Merchant Associates Inc

Not only have I seen a lot of savings but whenever I have a question there is always someone at Merchant Associates to help me

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below
Given that most of my communication is in writing, it's rather frustrating that the merchant chooses to misquote my complaint so often My original complaint does not say that I called a dozen times, but that I emailed AND called a dozen times My sent email folder shows that I contacted them on 10/5, 12/23, 12/29, 12/31, and 1/ The balance were phone calls, most often resulting in leaving messages that were not returned (sorry, we do not maintain call logs; prior to this incident, we've had no reason to do so) On the occasions that they called back or I was able to speak with someone, they claimed lack of knowledge or lack of authority, and promised someone would get back to me, but that never happened, which is why we gave up trying to reach them and instead filed the complaint with the Revdex.com As for the terminal not accepting chip cards, we tried it many times and it didn't even recognize them That's when I first called the number on the terminal and spent minutes on hold and being transferred to several different call centers When they were unable to help, I e-mailed the merchant and received the following response: "I am currently calling
to make sure the back end of the file is correct (support emv). I will
then be happy to walk you through three different steps.. First tho I need to
change out your pin pad to the EMV one since you take pin debit. I will
gladly ship that to you today and once you receive it we will then do the
updates." You'll see where the merchant admits that to make the terminal accept chip cards they need to change the pin pad AND THEN they'll do the updates They never shipped us the pin pad I know they claim they downloaded the software, but nobody here remembers that happening, and they can't name anyone they spoke to about that So the merchant agrees that the terminal DOES NOT accept chip cards unless BOTH new hardware AND software are added, at least one of which never happened
Regards,
*** ***

Merchant Associates has taken over my credit card processing and I have had Zero problemsCustomers service is good when I need them

We both agree that *** *** does not have an account, the issue is *** said she had an account in the beginning of the call as previously mentioned This call was recorded and Merchant Associates would be happy to play back the recording if requested

This company does NOT appear to be legit! The homepage of their website has a 1-that does not go throughWhen I asked the rep about it, they said this was not their websiteHowever it has their logo right on itIt appears to me that they are fraudulent and send customers to different websites all with the same company name MA DIRECT to achieve what they wantAfter I sent them my statements from my current credit card processor, my website was attacked with over attempted hacks per hourNow I am having to upgrade the security on my website and pay for a monitoring serviceNone of which I have ever had an issue with in the past years of being in businessCoincidence? Maybe but what legit company would allow websites with very similar names to operate using the same logo and one of them to not have a working customer service number?
www.merchantassociates.net
www.madirect.net
someone needs to look into this company!

Merchant Associates is a great companyFriendly costumer service and very helpful If you are a small business owner and pay outrageous rates, they can help you I didn't believe it at firstI thought they were trying to sell me another machineTurned out not to be the case at allMy saving are amazing!

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear belowMy secretary is named ***, not ***Assuming that the business' reply was about the conversation with ***, I am still unsatisfied because the only merchant services account that *** *** has ever had is still current, and it's with another company, not this companyTheir response saying their problematic call to us was OK because we used to have an account with them is simply not correct.
Regards,
*** ***

I have been processing with Merchant Associates and have been happy with the service I am gettingI was a little skeptical at first but after receiving my first months statement I am happy with the savings! The customer service is excellent!

This complaint is completely false for a couple of reasons, first of all Merchant Associates does not have an employee named [redacted] and there was never anyone by that name that ever worked here.  Second, employees using personal phones for any reason is strictly prohibited. ...

If it is brought to our attention immediate would be taken but we can't ask this name which we believe was completely made up.  Third, we would never call a business twice and  tell them that they process credit cards with us when they do not.  It is possible a [redacted] called them from a different company and they have filed a complaint against the wrong business.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
I would be happy to listen to the recorded call between the business' associate and "[redacted]," however I can tell you that whatever was said, the fact is that we have never had an account with this business and the sales call they placed to us under the guise of a "risk management" call from "merchant services" about our account was deceptive. Such a call seems to be a call from the risk management center of a merchant services department in a payment processing company about a specific account. From our perspective this is a dishonest attempt to get callbacks from businesses who would not otherwise return sales calls. [redacted] reports that she began the callback to this business by verifying that we do not have an account with the business. I sincerely doubt she told the business that we used to have an account with them, because 1) [redacted] is fairly new to our company and would not have any knowledge of this even if it were true, and 2) it most certainly is not true. However, regardless of what was said when she called, and regardless of whether or not we have a past account with this business (which again we do not), this complaint is about the practice of disguising sales calls as risk management calls. Whether or not we have a past account is entirely beside the point: the call the business placed was a sales call but pretended to be otherwise, and that is not appropriate. 
Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Given that most of my communication is in writing, it's rather frustrating that the merchant chooses to misquote my complaint so often.  My original complaint does not say that I called a dozen times, but that I emailed AND called a dozen times.  My sent email folder shows that I contacted them on 10/5, 12/23, 12/29, 12/31, and 1/4.  The balance were phone calls, most often resulting in leaving messages that were not returned (sorry, we do not maintain call logs; prior to this incident, we've had no reason to do so).  On the occasions that they called back or I was able to speak with someone, they claimed lack of knowledge or lack of authority, and promised someone would get back to me, but that never happened, which is why we gave up trying to reach them and instead filed the complaint with the Revdex.com.  
As for the terminal not accepting chip cards, we tried it many times and it didn't even recognize them.  That's when I first called the number on the terminal and spent 75 minutes on hold and being transferred to several different call centers.  When they were unable to help, I e-mailed the merchant and received the following response: "I am currently calling
to make sure the back end of the file is correct (support emv).  I will
then be happy to walk you through three different steps.. First tho I need to
change out your pin pad to the EMV one since you take pin debit.  I will
gladly ship that to you today and once you receive it we will then do the
updates."  You'll see where the merchant admits that to make the terminal accept chip cards they need to change the pin pad AND THEN they'll do the updates.  They never shipped us the pin pad.  I know they claim they downloaded the software, but nobody here remembers that happening, and they can't name anyone they spoke to about that.  So the merchant agrees that the terminal DOES NOT accept chip cards unless BOTH new hardware AND software are added, at least one of which never happened.
Regards,
[redacted]

[redacted] returned this call at 10:37 AM on September 30th by [redacted], not only was it a pleasant conversation that lasted for 8 minutes but [redacted] DID say she used to have an account.  This was said in the beginning of the conversation.  We would like to clear up any...

confusion between [redacted] and [redacted] however [redacted] is no longer with us.  Also we believe there is some confusion between [redacted] (who originally returned the call) and [redacted] (the individual making this complaint).

As mentioned above [redacted] "offered the use of his credit card machine."  This is a violation of [redacted] guidelines for him to do.  He signed paperwork that only he would use that merchant account.  It is also mentioned above that the businesses "are...

not tied together in any way."  However they went out of their way to give us the routing and account number for [redacted] to use with that merchant account for all debits and credits.  We were just doing what [redacted] told us to do.  Despite all of this we still issued a credit of $352.69 back to [redacted] which was all she was asking for.  [redacted] said she would drop this complaint in a phone call on March 29th.  In addition we cancelled the merchant account without charging the $295 early termination fee.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Merchant says "They are stating that this terminal does not take the new chip cards however this is false, it can accept those cards which was explained to an employee."  No, the terminal has never been able to accept chip cards.  We tried many times before contacting them.  Merchant says "They have stated that no download was done on the credit card terminal, this also is false.  A download was completed."  I have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.  In their email they said "First tho I need to change out your pin pad to the EMV one since you take pin debit.  I will gladly ship that to you today and once you receive it we will then do the updates."  We never received a pin pad, so I have no reason to believe we would have done the download.Merchant says  "In addition a PIN pad was shipped out to them at our expense.  They are stating that they lost patience as they never received the PIN pad that we shipped, however we were never notified that they did not receive the PIN pad."  My boss was tired of them not doing what they said they would, and switched processors rather than continue trying to get them to fulfill their promises.The facts remain: 1) they leased us a terminal that did not accept chip cards as promised, 2) they did not ship the pin pad as promised, 3) we switched to another card processor who can do what they say they will.Desired resolution: 1) refund the $295 contract termination fee, as they failed to fulfill the contract, and 2) terminate the equipment lease, since the leased equipment does not function as promised.Merchant Associates says they have no control over the lease, however the leasing company is their partner and they initiated the equipment lease (we would have had no other way of finding them).  The buyout on the equipment lease is $1200 - a sum that is at least ten times the value of the leased equipment.
Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.Merchant says "They are stating that this terminal does not take the new chip cards however this is false, it can accept those cards which was explained to an employee."  No, the terminal has never been able to accept chip cards.  We tried many times before contacting them.  
Merchant says "They have stated that no download was done on the credit card terminal, this also is false.  A download was completed."  I have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.  In their email they said "First tho I need to change out your pin pad to the EMV one since you take pin debit.  I will gladly ship that to you today and once you receive it we will then do the updates."  We never received a pin pad, so I have no reason to believe we would have done the download.
Merchant says  "In addition a PIN pad was shipped out to them at our expense.  They are stating that they lost patience as they never received the PIN pad that we shipped, however we were never notified that they did not receive the PIN pad."  My boss was tired of them not doing what they said they would, and switched processors rather than continue trying to get them to fulfill their promises.
The facts remain: 1) they leased us a terminal that did not accept chip cards as promised, 2) they did not ship the pin pad as promised, 3) we switched to another card processor who can do what they say they will.
Desired resolution: 1) refund the $295 contract termination fee, as they failed to fulfill the contract, and 2) terminate the equipment lease, since the leased equipment does not function as promised.
Merchant Associates says they have no control over the lease, however the leasing company is their partner and they initiated the equipment lease (we would have had no other way of finding them).  The buyout on the equipment lease is $1200 - a sum that is at least ten times the value of the leased equipment.
Regards,
[redacted]

The merchant says "The fact remains they leased us a terminal that did not accept chip cards as promised".  As I mentioned previously this is not true, I have attached information about the [redacted] please see the second bullet point this terminal can accept chip cards.  In addition I have attached a picture of where you would insert the card.  To say that the "equipment does not function as promised" is false.  This fact can be triple checked by calling [redacted] (manufacturer)directly .  Receiving the PIN pad to accept PIN debit cards and accepting EMV cards are two completely different things.  They could have always accepted EMV even while they were waiting for the PIN pad. The most puzzling part of this really is the communication between our 2 organizations, as they stated they "called at least a dozen times."  If this is true and they called our local office here that many times I could see where he is coming from.  If he could provide those call logs as they stated that I can reference that they were trying to contact us for whatever reason then I will agree to refund the $295 and transfer the lease to Merchant Associates so they are not making the payments.

As mentioned above [redacted] "offered the use of his credit card machine."  This is a violation of [redacted] guidelines for him to do.  He signed paperwork that only he would use that merchant account.  It is also mentioned above that the...

businesses "are not tied together in any way."  However they went out of their way to give us the routing and account number for [redacted] to use with that merchant account for all debits and credits.  We were just doing what [redacted] told us to do.  Despite all of this we still issued a credit of $352.69 back to [redacted] which was all she was asking for.  [redacted] said she would drop this complaint in a phone call on March 29th.  In addition we cancelled the merchant account without charging the $295 early termination fee.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.My secretary is named [redacted], not [redacted]. Assuming that the business' reply was about the conversation with [redacted], I am still unsatisfied because the only merchant services account that [redacted] has ever had is still current, and it's with another company, not this company. Their response saying their problematic call to us was OK because we used to have an account with them is simply not correct. 
Regards,
[redacted]

This merchant has been using a  [redacted] credit card terminal since June 2014.  They are stating that this terminal does not take the new chip cards however this is false, it can accept those cards which was explained to an employee.  They have stated that no...

download was done on the credit card terminal, this also is false.  A download was completed.  In addition a PIN pad was shipped out to them at our expense.  They are stating that they lost patience as they never received the PIN pad that we shipped, however we were never notified that they did not receive the PIN pad.  Instead they switched credit card processors.  Our policy on lost shipments is to immediately ship new equipment and track down the missing package later.   On 10/5/15 [redacted] emailed us at 12:17 pm because he was trying to accept the new chip cards.  At 2:29 pm that same day we responded with the following:
[redacted],
I am soooo sorry for your troubles.  I would be happy to help you update your
terminal however I would rather do this via a phone call with me. 
I
will not transfer you to any terminal support.  I will be your terminal
support.  I am currently calling to make sure the back end of the file is
correct (support emv).  I will then be happy to walk you through three different
steps.. 
First
tho I need to change out your pin pad to the EMV one since you take pin debit. 
I will gladly ship that to you today and once you receive it we will then do the
updates. 
Again
I am sorry for any irritation terminal support gives you.  I always recommend
out merchants call me first to avoid that such situation. 
 
 To say that they have emailed and called "at least a dozen" times is also false unless they were calling us from a line other than their business line we have no record of it.

The merchant says "The fact remains they leased us a terminal that did not accept chip cards as promised".  As I mentioned previously this is not true, I have attached information about the [redacted] please see the second bullet point this terminal can accept chip cards.  In addition I have attached a picture of where you would insert the card.  To say that the "equipment does not function as promised" is false.  This fact can be triple checked by calling [redacted] (manufacturer)directly .  Receiving the PIN pad to accept PIN debit cards and accepting EMV cards are two completely different things.  They could have always accepted EMV even while they were waiting for the PIN pad.
 
The most puzzling part of this really is the communication between our 2 organizations, as they stated they "called at least a dozen times."  If this is true and they called our local office here that many times I could see where he is coming from.  If he could provide those call logs as they stated that I can reference that they were trying to contact us for whatever reason then I will agree to refund the $295 and transfer the lease to Merchant Associates so they are not making the payments.