Merchant Industry Overview
Merchant Industry May Have Overcharged You
If you accepted credit cards through Merchant Industry or any other credit card processing company between 2017 and 2019, recent changes to the law may entitle you to refunds of certain debit card and credit card processing errors and overcharges. See this post to find out if your were among the businesses affected and to learn how you can get your money back.
All-Purpose and Cash Discount Payment Processing
Merchant Industry is a merchant account provider founded in 2007 that specializes in providing credit card processing and debit card processing services to small businesses within the United States. The company also appears to do business under the name “National E-Payment, Inc.” and possibly resells the merchant services of First Data and TSYS according to the company’s inclusion of those merchant account providers on its website. In May 2017, Merchant Industry launched a DBA called “Swipe4Free” (swipe4free.com) that exclusively promotes a cash discount pricing program. The company also provides Apple Pay integration services to businesses.
Merchant Industry Location and Ownership
Merchant Industry LLC is a registered ISO/MSP of First National Bank of Omaha, NE and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. of Walnut Creek, California, with corporate offices located at 36-36 33rd St., Suite 306, Long Island City, New York, 11106. Leo Vartanov is the founder and CEO of Merchant Industry.
Merchant Industry Review Table of Contents
- Costs & Contract: Merchant Industry offers a three-year contract through First Data that includes a liquidated damages early termination fee.
- Complaints & Service: Merchant Industry has received more than 35 public complaints.
- BBB Rating: Merchant Industry has an “A+” rating and has received 40 complaints and 11 reviews across 2 profiles in the past 3 years. The company’s main profile has been accredited by the BBB since 2015.
- Sales & Marketing: Merchant Industry appears to hire independently contracted agents and has received more than a dozen complaints about its sales team.
- Rates & Fees: How Merchants Got The Best Rates With Merchant Industry
Highly Rated Industry Competitors
Our unbiased reviews are supported, in part, by helping you find highly rated merchant accounts. You can learn more here.
Our Opinion of Merchant Industry
A Low-Rated Option for All Businesses
Merchant Industry rates as a substandard merchant services provider according to all available information. Merchants are reporting a consistent pattern of deceptive practices from the company’s sales agents, and the company’s contract terms are more expensive than industry averages. These issues have resulted in the company receiving a moderate-to-high complaint rate for its size and time in business, and the company’s public responses to these complaints have not demonstrated any serious commitment to customer service. For now, merchants can expect to be better served by a top-rated merchant account provider.
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About Phillip Parker
Thank you for reading my review. I hope that it has helped you with your research.
Why I'm Qualified to Write About Credit Card Processing and Merchant Account Services
I'm a former credit card processing sales director who left the industry because I didn't like how it takes advantage of small business owners. It feeds like a leech on businesses and thrives by imposing fees that are nearly impossible to comprehend. Seeing a need for change, I left and built this website help business owners better understand the industry, research merchant services providers, and get refunds of excessive merchant account fees. My experience of working "behind the curtain" in the industry, and using that knowledge for good, has resulted in millions of dollars returned to hard-working small business owners as well as enterprise-level companies.
From the time that I starting working in the merchant services industry to when I left to create this website, I've been on the pulse of payments for nearly 15 years. It didn't seem fair to keep this "insider" knowledge to myself. To lift the fog, I've reviewed hundreds of companies, read thousands of user reviews, and learned the pricing tricks of every provider. If you have questions about credit card processing, you can find the answers on this website.
Phillip Parker
This is the third merchant service company we have worked with and the best by far. No more turning away sales due to high charges. No long term contracts with high termination fees, not that will ever happen. We are very satisfied with Merchant Industry.
Nothing but positive thing to say about Merchant Industry. They have saved us money while streamlining our point of sale process. We no longer have to wait several days for our cash to be available. Best move we could have made.
Slime of the earth. Company that charges cancellation fees that are about 10X the national average. Talk about bad business practices. Their staff is rude as hell too.
I switched to Merchant Industry because I was losing business by my inability to process small sales. Now I can take a debit or credit card for a small amount without losing money. In the produce business when your average sales is around $10. 00, this really helped. I have been very pleased by the fast availability of funds.
Hi Yaqu,
Please reply to this comment with your business name and location in order to authenticate your testimonial. Thanks!
Excellent merchant processing company. My business falls into the category of high risk. After providing additional information about my business the opened my account. My sales rep was very helpful walking me through the entire process. The rates are good and the virtual terminal is awesome.
Hi Jack,
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This company is very frauduant. I have tried to get them to stop charging my business, but they continue to make unauthorized charges. I have tried to contact them more than 100 times!! they always answer they are reviewing. if you work with this company, you will see your business money will be out of your pocket every day.
This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee
-Phillip
THE BOTTOM LINE
There are multiple reasons to opt for Merchant Industry. From their approval rate and fast turnaround, to their customized processing solutions and state-of-the-art equipment, they offer tons of benefits and cater to multiple types of businesses. Whether your business is online or in-store, it’s likely they’ll be able to provide the right solution for your payment and processing needs.
I read some of these review and I was concerned. But their price was so good that I took a chance anyway. I couldn’t be happier that I did. I have a store and also an online option to sell my goods and they took care of setting up both. When I had an issue with my machine they were responsive and took care of it right away. Even when I called on a weekend. They are solid in my mind 100%.
Hi Roman,
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I could not be happier with the experience I had with Merchant industry. From the first conversation, I was very impressed with the level of professionalism and the the time the team took to answer all questions and inquiries so that I could grow my business. Equally impressive was the customer care experience after making the decision to proceed on with Merchant Industry. The service provided was above and beyond my expectations. I encourage any and all small to medium sized companies to reach out and work with this amazing team!!!
Hi Amy,
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They are an awful company and you should stay far away from them. First I signed with Global payment Solutions who it turns out is at the same office as Merchant Industry. they promise low fees at first but if its to good to be true it is. global locks you into Merchant Industry who then locks you into a 3 year contract. I couldn’t process credit cards and wanted out of the company. they will charge me with almost $3,000 of early termination fees. In the meantime they will be charging for about $50 a month for no services. Their customer service, machinery is just horrible. Run away from this awful company. If you did get scammed call local law enforcement.
From The Editor
This Post Might Help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee
Run from this business! I’ve attempted to resolve issue’s for months for our e-commerce business without any success. Good luck trying to communicate with them as well. You can email them on every issue and beg for a response and you still get ZERO response. I was sent to them by a third party and and now I’m looking at switching because these guys simply don’t care! Sean Puri sent me a new contract back in March 2018 stating new rates and just sign. We signed and we are still being charged the old rates even as of this writing. When asked about our rates Paul informed me that Sean didn’t have us sign the correct documents so he did send them.They put our parent companies name on the credit card report so now I’ve been flooded with customers calling stating they didn’t purchase anything from that company. This has also led to three charge-backs at $35. per charge which is totally their fault however they seem unable to make this change which I’ve asked since March/April 2018 time frame.
I’ve dealt with Nafisa Sanchez, Paul Kanevsky and Sean Puri and all three don’t seem to care about fixing it.
SO IF YOUR LOOKING FOR A CREDIT CARD PROCESSOR RUN FROM THIS COMPANY! I’d say that one could accuse them of being a scam or ripoff as your under contract for one rate however they charge you another.
I’ve given them sufficient time frame to fix their mistakes and even just yesterday I asked them for feedback on the over charges on our invoice which I sent to the three names above and as of this writing NONE of the three even cared to state they received my email.
I’m even moving towards talking with my attorney on this issue about them as we’re now talking about a decent amount of cash in fee’s they really owe me for overbilling.
If I could give zero star rating I would have. Just look at all the other people who have given them exceptionally bad reviews. You think they have a problem!
I am so glad I found this page. I made a mistake and called this company thinking I was calling my bank BB&T. I was trying to return a machine that was sent to me by my bank. The sales Rep deceived me into thinking I was talking with BB&T. He asked for my merchant number and when he realized that it was not their service he switched my Merchant number to their companie’s service, Instead of telling me that I had called them by mistake. He then asked me to return the bb&t Merchant Service machine to them, now they are saying they do not have the machine. I have contacted the CEO of their company and a lawyer in NYC. I have put together a case along with recordings of the deception. They did not tell me that they have a 30-90 day cancellation policy. They also tried to get me to cancel with BB&T and promised to pay the cancellation fees. I am very disappointed and cannot believe that this is happening. I am going to fight to see how far I can go to stop this from happening to anyone else. Is there a class action suit out there on these people? I am being threatened by them to pay $750.00 cancellation Fees.The sales Representative is Spencer and the Manager is Paul.
Its June 2018 , called to get credit card machine download to use their company in January 2018.
All they have managed to do is lie about the services ai would get and the cost.
They downlaided the machine finally in May , but did not include the EBT account which is why I really needed this anyway . Then said my machine wouldnt work ( its brand new) but they never tried to redownload . They then said I needed to by a machine and the cost added up to almost 2000.00 for a (200.00 machine).
I was like I Am not buying a machine .
I asked to just cancel and forget it , Then I was told it would cost 700.00 early termination fee , FOR WHAT YOU DID NOT PROVIDE ME WITH THE SERVICE . However they did deduct 34.98 x 6 months for inactivity fee , which the Account Manager said specifically that the only charges i would have was when i swiped a card, so he lied from day one. Inactivity fee , that is ridiculous when I could not use the machine . I lost that money , the money Inpaid fir the machine , as well as the business just from EBT alone , approximately 1200.00 more dollars .
I have called called and called , no reply .
The time someone answered warned me this conversation is being recorded, ok good then pull all the conversations I had with Craig , help desk and finially Morgan the retention specialist. She was going to help me get it all straight , That was going on 2 weeks ago , and she hasn’t returned any of my calls.
I am done with these people .
Horrible , the way they took advantage of me and my company.
DO NOT do business with this company. They are literally white collar criminals: Sean Puri and Bill Grey are unethical and have zero customer service skills.
stay away from this company it is the worst I’ve known. if you have a small business they do not help you grow. i canceled my account but they still charging even without activity, when I called they told me that since the day i canceled it takes a month to make the cancellation effective but in the meantime they still charge you.
Maria is correct! This company is a total scam! The salesperson misrepresented the program and when I talked to the supervisor she just said “that is in the past”.
They are criminals.
I was promised a one year contract with this new service, Terence Gumbs was my account manager and did a very poor job at that. I would leave several messages for him and never would get a response. Would finally have to call someone else to get my issues taken care of. Because of his lack of duty with this company they lost our credit card processing services and then have decided that they will charge me the 300 early termination, even after he assured me multiple times that we only had a 1 year contract with them. Once i was digging around tryin to find out when my one year contract was up, the date they gave me was a month later than when I actually signed the paperwork. I was just fed up with them and ready to do business with someone I know i can trust and will take care of me. so very disguisted with this company really from day 1. They hit me with an early termination fee yet they still dont show that i have cancelled my acct. REALLY???
Merchant Industry really came through for me when I needed them the most. I am a start up business owner and I needed to get all of my accounting in order as well as be able to process credit cards. I called and they provided a free credit card terminal and have the best service including cash advance if we need it. I was blown away; it just doesn’t get any better than this. It has been a great help.
Jessie (or Justin Clark according to you email address),
Please reply to this comment with your business name and location in order to authenticate your testimonial. Thanks!
Merchant Industry as well as ” Statewide Merchant” “Bank card” is the one takes your money from your bank account. they get you confused there. They gave me a contract of $39.00 dollars a month plus .3 visa and other card charges. I did around $780.00 on a credit card transaction and got a $195.00 fee!!!!
then They never paid the first company which charged me early termination fee and e maid me they can only pay $25.00 per a month . I canceled them and so far they took $250 and another $200.00 dollars out of my bank.
I kept all the e-mails and looking to find the way give them back the stress and get my hard working money back.
they are just a big scam even 100 dollars from one person think 20,000,000 people fall in to their trap. that is a lot of money which they earn with dishonesty. Some one will sue them big in future.
I needed to accept credit cards for my business and I wasn’t sure which equipment would be best for me. I called Merchant Industry in New York and they couldn’t have been more helpful. We discussed my business and what would save me the most amount of money. After comparing rates and fees with other providers, it was a no brainer. These guys are hands down the best that I found and I still use them today. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Hi Thomas,
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Absolute worst merchant card processing company I have had the unfortunate misfortune to deal with. Promised a lot of really great deals. Guaranteed a savings of $150 a month over my then current company. In actuality it cost me $150-$200 more per month. Promised free debit machine tape. Yes, after calling three different people I finally got the paper 4 weeks later and a whole 5 rolls of paper. I would have to call every 2 days in order to keep us in free paper. It was impossible to reach my rep. I left several messages regarding what I thought were overcharges. I never got a call back from my rep. I finally spoke with a different rep who did indeed acknowledge I had been overcharged. Promised to look at my account in more detail and call be back the next day. She never called me back and I have yet to see the credit. I was guaranteed next day batch deposits. However all deposits hit my account 2 to 3 days after I closed the batch. They then started charging extra fees. I had enough and began the process of severing the contract. I gave them their 10 day notice in writing. I closed my account in October and received an automatic deduction out of my account for $780 in early November as a one time cancellation fee. I again received another automatic deduction for $58.49 in December. I have since refused that ACH charge and am taking steps ensure they can not continue to take money from the account. I have read from others in my same position the only way to stop this from happening is to close my checking account. These guys are the worst and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND anyone looking to do business with these guys to think twice and say NO.
how you find the solution at the end? will they refund you the termination fee since they did not honor what the promised you from the contract? I have the same issues with this company, they promised a lot of things and signed the contract, they keep overcharged me every month, they said I have saved more than $150 every month if I switched to them but ended up I paying even more than what I was paying. They are just scam