Bank of America Merchant Services - First Data BAMS, First Data Merchant Processing, Merchant Services, Mileage, Expenses, Early Termination Fee's, Hidden Fee Internet

Business owners and consumers need to be made aware of the fact that Bank Of America Merchant Services is partners with First Data Corp.  Note: that Bank of America Merchant Services is Banc of America Merchant Services a new start up company a/k/a BAMS. It's in the fine print about the name.

They claim they have next day funding for merchants who are processing with them and when you call their customer service number that is absolutely not the case at 800 430 7162 they have up to 48 hrs.   Depending on who answers the phone you get different information each time.  Most of the sales people will never return your calls once you have signed up with them either. 

The upper management, Tom Bell and Carl Mazzola, are using the, "Burn and Churn," technique to continually hire and then fire the sales team and keeping the revenue paid to those sales people.   The sales team is assigned a group of banking centers and they are to get leads from the banking centers and try to convince those business owners to process with them.  They have one trainer with a cavalier attitude towards training and a new assistant trainer with a lackluster skill set.

The merchant rep's are told to charge "bill back" to the merchants up to 1.5% and this is not to be disclosed to the merchant.  The fees for credit card processing are decided upon a formula from First Data.  First Data has a monopoly on the credit card processing industry they are in cahoots with almost every major bank in the country.  You may leave Wells Fargo, Chase, Costco and other banks but you are still dealing with the same terrible customer service with an attitude.  They answer the phones for every bank but use different phone numbers when you call in. 

They don't like to charge Interchange Gross or Net since they can't charge "bill back" to the merchant.  The contract is for 3 years, however, they can re-evaluate any account at any time and change the rate that the merchant rep signed up the merchant based on the volume that the merchant has processed. 

If you decide to buy your equipment they add a "convenience fee" of $30 to divide the payment out into 3 payments.  Their leases are non cancellable, they have a $495 early termination fee, they don't explain their pricing and when you sign up for the services.  

The merchant also does not receive a copy of the paperwork at that time they mail it to you because they are using an electronic signature pad. They are also required to give you a copy of the 50+ page booklet about your rights, interchange pricing and the like and they do not as they don't provide enough copies to their sales team in order to keep their expenses down?

They have a $500 beat offer that they can beat any pricing they use the PCI compliance fee for the excuse, monthly statement fees, they say you can go into any banking center and they can help you with Merchant Services and this is absolutely untrue the banking centers are not even trained as to how to handle merchant service fquestions about services, fees, inquires, etc. 

The merchant rep's and the banking centers do not receive credit for a new merchant account until the the merchant activates their account of a transaction of at least $20.01 yes, that extra penny is the key here.  The merchant rep's are also told to have the merchant use their debit or credit card to "test" the account out.   

The merchant rep's are not real Bank of America employee's and they are given access to the customer's information at the banking centers.  How is Consumer Privacy kept confidential? 

First Data makes it impossible to use your current gift cards with their network so the merchant is forced into purchasing new gift cards that take over 30 days to receive which is not a good investment for the merchant as they can lose sales whille waiting for the gift cards.  The caveat here is First Data owns the Star network that processes for debit cards.

They also have partnered with Telecheck and many people on-line have complained about their checks not being accepted and when the sales team sells the Telecheck product to the merchant they fail to inform the merchant and even consumers that there is a $50 floor limit until the consumer or business owner has been in their system for at least 6 months. 

They have cut their expenses by 60% for the rest of the year of 2011 and cannot even supply their merchant rep's with office supplies. They are not Bank of America and have a farmed out to Alpha Staff that processes some human resource functions.  However, when they are called they do not have enough staff to handle the calls and if you have a complaint they take it to the associates manager and thus, the merchant rep's have no neutral place to go to for assistance.

Labor law issues  are being broken Bank, (Banc) of America Merchant Services, (BAMS), and or First Data require their sales team to physically go and visit the merchants business but at the same time they are telling their sales team that they cannot pay them mileage. They expect the merchant reps to pay their own gas to run the bank's business. They have a  Code of Ethics and written agreement that they will pay the sales person mileage. They are required by law to pay mileage but are forcing the sales team to commit fraud.  Thus, forcing the sales team to fabricate that they physically visited the merchant's business.  They expect the sales team to be out in the field but don't want to pay the employee's their mileage.

Per Carl Mazzola that he is demanding a, "Deal a day," and that the merchant rep's do not go home until they have that accomplished which the employee contract is for a 40 hr work week and not being paid for mileage is just unethical.  Many of the sales managers engage in very questionable practices they cut expenses they get a bigger "bonus" or "pay out."