UPDATE 3/12/2019: The SuitePay website is currently inaccessible, but it was available as recently as December 2018. We have found no evidence that the company has gone out of business, so we will continue to monitor the situation until we have clearer information. If you have any information about SuitePay’s status, please share it in the comment section below this review. For now, we are withholding a rating until the company’s site returns.
International E-Commerce Specialists
Incorporated in the U.S. and UK in 2014, SuitePay (suitepay.com) is a payment service provider that specializes in international e-commerce payment processing. The company also serves high risk business types that require offshore processing. SuitePay is capable of setting merchants up with merchant accounts through banks around the world and is partnered with multiple acquiring banks in order to serve its broad merchant base.
Potential Lawsuit
In June 2018, a multilevel marketing company “My Online Business Education,” also known as MOBE, was charged with cheating consumers out of over $125 million. The company, a self-designated business education program made misleading claims that its customers would make “substantial income” and stated it would teach them “everything they need to know to become multi-millionaires” after paying an initial $49 fee to access a “proven” 21-step program. MOBE then pressured customers into purchasing additional memberships, seminars, and private memberships, with costs ranging from $2,500 to over $64,000, not including monthly subscription fees. The company did not deliver on its promises, but instead left consumers with massive debts after pushing them to invest in higher levels of MOBE programming. SuitePay served as one of the company’s payment processors and collected over $1.6 million in credit card receipts for MOBE. The payment service provider has reportedly absconded with the money. The case’s receiver is investigating the claim against SuitePay, but it is not yet known whether a criminal complaint will be filed against the credit card processor.
BBB Rating: SuitePay has an “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau and has received zero complaints in the past three years.
Rates & Fees: How Merchants Got The Best Rates With SuitePay
SuitePay Customer Reviews
Customer Reviews Summary
Total Online Complaints
<10
Live Customer Support
Yes
Most Common Complaint
N/A
Low Complaint Total
We are currently able to locate a handful of negative SuitePay reviews, none of which accuse the company of being an out-and-out scam or ripoff. Nearly all of the available complaints are related to withheld funds, and at least three of them appear to stem from the United Arab Emirates situation explained in the previous section. As has been already stated, it is hard to fault SuitePay for fund holds enacted by a separate company. However, the available complaints do seem to suggest that the affected merchants are frustrated with the lack of clear, timely information about when the funds will be released.
SuitePay Support Options
To the extent that SuitePay could have managed these complaints better by communicating the full situation to merchants from the start, we have lowered its grade in this section. The company offers phone and email contact information to its merchants, but some merchants have stated that these channels are not readily available at all hours. SuitePay’s support options are therefore not sufficient to qualify it as a top-rated merchant account provider for customer service.
SuitePay Customer Satisfaction Ratings
Online Ratings Summary
Product & Service Complaints
0
Billing & Collection Complaints
0
Advertising & Sales Complaints
0
Guarantee & Warranty Complaints
0
Delivery Complaints
0
No BBB Complaints
SuitePay currently has an “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau and is not BBB accredited. The company has received zero complaints in the past three years. SuitePay has also not received any informal reviews on its BBB profile.
An “A” Performance
Given the company’s clean complaint record, we agree with the BBB’s rating at this time. Merchants should note, however, that there are good reasons to be skeptical of the BBB’s rating system.
SuitePay Fees, Rates & Contract
Rates & Fees Summary
Swipe Rate
Variable
Keyed-in Rate
Variable
Early Termination Fee
Variable
PCI Compliance Fee
Variable
Equipment Lease Terms
Variable
SuitePay Contract Terms
There is very little publicly available information about the standard SuitePay merchant account contract. The company posts the terms of use for its own payment products on its website, but these terms do not apply to the merchant accounts offered by SuitePay’s partners. SuitePay’s own payment software can be cancelled for free at any time and comes with transaction limits that can be lifted if a user supplies additional information to the company.
Variable Pricing
SuitePay’s focus on a wide range of business types across different global and industrial sectors means that its contract terms are subject to a great degree of variation depending on each merchants business type, size, and processing history. As a general rule, though, high risk and e-commerce merchants can expect to pay higher-than-average per-transaction fees, and they may have cash reserves placed on their accounts to guard against chargebacks. For this reason, merchants should not expect SuitePay to offer pricing that can compete with the cheapest merchant accounts in the industry. Merchants who accept a large amount of international payments may pay additional fees related to currency conversion, and merchants who use offshore bank accounts are subject to foreign banking regulations.
Abu Dhabi Issue
One specific foreign banking incident generated several SuitePay complaints in mid-2016. According to merchant complaints, one of SuitePay’s partner banks located in the United Arab Emirates placed holds on a large amount of customers’ funds and claimed that it would release the funds once there was no risk of chargebacks. This fund hold lasted longer than merchants expected, and the most recent reports about the issue stated that SuitePay was engaged in legal efforts to pressure the bank to release the full amounts. The outcome of this standstill is unclear at this time.
Foreign Banking Risks
On one hand, SuitePay appears to be partially at fault for matching merchants with an offshore bank that has proven to be exceptionally unreliable. On the other hand, the volatility associated with foreign banking practices is a basic risk assumed by all high risk merchants who use an offshore processor. It’s hard to fully fault SuitePay for the delays caused by its United Arab Emirates banking partner, but that makes no difference to the merchant whose funds have been frozen. High risk merchants should be aware that this type of holdup is a possibility with any offshore bank.
Send Us Your Contracts
If you have any specific knowledge of the standard SuitePay merchant account agreement (including any early termination fees or PCI compliance fees), please share that information in the comment section below this review.
SuitePay Employee Reviews & Sales Practices
Jobs & Marketing Summary
Employs Independent Resellers
Yes
Advertises Deceptive Rates
No
Discloses All Important Terms
No
Strategic Partnerships
SuitePay appears to primarily market itself via strategic partnerships with banks, ISOs, marketing agencies, and business service providers. There is no evidence at this time that the company employs a large team of independently contracted sales agents, but it is possible that the ISOs it partners with have their own independent resellers.
No Deceptive Quotes
We cannot find any SuitePay complaints that describe unethical conduct by the company’s sales team. This suggests that any problems that may occur within SuitePay’s network do not originate with SuitePay itself. As an additional point in the company’s favor, it does not list any misleading rate quotes or unrealistic guarantees on its website. We will assign the company an “A” rating at this time, but if you suspect that SuitePay is charging you undisclosed fees, we recommend seeking an independent statement audit to find and eliminate fees.
SuitePay Review Summary
Good Choice for High Risk Merchants
SuitePay rates as a reliable high risk e-commerce merchant services provider according to our rating criteria. The company is showing a low complaint total online, and the few complaints that have been filed seem to stem from a single incident. SuitePay appears to perform at a level comparable to the top high risk processors. Merchants who operate in high risk industries are advised to familiarize themselves with the risks related to digital payments in those industries before signing up for any services.
Top Performing SuitePay Competitors
Reader Comments, Testimonials & Complaints
1 User Reviews
Roger Lundberg
I invested in SuitePay, Inc in 2013 on the basis of some very aggressive business plans. After a couple of months, the company stopped providing updates. Recent attempts to contact any of the principals are a dead end. Now the website is down. I visited the address listed as Co. headquarters at 15 Enterprise Suite 430, Aliso Viejo, CA to find that it was newly occupied by a different company, who told me no one had occupied the office since March of 2018.
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Roger Lundberg
I invested in SuitePay, Inc in 2013 on the basis of some very aggressive business plans. After a couple of months, the company stopped providing updates. Recent attempts to contact any of the principals are a dead end. Now the website is down. I visited the address listed as Co. headquarters at 15 Enterprise Suite 430, Aliso Viejo, CA to find that it was newly occupied by a different company, who told me no one had occupied the office since March of 2018.