Acquired by Global Payments
TSYS is one of the largest credit card processors in the United States. The company has two primary areas of business. The first, which will be the focus of this review, is its direct sales channel called “TSYS Merchant Solutions.” The second is its processing platform, “TSYS Acquiring Solutions.” It’s important to understand the difference between these two entities because your relationship with the company will be different depending on which channel you’re dealing with. First we’ll cover the acquiring side.
On May 28, 2019, Global Payments announced its acquisition of TSYS in a $21.5 billion all-stock deal. The acquisition had been speculated upon for some time in the months preceding its confirmation. TSYS is among the largest merchant service providers in the world, making Global Payments acquisition of the company a seminal moment for the industry. The announcement follows a flurry of acquisitions among competitors as FiServ announced its acquisition of First Data in January for $22 billion as well as FIS’ acquisition of Worldpay for approximately $35 billion.
Backend Credit Card Processing
TSYS Acquiring Solutions is a merchant acquirer located in Tempe, Arizona. The company specializes in acting as a backend credit card processor for non-acquiring banks, Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs), and companies that create and sell credit card processing technology. In other words, it supplies the credit card processing for other companies that sell merchant services. As a merchant in this scenario, you would have a third party company between you and TSYS that would be setting up and managing your merchant account.
Direct Merchant Services
On the direct sales side, TSYS has its own sales offices with dedicated sales staff that can set up a merchant directly with credit card processing services. This channel is called “TSYS Merchant Solutions” (tsysmerchantsolutions.com). In this scenario, there is no third party company between you and TSYS, and you will be dealing with TSYS directly for account setup and management.
Direct Processing vs TSYS Resellers
It is important to understand that a very large part of TSYS’s business is supplying backend credit card processing services for other sales organizations that resell services to small businesses seeking merchant accounts. In many cases, TSYS does not supply merchant accounts directly to merchants although the TSYS brand name may appear on the merchant account agreement. The banks, subsidiaries, and partners that resell TSYS credit card processing can often set the terms of their own contracts and mark up the processing rates and fees as they please. This practice can cause confusion with merchants as TSYS may have had nothing to do with the terms and pricing of the account. To add to the confusion, some partners manage the customer service of their accounts in-house while others outsource it to TSYS’s Back Office Support program. Depending on the partner, a merchant may either deal with the partner’s customer service or TSYS’s customer service. For the purposes of this review, we’ll focus on TSYS’s back office support and direct sales channel.
TSYS Location and Ownership
TSYS is a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Concord, CA; Synovus Bank, Columbus, GA, First National Bank of Omaha, Omaha, NE; and Deutsche Bank, New York, NY. Headquartered at 1 TSYS Way, Columbus, Georgia, TSYS has been processing credit card payments since the 1970s and is one of one of the few processors listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TSS). TSYS has acquired several other processors in its history, including First National Merchant Solutions (FNMS), Clarity Payment Solutions, Card Tech Ltd., TermNet Merchant Services, ProPay, TransFirst, and, most recently, Cayan. Some of these companies have remained independently branded while others have been absorbed into the TSYS brand name. Jeff Sloan is the current CEO of TSYS.
TSYS Merchant Solutions Review Table of Contents
- Costs & Contract: TSYS typically offers a three-year contract which automatically renews for one year and includes an early termination fee.
- Complaints & Service: TSYS has received more than 40 public complaints.
- BBB Rating: TSYS has an “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau and has received 129 complaints and 9 reviews in the past 3 years.
- Sales & Marketing: TSYS utilizes independent sales agents and has received some complaints about its sales practices.
- Rates & Fees: How Merchants Got The Best Rates With TSYS
Customer service is extremely poor. The reseller does not respond to questions. Customer service directs you back to reseller. They owe me more than $300.00 in bogus fees and charges. As of January 1, 2021 the are charging $54.95 per monthly for some bogus service along with a $7.95 fee for Card Compromise Assist Plan. All of which are a waste. Switching services tomorrow. Been with them for years.
I signed up to accept credit cards for my small business back in 2000 and used this merchant solution account until 2008 when I switched to a Costco account. I thought this account was terminated but seems it wasn’t. TSYS has charged my bank account $66.70 for the last 12 years even though I no longer processed payment through them. They say it is their policy to continue to charge a fee even if I no longer use the systems until they receive a formal termination letter. Since I didn’t catch it, they have effectively charged me over $8000 in fees for something I never used and refuse to refund back charges. they agreed to refund only the last 3 months. My Fault? Maybe. Any recourse for getting a refund from TSYS?
I, like a fool, believed everything the sales rep said. He never told me they were going to run my credit (a hard inquiry at that) that won’t come off till 2021. It made my score drop of course. I’m very upset. I just want others to learn from my down fall! Don’t trust anyone!!
I would never recommend this merchant processing company to anyone. From the jump, my rep with this company was inefficient, bordering on incompetent. I clearly explained the needs of my business to her, and it still took 3 attempts to get me what I needed. Somehow during these initial transition my lease number and Merchant ID were not entered properly into the system by my rep. Therefore ensuring a nerve, fraying experience every time I had to call support whenever there was an issue (of which there were many). After the initial setup, I did not hear from my rep AT ALL. I would call my rep for guidance and would receive a vague text about “meetings”. When your company’s main hook line is “well we are cheaper”….. should have told me all that I need to know. I would never recommend this company to any business owner (small or large). Get square. Its much easier to deal with and I promise you will have less headaches.
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I have had a very bad experience with TSYS. They started charging all of these bogus fees that I did not agree to and was not informed of when I signed their contract more than two years ago. My monthly statement went from costing to $5.00 to $143.00 because. When I called about charges, i was told i should have contacted customer service to opt out of bonus features. There was also charges because I did not complete a survey, which I was completely unaware of until today. I paid roughly $1000 to Cayan/TSYS for things I did not want nor did I authorize.
Customers leaving tips on credit card slips were being double charged for the customer’s entire order. Tsys customer service was contacted and Tsys said the problem was a glitch in the system and they have an update. We had to spend an entire days work giving customers refunds. This error made a lot of merchants look bad and may cost them unfair negative reviews consequently giving the merchants a false bad reputation. It is beyond me why Tsys did not first test their system properly. We all know money is always a motive.
This is a terrible company. I wouldn’t recommend due to poor customer relations. They continued to charge me for months even after i canceled with them. They wouldn’t wave a term fee after only being with them less than a month. If they are that desperate for money, they can’t be doing that well. You only hide behind a contract if you have bad customer service. It doesn’t actually cost them a thing to cancel an account, but it will cost them in good will for any future business i or others scorned won’t give them.
I ordered a POS through them and it wasn’t supposed to be sent untill we were ready. They sent it early and sat in my office for 2-3 weeks. When we were finally ready we used it for 3 days and had to take it down because they didn’t program anything right. I told them in sending it back and want a refund. They said no because I had it for 30 days. They were instructed to send it when I was ready. Now I’m out $2200 for a machine that wasn’t programmed right. When we were ready I had to hire somebody to set it up because I couldn’t figure it out. Come to find out they sent the wrong POS.. So few days later they had to bypass something. So got that fixed then we couldn’t get printers to print in kitchen. Again they sent the wrong printers and had to wait for another week to get the right printers. Get ready to use it on a busy night and the menu and drinks were wrong…drinks and food were not added. Total mess. So now I have this pos that is sitting in my office. I ordered another one through a different company and they are absolutely amazing. My rep was Marybeth Erps and Taylor Frank did nothing to help with all the problems we went through. I am going to leave the Better Businesses Bureau a complaint.
This post will help: Best Payment Processors for Great Customer Service
-Phillip
TSYS never fully activated my service yet continued charging me monthly for the service. I had a customer service representative who never called me back to try to set up my account, and his manager failed to return my calls as well. I called the toll free customer service serveral times and would be placed on hold for 30 minutes plus, then disconnected from the call. No one there seemed to care what happened to my account or how to make it right that I was being charged for a service that was not working. I have never had this kind of experience with any other company in my 11 years as a manager. The most unprofessional, uncaring company I have worked with to date.
This post will help: Cancelling a Merchant Account Without Paying a Fee
-Phillip
Horrible experience from the begin! I have been lied to over and over. I questioned My sales representative Gary Compton several times before I sign up about what fees I would Incur. He repeatedly told me that if I signed up before the end of month that they were running a special that the monthly fee,annual fee and fee for devices would be waived. The only fee that I would be charged would be if I ran any credit cards for purchase which i would be billed 1.7% for each purchase. He said he would send 2 card readers and get me the I formation to set up the app on my phone, tablet ect. And get trained on how to use it.
The 1st month I received one card reader, i didnt run any cards the 1st month. But the 1st month invoice $136 was deducted from my account!! I made several phone calls, emails and text messages to Gary Compton about it. He said to email a copy of the invoice and he would take care of it.
2nd month invoice came and they deducted $83 from my account! I again emailed Gary Comptom and he said that I shouldn’t of been billed any of those fees and he would get it refunded. By end of month still no results so I emailed Gary Compton and he said that it would be refunded on the 1st of month. I waited till the 6..nothing. so I emailed Gary Compton and TSYS and talked to a supervisor Mr Ian Oves. He was going to contact Gary Compton and get back with me to get this resolved. Nothing..
3rd month received another invoice that they deducted $67- I only made one transaction of $340. I emailed Gary Compton, left 3 voice messages in 3 days for Mr Oves and on that friday talked to a escalation manager Brendan. He said he would contact Gary Compton And Mr. Oves and resolve this. I emailed Brendan the last email correspondence chain that I had with Gary Compton showing that I was telling the truth in what I was told. Week later still no resolution. I’m contacting the BBB as well.
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-Phillip