’ve signed up a lot of merchants and have seen a lot of them close shop in 6 months, 12 months, etc. After seeing what little profit there is on the processing for those accounts, I can see how Harbortouch is losing a lot of money. Simply look at the millions of dollars they have received from outside sources to fund their program. It takes a LOT of money and you lose a lot of money as well. You have hardware cost, software licensing fees, on-site install cost, training cost that requires hours of employees time, 24/7 tech support to fund, any and all hardware replacement cost, etc.

    POS systems are not the same as personal computers. They are more expensive to build. Their latest model has a SSD hard drive with a 4 quad processor. From my estimation, I would not be surprised if Harbortouch’s breakeven point on the POS is at least 2-3 years, assuming no further investment has to be made with swaps.

    Why is it when you look at all the big major POS brands like Aloha and Micros, they cost $3-10K per station? Plus they are in the business for service contracts, ongoing support fees, ongoing software update fees, etc.

    I have yet to see any other company do what Harbortouch is doing and it’s been 4 yrs since they launched it. They are making that huge investment themselves and charging nothing upfront to the merchant. Would you invest thousands of dollars in my business and do what they are doing? If I go out of business in 6 months, good luck on collecting or even getting your system back. Chances are I’m bankrupt and have nothing to go after. Let’s say your total hard cost is $3,000 per station. With a $69/mo fee, your breakeven point is 43 months! If anything breaks during that time, it will only extend that time. What if the POS needs to be replaced in a few years, now you are talking a few thousand more reinvested. So would you give me $3,000 knowing you won’t get that back for at least 3 years and that’s without interest? This is all before you take into account all the operating expenses they have to just operate their facilities, hundreds of employees, etc.

    The whole program is banked on the processing. Processors have always made money on the processing side, in exchange for that same business they would receive anyways, Harbortouch is willing to make that huge investment in the merchant’s business in exchange for that. Other processors are not making that huge investment, why not? So yeah, there must be stiff cancellation fees to help them from losing thousands of dollars and going out of business. You want them to be there to support you and your business and not close shop because other merchant’s took them down because they couldn’t recoup the investment on their system.

    No company is perfect, everyone has their faults, just like you won’t find any restaurant with a perfect 5 star review on help. Harbortouch has a lot of happy customers and a lot of agents that sell for them that go the extra mile to make sure their merchants are happy.

    Curtis

  • HarbortouchNJ

    Please note that the term for the Harbortouch POS agreement has been reduced to 36 months for all new merchants. The $69/monthly hardware support fee & $60/quarterly software support fee remain the same. If you are dis-satisfied with your credit card processing rate simply call Harbortouch customer service and request a ‘rate review’. Your total cost of ownership for a Harbortouch POS is significantly cheaper that purchasing or leasing a similar POS such as Micros or Aloha.

    • Eric Stephen Heckman

      I have had a completely different experience. Over the past two weeks i have done due diligence on several POS systems and card processing to replace a Clover system that I would not recommend to any business that has a large menu or inventory numbers. The HarborTouch account executive, Kevin, that i worked with has been nothing short of professional and helpful. I have spend many years managing sales and marketing as well as customer service teams. Kevin could have been on any one of those. As an experienced business person I am capable;e of reading and understanding contract terms and conditions. My account rep not only went over them but insisted that I speak with someone in the legal department that would verify my understandings. This is not the MO of a company that is trying to hide anything.

      If you are in the restaurant business you certainly understand the points about people not commenting on great food or terrific service unless they are prompted to do so. Yelp and sites such as this one are the bane of all well run businesses. People with an axe to grind, competitors and just plain lunatics populate these blogs. I am only here because one of Harbortouch’s competitors gave me the link in an attempt to change my mind about his product. Not only did it not change my mind but after reading Jarad’s comments I am confident that I am about to do business with the right company.

  • Terri S.

    Harbortouch attempted to resolve this grievance through our complaint resolution program. However, this complainant declined to participate in the resolution process.

    —-

    Harbortouch intentionally lies and cheats merchants out of hard-earned money by INTENTIONALLY NOT DISCLOSING THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS to those merchants.

    How convenient, Curtis Stevens, that you blame the misunderstandings on INDEPENDENT SALES REPS and refuse to do the ethical thing and be an honorable company. You are CROOKS and THIEVES!!!! You allow your sales reps to say whatever they want to say in order to get a signed contract.

    MERCHANTS: Who in their right freaking mind would sign ANY CONTRACT that has the following disclaimer as the last paragraph on the last page of their Terms and Conditions???:

    “10.13 Entire Agreement: HARBORTOUCH’S REPRESENTATIVES MAY HAVE MADE ORAL STATEMENTS REGARDING THE EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE OR SERVICES SET FORTH HEREIN. NONE OF THE ORAL STATEMENTS CONSTITUTE WARRANTIES, MERCHANT SHALL NOT RELY ON ANY OF THEM, AND THEY ARE NOT PART OF THE AGREEMENT. THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING THE EXHIBITS ATTACHED HERETO AND INCORPORATED AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THIS AGREEMENT, CONSTITUTES THE ENTIRE AGREEMENT OF THE PARTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE SUBJECT MATTER HEREOF, AND SUPERSEDES ALL PREVIOUS PROPOSALS, ORAL OR WRITTEN, AND ALL NEGOTIATIONS, CONVERSATION OR DISCUSSIONS HERETOFORE HAD BETWEEN THE PARTIES RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT. CUSTOMER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT IT HAS NOT BEEN INDUCED TO ENTER INTO THIS AGREEMENT BY ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR STATEMENTS, ORAL OR WRITTEN, NOT EXPRESSLY CONTAINED HEREIN.”

    What the hell does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means!!! That no matter what a representative told you or wrote down or emailed you or faxed you or promised you regarding this agreement with Harbortouch, it doesn’t mean SQUAT. They can say anything they want, even outright lie to you, and their a$$ is covered by this paragraph alone.

    Never in all my years of dealing with credit card processing companies and POS companies have I ever seen such a blatant display of INTENTION TO DEFRAUD and flagrant DISREGARD FOR ETHICS.

    HARBORTOUCH, YOUR COMPANY IS SLIME. YOU LIE. YOU CHEAT. YOU STEAL. And you intentionally defraud your customers.

    Rot in HADES…….. with all your ill-gotten gains……..

    Terri S – Minnesota

    • Curtis Stevens

      Terri,

      Based on what you are saying, it doesn’t sound like you are a current or previous client of Harbortouch, but a competitor, which removes any validity to your comments. Plus, it isn’t good business to bash other companies, makes you look bad.

      Harbortouch doesn’t have employees selling their products. They use outside, independent agents/contractors to sell their system. We as a contractor, are responsible for selling the system, they have no control or knowledge over what we say or do since we are not even at their place of business. With that said, Harbortouch must have that clause in the agreement or an agent (a good or rogue agent) could promise the merchant the moon. Sign here and we will pay you one million dollars. Without that clause, it could open Harbortouch up to a lot of liability by simply want some sales person says. Harbortouch can only honor the agreement. HOWEVER, the application and paperwork spells everything out. It lists all the pricing, what is included, etc. So it doesn’t matter what the rep says as it is all covered in the documents the merchant sign. So if an agent doesn’t disclose everything orally, the merchant can still read all the details on the documents they must sign to get approved. This also allows them to verify if everything they’ve been told is true as well.

      In short, before the merchant signs up, they can legally verify everything to avoid and prevent any possibility of the concerns you are bringing up. All terms and conditions are disclosed to the merchant. They must sign them before even getting approved. If Harbortouch was such a bad company, I wouldn’t be in business selling their product, have hundreds of merchants all over the country and be able to make a living.

      Curtis

      • Curtis

        Why is it so bad that Harbortouch has a clause that says only written documents are valid and nothing verbal? Any business owner would be stupid not to protect their company in that way when you have independent contractors selling your product. If you were Harbortouch and you weren’t doing that, I would question your longevity. The merchant signs an application that SPELLS everything out. Everything is in writing. They don’t need anything verbally as it is all in writing and must be signed by the merchant. The clause you reference and the ENTIRE contract and agreement must be signed by the merchant before approval. So how is that deceitful?!?

        You say business owners are savvy enough regarding credit card processing to speak knowledgeable about it, but then later say lets be honest, merchants are clueless when it comes to processing. I’ve been selling processing for over a decade and will say 99% of merchants do not know much about processing. The amount of stuff I’ve seen, the number of ways or things processors do with processing statements, etc. Most merchants think one thing and many times their statements says another because they don’t have the knowledge I do. There is no other industry as complicated as processing.

        Your comment simply has your name and nothing more and based on the details of your comments, it didn’t appear that would be coming from a merchant. Merchant’s don’t know that kind of stuff. Since you said why would anyone sign with Harbortouch when they have that clause tells me you are not a former customer of Harbortouch since why would you sign up with that clause. So you are bashing a company you have never done business with.

        There are good and bad apples in every business, processing is no exception. Just because there are some bad apples, doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Harbortouch cares more about their merchants than probably any other processor as they are investing thousands into their business. If they close shop too early, Harbortouch loses. If Harbortouch helps their business grow because of the POS, everyone wins. Interest are aligned.

Tell Us How They Treated You

Sharing your experience influences our rating and helps other business owners make informed decisions. Please take a moment to tell us if they are serving you well. Your email address will never be published, shared or sold. We only use it to authenticate that you are a real person and, if you select the option for it, to let you know if someone replies to your comment. Required fields are marked *

Comments must contain details about your experience. Please do not use ALL CAPS. Self-promotion, marketing content, or contact information of any kind will not be published. By submitting a comment, you are agreeing to our Comment Policy

Copyright

Copyright © 2024 CardPaymentOptions.com, Inc. (Digital Fingerprint: 0d38c6720f0d78a701b74d58653af608). Getting paid to re-write this page? Click here to earn a reward.

Any unauthorized copying and reproduction of the content of this page, including all meta data and computer code, is strictly prohibited. While the information in the above article is believed to be accurate as of its publish date, the author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable to any party for any direct, indirect, punitive, special, incidental or other consequential damages arising directly or indirectly from any use of this material, which is provided “as is,” and without warranties. Any and all use of trade names and/or marks are for identification purposes only and shall not be construed as a claim of affiliation, or otherwise, with CardPaymentOptions.com, Inc. ("CPO") in any form. The sole purpose of the material presented herein is to alert, educate, and inform readers. It is not intended as legal or financial advice. We may earn revenue if you obtain services from a provider that we recommend. See this page to learn how we support our operations.