Pivotal Payments, Inc. Ripped off over $900 from our bank account without authorization. Melville, New York

Pivotal Payments was the credit card processor for a small business that we owned and operated. They made a lot of money off of our business from 2005, when we first signed up with them, until earlier this year.  Our business finally failed and we ceased operations, although we left our bank account open because the credit card companies (American Express, Visa, etc.) required us to do so in case there were late returns, requests for refunds, disputes, etc.  When we finally decided to notify Pivotal Payments that our business had closed and we wanted the accounts closed, they told us that we could not close the account because we had signed a contract with a three year commitment to pay their fees.  We told them yes, we did that, but it was in 2005.  They said that they mailed us an account change in 2009 that also started the three year clock ticking again. We told them we did not receive this and would never have agreed to restarting the three year commitment. We asked them again to close the account and not to make any more debits to our bank account.  We have just learned that they put through a charge of over $900 to our account, calling it the "damages" they have incurred by our closing our merchant processing account. There is no valid contractual basis for these "damages." Our business simply failed, and we no longer are in need of credit card processing, so we asked them to close the account. These people are crooks.  No small business owner should, under any circumstances, sign up to have credit card processing provided by Pivotal Payments.  It is not a large enough sum for us to retain our own counsel and pursue the matter in the courts, especially since they are in a different state and their corporate decision makers seem to be in Canada.  However, we would gladly join or agree to be the named plaintiff in a class action suit against these crooks. They need to be put out of business.