A Rapidly Growing Payment Processor
Also known as Paysafe Group, Paysafe is a UK-based merchant account provider that has acquired multiple large payment processing subsidiaries during the past five years. The company was formed in 2015 as a rebranding of Optimal Payments, and it was subsequently acquired in August 2017 by 2 private equity firms called The Blackstone Group and CVC Capital Partners. Its major acquisitions under both the Optimal Payments and Paysafe brands include Skrill, Meritus Payment Solutions, MeritCard Solutions, Merchants’ Choice Payment Solutions, and, most recently, iPayment.
Paysafe Headquarters and Ownership
Paysafe is a registered ISO/MSP of BBVA USA, Decatur, AL; Wells Fargo, N.A., Concord, CA; Woodforest National Bank, Houston, TX; BMO Harris Bank, N.A, Chicago, IL; and Merrick Bank, Woodbury, NY. The company is headquartered at 41 Victoria St, Douglas, Isle of Man IM1 2LH. Philip McHugh is the CEO of Paysafe. Joel Leonoff, who has also served as the CEO of Skrill, founded the company in 1997.
Paysafe Review Table of Contents
- Costs & Contract: Paysafe offers variable pricing terms among its many products and services.
- Complaints & Service: Paysafe has received more than 100 public complaints.
- BBB Rating: At our last update Paysafe’s California location had an “A+” rating and received 28 complaints and 9 reviews in the last 3 years. Currently the Better Business Bureau profile is in update mode and not accessible for complaints or reviews. The company has been accredited by the Better Business Bureau since 2010.
- Sales & Marketing: Paysafe maintains different sales practices at each of its subsidiary organizations.
- Rates & Fees: How Merchants Got The Best Rates With Paysafe
DO NOT under any circumstances work with this company.
I’ve been with them for nearly 2 years. The sales rep quoted a fixed rate and set up my terminal. He did not abide by a fixed rate. They have been charging me 4%!
The terminal was set up to batch at a “non-qualified rate” that has cost me thousands of dollars. They set it up this way.
Plus, the sales guy told me I could get out of the contract month by month and then signed me up for 3 years.
THEY TOTALLY LIED TO ME.
Would never recommend or use this company again!! They wasn’t depositing my funds and when I asked the representative (Ginny) from The Woodlands location about it, she became very disrespectful. I asked for a supervisor and was not only denied, but she had my funds held for over 180 days because of it. Not only that, somehow a lot of my batches mysteriously “vanished “ from their system, but their still in my terminal. I had to report them to the FTC and file an IC3 against them. I hope that they all get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!! Getting over on their customers especially at a time like this?? Straight heartless!!
Very dissatisfied with Paysafe customer service or lack of. We have had funds held for months with no helpful responses after many attempts to resolve or minimally, talk to someone.
Joan,
We have a guide put together to help PayPal users get their funds released.
I just paysafe zero star review I’d like to start by introducing myself on Nathan with above and beyond renovations Inc and I’ve had nothing but a horrible experience with this company I quite possibly think that they might be scamming small businesses they have a contract that doesn’t even have my signature on it but I have a copy of my contract with them and it does have my signature in our contracts do not look the same now for the last two months I’ve been trying to pay the $495 fee that I wasn’t aware of when I signed up with paysafe to cancel their services and they’re refusing to take the payment in a timely fashion and in turn I’m inquiring extra monthly fees while I’m waiting for them to cancel my contract with them I would absolutely not recommend this company to anyone on this planet or therefore in the milky way galaxy thank you very much and have a nice day pay safe will be lucky if they don’t hear from my attorney
Nathan,
This article may help: How to cancel a merchant account without paying a fee.
-Phillip
This review is for Paysafe Merchant Service provider. The company is an absolute SCAM.
1. They charge you much more that you agreed, you will be buried in hidden and unexpected fees.
2. They constant lie, starting with the sales rep, ending with every call center representative. I caught them so many times on lies.
3. They unlawfully withheld some of my transactions, not paying them out to me, telling lies about the reason why (I have proof).
4. They signed me up for a bunch of services that they call free, and guess what, I started to get billed monthly by all of them shortly after.
5. You will spend hours and hours on hold with their support, who would NEVER SOLVE ANYTHING over the phone. They always say they need to contact some other department and they will get back to you within the next 24-4 hours. And they never do, as the issues are never solved either.
The easiest way to get out of all this mess is to close your bank account.
The are holding over $130k in funds due to 4% chargebacks. Do the math, its incredible they can destroy a business over something like this. WORST F****** COMPANY I HAVE EVER WORKED WITH IN 20 YEARS.
stay away from this processing company I cancelled and keep charging fees my only option will be to close my bank account
This is not a good choice when it comes to merchant services. I would not recommend them to anyone. I faxed and emailed closure form in the beginning of October yet they say they did not close the account until Oct 31. So this is their reasoning for charging my account due to me not wanting to continue services with them. I told the man when he called to set it up “I have read reviews on the service you plan to put me with and I do not want to continue this account”. All of a sudden a charge on my account. This was in September. Do not use Paysafe. They are not safe.
To my opinion, trust score for this company should be ZERO. The company’s unethical practices brought me financial losses.
The relationship started with a few unauthorized charges that nobody from Paysafe could ever explain or refund.
They continued by me finding out that NOT ALL settled transaction are paid out. So Paysafe receives my customer’s money but not paying it out to me. Tried to resolve this issues in the course of a few weeks, spent over 6 hours on the phone with support who straight up lied. Every representative would come up with a different excuse and try to brush me off saying that they will resolve the issue within 48 hours and will contact me back. As you may have guess, nobody ever resolved the issues or contacted me.
Support would admit the issue over the phone but refuse to email me a written affirmation admitting the issue has happened. The whole situation looks extremely shady and practices employed resemble scammers. My month-long collaboration with this company resulted in a financial loss.
Trust score should be ZERO. The company’s unethical practices brought me financial losses.
The relationship started with a few unauthorized charges that nobody from Paysafe could ever explain or refund.
They continued by me finding out that NOT ALL settled transaction are paid out. So Paysafe receives my customer’s money but not paying it out to me. Tried to resolve this issues in the course of a few weeks, spent over 6 hours on the phone with support who straight up lied. Every representative would come up with a different excuse and try to brush me off saying that they will resolve the issue within 48 hours and will contact me back. As you may have guess, nobody ever resolved the issues or contacted me.
Support would admit the issue over the phone but refuse to email me a written affirmation admitting the issue has happened. The whole situation looks extremely shady and practices employed resemble scammers. My month-long collaboration with this company resulted in a financial loss.