Overview
In this investigative review of i3 Verticals, LLC, we dive into the company’s operations and reputation in the payment processing sector. We’ll cover a wide range of aspects, from the company’s rates and fees to the specifics of their contract terms. We examine common complaints and industry ratings, providing a view of the company’s standing among credit card processors.
A key part of our review is devoted to analyzing employee and user reviews, which shed light on both the internal functioning of i3 Verticals and its public perception. We look into the company’s marketing tactics, raising questions about the ethicality of its approach, especially concerning i3 Verticals’ ratings on various merchant account review websites.
Additionally, we’ll present a detailed look at i3 Verticals’ Point of Sale solutions, particularly its promotion of various product lines. We will evaluate its payment acceptance capabilities, covering the company’s range of payment options, including card processing hardware and mobile payment solutions.
Moreover, we won’t shy away from discussing the less favorable aspects of i3 Verticals. We will analyze its reputation and ethical issues, providing insights into the numerous complaints and lawsuits the company has faced, which question their credibility in the market.
Lastly, we touch upon the broader context of the company’s business practices within the payment processing industry, offering a perspective on how i3 Verticals fits into the larger payment ecosystem. We aim to equip business owners with all the necessary information to make informed decisions about i3 Verticals and understand whether this credit card processor is right for their merchant services needs.
About i3 Verticals
i3 Verticals, LLC, formerly known as Charge Payment, LLC, is a merchant account provider based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was founded in 2012 by Greg Daily, the former CEO of iPayment. i3 Verticals owns the following 13 companies, each one of which is focused on a different sector of the payment processing market:
- Axia Payments (axiapayments.com)
- Infintech (infintechllc.com)
- PaySchools (payschools.com)
- Place (placepay.com)
- RU Practical (rupractical.com)
- Local Level (localevelevents.com)
- EZ Pay (866myezpay.com)
- Bill & Pay (billandpay.com)
- San Diego Cash Register (sdcr.com)
- Court Solutions (courtsolutions.info)
- Fairway Payments (fairwaypayments.com)
- EZ Courtpay (courtpayment.com)
- Business Information Systems (bisonline.com)
Serving Former Payment Systems Corporation Customers
We have received an email alleging that i3 Verticals is the company that manages the merchant portfolio of the now-defunct Payment Systems Corporation and that old Payment Systems Corporation merchants are now receiving service from i3 Verticals. There are also multiple online comments that support this claim. Payment Systems Corporation is one of the worst-rated merchant accounts on CPO. i3 Verticals is a publicly traded company that has grown rapidly in the past three years by acquiring or merging with a large and growing number of other payment-related businesses.
Norma
The worst experience I have had with Mr. Sean Parker from Synergy Solution is the person who connected my business with this credit card processing system, I am very dissatisfied and I do not recommend it. I want to change my representative or cancel my account.
na
**Warning**: Beware of i3 Verticals! My experience with them was an absolute nightmare of false promises, inconsistency, and disrespect. They wasted two months of my time, and just days before the start date, they pulled the job offer citing cost concerns after already agreeing to hire me. The deception and bait-and-switch tactics were outrageous, and I firmly believe their actions may even border on illegality.
They offered me a position as an Implementation Specialist, claiming they’d cover expenses like hotel, car rental, gas, and food with a business card. However, they reneged on their promises, leaving me to foot the bill without any indication of when I’d receive reimbursement. This was just the tip of the iceberg. The director seemed clueless and unhelpful, deferring to HR with no accountability.
To add insult to injury, they offered me a different job at a significantly lower salary than what was originally discussed. It was clear they had no respect for my time, my career, or my dignity.
I can’t stress this enough: DO NOT engage with i3 Verticals. Save yourself from frustration, disappointment, and potential financial loss. This company’s practices are highly questionable, and I am taking steps to report them to all relevant authorities. Protect your well-being and stay far away from i3 Verticals – you’ll thank yourself later!
Alex Gilshteyn
Do not sign up with company. they over charge for their old terminals like first Data.. Salesperson told me that he gave me a second terminal as a backup. But actualy I am paying $85 for each terminal a month for 4 years. Customer service is horrible.They dont puck up the phone. They make you sign a contract for 4 years. Bad experience
CPO
Alex,
This article may help: How to cancel a merchant account without paying a fee.
-Phillip
Akex Gilshteyn
Bad customer service. Very rude. Twice hanged up on me.
Very high fees. Charging over $170 a month for two cc terminals. I did not ask for the second one. They said it is a back up. Teeminals are old models and dont ask if the card is oresent for over the phone orders.
While bank reviews alleged fraudelent charge they hold all credit card transactions as a hostage without bank permission and failed to notify my company. Very bad experience.
Maria Almaguer
Worst card processing EVER!!!! They make it difficult to cancel and charge ridiculous prices, they never call back. Beware!!
Mike
Worst company i have ever dealt with i dont recommend them, and there will be no service with you guys in the future.
From The Editor
This Post Might Help: Best All-Purpose Merchant Accounts
Nick
Cancelled our account in March; charged for the month of April because it takes 60 days to CANCEL the account.
Manny, apparently the guy who thinks he runs the place (hint: he doesn’t), refuses refund and hangs up on me.
Nice job Manny!
Worthless company. F+ rating.
Ernest Williams
We have been trying to close our account for MONTHS now. MONTHS!! Apparently we were in a contract till February and had to wait till then for our contract to end. We were told as soon as it ended and we did not resign another contract, everything would be done! Well we got another bill. So we call them again and they stated that there was a cancellation paper that we needed to sign for us to no longer get billed! They did not tell us about anything of the sort the 5 phone calls prior to this. So they send us the cancellation papers and stated it would take another month to get processed and we would receive another bill (they take it out of our account every month and just send us a notice stating they have done so) in the mean time till they get it processed. We then get another bill like they stated but it is DOUBLED what we normally pay. They will not refund it either. We have already paid them so much money and now its going on 2 months of what should have been they last payment for good and we are still paying them so much money! They are just taking it out of our account still!!! Oh and when they realized we wanted to stop their money flow, they became very very rude to us. They would even hang up the phone and everything. Very unprofessional.
Peggy Anderson
My contract is up next I tried calling , left a message to call me back.They never called me back. I mailed them a check for last payment and put a block on my account. I’m finished with these crooks they take whatever amount they want. No more they are not getting any more money from me.
Chinh vo
This company want to do whatever they want to do without rules.They increase the rates, fees… and charge you whenever they want.If you called them to ask them why your bill higher than previous bills, they don’t mind to rude and hang up on you. Maybe they have been trained to do that way to stop the clients keeping complaints.They don’t mind to tell you go to another merchant services if you are not happy with them, but you are tight up with them by contract,you have to pay them to get out!!!!! All merchant services companies are the same rules : rude and rid of.
Renea
RE: Clover Equipment
Monday, November 13, 2017 12:29 AM
From:
“Renea Tutson”
To:
“Doreen Milton”
Raw Message Printable View
Doreen good morning we’ve decided to go with your company but we really are concerned about the price of the machine the other company actually match your rate but your machine is $1,000 more is there anything that can be done on the price of your POS system
As you can see per my email to the representative that sign my up I ask to cancel via several email. Was not told anything about a cancellation form. This company has been billing me since Nov 2017 to present. DO NOT use this company dishonest and very unprofessional.
Amy
Higher rate than others. Rude account manager who simply says that they will not lower rate because we are not going to stay in business with them. It’s because of higher rate that is why we are switching. We gave them the whole year to work on lowering the rate but each month is the same or even higher than the last.
Kim Niedbalski @ Jays Auto Repair
i3 verticals is a terrible company that will not cancel your account and make it impossible to escape. We filled out their form and sent it in with a ridiculous amount of money. They claim not to have received the check but when I pushed the issue they suddenly found it (within minutes ) and still claimed it was too late to cancel and not be charged yearly account fees. I tried from August to December to get the form needed and get it sent it in. They claim they sent it via email several times yet not was received even after giving multiple email addresses. In short this company will scam you for as long as they can and do everything possible to keep you from cancelling this service. The worst ever!!!!
Nancy
We are a small buisiness that has been trying to cancel our contract with I3 or Payment Systems which ever one you want to call them. We filled out the cancellation form that they sent us and took a pic with my phone and sent it right back to them. Their response was that they couldn’t read it. We could read it just fine on our end. This was back in March of 2017. Today we again tried to get this contract cancelled and still got the run around. We talked about what we had sent them back in April and then we got a reply that their computer system must have kicked it out as not viable. We now have a scanner and scanned it as a .pdf, which is the form they say they need it in today, and re-emailed it to them once again. Never before have we heard so many excuses and song and dances to try to screw us out of more money. Everytime we asked to speak to a supervisor or someone higher up they would tell us there is no one. We had switched to another company prior to this and have had no problems. When someone says that they will send you a confirmation e-mail to confirm that they have finally cancelled your contract and you have to call them back and still get the run around I would suggest no one do any business with these people. They are pure scam artists. It’s already been over an hour and still we have not gotten a confirmation e-mail telling us that they cancelled our contract even though they said they didn’t want to do buisiness with us again. We told them that we are going to keep calling them everyday until this is resolved. We called them right back and they hung up on us.
Peggy Anderson
I can’t finish reading the email you sent me. I pressed the link to finish reading and it opens a blank screen.
Steve Gobin
Hello ever one, My name is Steve Gobin. I own European Automotive Inc. I believe I to was scam by i3 vertical my cc procedes was not being deposited into my account and still have not since 11/28/2017. I spoke with Alex she said the system was running slow in the mean time my account is still not being funded. Alex also said we will deposit the amount of $6.700.00 into my account on 12/08/17 that did not happen. They deposit the amount of $961.60.
I was schemed by them
https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/two-former-executives-ipayment-agree-plead-guilty-fraud-scheme-embezzled-over-5-million
Seems interesting….
Watcher
I3verticals is Payment Systems po box 71409 Los Angeles CA 71409 merchant agreement was with I3verticals, statement says Payment Systems. Lease was with lease finance group actually National Leasing Systems. That should be a red flag by itself. Very predatory business practices. Ask 3 people the same question and get three conflicting polar opposite answers. Payment systems AKA i3Verticals should be avoided like herpes.
Matthew Kucharski
To put this review in context: I am the General Manager for a business that was scammed by First Data and IPayments.
I received a phone call on June 28th, 2016 from i3 Verticals telling me that they are now our “back end merchant provider.” The person I spoke with was Ross Small. He stated that so many people were scammed from their previous merchant service providers that when i3 Verticals acquired these accounts in early 2016, they needed to reach out to these businesses to rectify the situations on behalf of VISA/MASTERCARD.
He conveniently ‘forgot’ to tell me we were on a recorded line by the way. When I asked him, that is when he said that the call was being recored. I would classify this phone call as a “high pressure- empathy” sales phone call where he was clearly working the angle that we had been done wrong in the past by our previous provider and i3 Verticals was here to “save the day”.
I clearly stated to him that we were scammed by the previous company that they acquired with a long term non-cancellable lease. He offered to give a number to a company called “Prodigy” which he described as a Lease Dispute Company. He said that Prodigy is waiving the retainer costs, currently settling close to 1000 clients, and resolves the matter in 30-45 days.
He offered to send us a new contract to get us in compliance with VISA/MasterCard and help us get out of our current situation. Everything sounded like it was going to work out.
Well, he sent us the new contract which ended up being ANOTHER NON-CANCELLABLE lease!!! This is the same scam that was tried the first time. When he called back the next day, I did not lead onto the fact that I already knew he sent me another scam. I let him dig his own grave by letting him tell me about the new contract. He never once told me that this was another non-cancellable lease until I asked him directly. Only then did he admit it was.
I became furious with him and told him never to contact me or our company again. The next day we received an email from him stating that he was sorry for upsetting me and continued to try to sell me on why we would sign this contract. I do still have this email, unfortunately it has a “Confidentiality Notice” at the bottom stating that I cannot redistribute, copy, or print the information contained in the emails.
So, for the record, I was contacted by Ross Small stating he was from i3 Verticals. The contract he sent me was from 123 Merchant Services. His email address was from iPaymentsnv.com. The ‘new’ lease company that was named in our new contract was from Ascentium Capital LLC. As far as I’m concerned, these business are all SCAMS and not to be trusted.
Peggy Anderson
I am also in two contracts thanks to Ross Small.Anyone have any knowledge of these lease disputes.First with Prodigy Fulfillment,who now changed to RADIANT Merchant Services.
Julie
* We had a sales rep with Advanced Payment Solutions stop in and look over our current payments for credit card processing. He assured us we would save $150.00 a month by switching. He also said, if we were NOT satisfied we would be able to cancel our contract and they would do a “We owe You” on the cancellation fee. They would also pay our current provider to switch. The only reason they paid off our former provider is because I had to call and remind them about that promise. My costs have increased by about $200 a month and each month I call to complain they give some bull !@#! about “oh your cost are higher because you accept payment over the phone.” We stopped doing that, and again, our cost went up this month. So, once again, as each month I have received a bill, I call to question my rates and the bill…and it is pointless. I can gladly cancel my policy for a mere $979 cancellation fee…no “we owe you!” This company is a horrible company to have the “power” to lock us in as such astronomical rates. We are a small, local company and I feel trapped to be with i3Verticals. I will NEVER recommend them, and am to the point of letting others know my experience with these people. It is horrible, they do not follow through with what was originally sold to us and I look forward to my contract being up….unfortunately, that is several years down the road:(
Akerr
I Ami in the merchant services industry and just set up a customer that was with I3 Verticals and they to were scammed for an outrageous amount for a terminal that only cost $200 brand new! The main goal for me as a rep is to sit down in person with the customer and show how Credit card payment services works and what true cost is then what processor mark up should be based on the business type. Education is key!