Merchant Associates

We have been doing business with Merchant Associates for almost 5years. We have been very pleased with the services and rates they have provided. Response time to any questions or concerns have been dealt with promptly and professionally, We have recently sold our shop and have discontinued our services. We would like to thank the team at Merchant Associates that have helped us over the years, and a Special thank-you to Samantha S (customer Service Manager) for making the final transition of having to close our account, as simple and painless as possible. She a great asset for the Merchant Associates team.

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/ 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 stepsFirst 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]

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 ***, not [redacted] Assuming that the business' reply was about the conversation with ***, 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 companyTheir response saying their problematic call to us was OK because we used to have an account with them is simply not correct 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 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 $and transfer the lease to Merchant Associates so they are not making the payments

This merchant has been using a [redacted] credit card terminal since June 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/ [redacted] emailed us at 12:pm because he was trying to accept the new chip cards At 2:pm that same day we responded with the following: ***, 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 unless they were calling us from a line other than their business line we have no record of it

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 $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 $- a sum that is at least ten times the value of the leased equipment Regards, [redacted]

This complaint is completely 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

[redacted] returned this call at 10:AM on September 30th by [redacted] , not only was it a pleasant conversation that lasted for 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)

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 padThe most puzzling part of this really is the communication between our 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 $and transfer the lease to Merchant Associates so they are not making the payments

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 downloadMerchant 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 promisesThe 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 willDesired resolution: 1) refund the $contract termination fee, as they failed to fulfill the contract, and 2) terminate the equipment lease, since the leased equipment does not function as promisedMerchant 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 $- a sum that is at least ten times the value of the leased equipment Regards, [redacted]

We are showing that the money was transferred to the merchant on March 18th The only reason they were charged a monthly fee was because we were waiting for the credit card terminal to be mailed back to us We have told the merchant we are more than happy to refund all the charges if they give us the tracking number on that terminal After a review of our call logs we feel it is incorrect to say they have "spoken to several reps" unless there were other calls made that were not on their main business line In addition Merchant Associates has never received any letters from [redacted] ***

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 $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 $early termination fee