First Data Credit Card Processing Applied Merchant, Merchant Wherehouse scam, will hold your funds!, lie to you over the phone, will not let your process more than 24 hours before holding funds, treats you like a criminal, they want you to process so they can hold your mo Internet

Long-story-short: SAME EXACT THING JUST HAPPENED TO ME. I processed for a week, and then all of the sudden got a call from First Data's "Risk Department" asking me a bunch of questions to verify myself and my business. Then I was told to send over 10 invoices, which I did. Then they decided they were going to keep my nearly $4K they were holding because they decided they "didn't want to do business with my company," even though I sell LEGITIMATE products online to LEGITIMATE CUSTOMERS and have been running this LEGITIMATE BUSINESS for ust over 4 years. Long story short, I JUST GOT SCAMMED BY FIRST DATA AND THEY STOLE $4K OF MY HARD EARNED MONEY!!! Do not do business with these people UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. They will steal your money. I was warned by friends who have had FD accounts and told to stay away, but I went with them anyway, and now I'm out over $4K AND the product I shipped to the customers. F*** YOU FIRST DATA!!!

I too, was scammed by this company.  I opened my account in August 2011.  They approved me right away and I started processing within 48 hours.  We sell discount coupons for Wal-Mart and Target (customers only pay $2.95 or so max but we do allot of biz, maybe $3-$4k a week).  By our second week I still hadn't received a deposit and I got a call from a Marie 8772738191  saying that my bank account information wasn't correct and I needed to update it.  Wasn't easy, I was off by one digit and had to get a letter from my bank manager with the right account number.  Okay that was done and Marie was very pleasant but said, she couldn't update it because my account was sent to review to risk management and that I needed to call this Greg guy 6316836937.  So I called him and he was very vague, he answers the phone, "HELLO!".  Not profissional at all.  He says, I need to send him two utility bills and last two months bank statements, along with website and company info.  OK, I do it right away... within 3 hours.  At this point I really want the $7,500 of money that they are holding.  Takes me 4 days to get a hold of him and he nonchalantly says,  we've decided that you're type of biz is to high risk and we're going to have to part ways.  He then says, give me a call in 6 months and if we haven't eatin your money up in fees, we'll release whats left at that time.  I said, you've got to be kidding me!  He said, nope and I gotta go, so call me in 6 months.  I was obviously, stunned and furious, to say the least.  I said, you've gotta work with me.   How can I fulfill on those orders unless I get some of the money!  There was no negotiating with him.  I knew if I didn't send the orders out, that I would have lot's of chargebacks and at $25 per charge back.... that would add up quickly.   I even asked if he'd just refund everyone and he said, there was no way to do that.   So I fulfilled every order... about 2,300 to be exact and over a 6 month period and 2,300 orders I only received 4 charge backs and for the type of low income consumers I deal with, I thought that was pretty good.  So I called Greg 6316836937 back and he said, he didn't remember me and that they didn't have my money.   Said, matter of fact... I owe them money LOL  $1,795 to be exact!  I said, you've lost your d**n mind... I'm not paying any of your fees for charging all those people util I get my money.   Can't believe he was asking me to pay the fees and have shipped all that product and not give me my F'n money!  He then said, owe.... i know what happened, we refunded all of them REMEMBER?  LOL  I said, what!  NO!  You said, NO!  That they couldn't be refunded and I knew that was BS anyways because if they were refunded I wouldn't have received CHARGEBACKS through out the last six months, because people can't CHARGEBACK if they've been refunded.   I told him to send me the LINE ITEM details on this and of course he said, he couldn't do that and I needed to contact billing 8882808969 .  So I did and finally after two days of trying to get a hold of them they say that my account is being handled by a senior rep Teresa Stevens 8008768615 and I need to contact her.  I'm thinking WOW he must have got his story straight with someone else now.  I've sense called this lady Teresa over 7 times in the past month and have gotten no response.  JUST VM and no call backs.    Did you ever get your money back?  I would love to take these people for everything they have.  I'm going to contact an Attorney and don't know if you'd like to team up but I'm pissed and going to get my money back!!!!!!!!!  

Hi Adam,
This is Laura, the employee from Applied Merchant Systems with whom you spoke.

My apologies for the confusion. What I attempted to communicate over the course of our conversation is that our company works with a number of processing banks; while First Data is one of them, we have a variety of others that we work with (Concord Payment Systems being one of them, a separate but affiliated processing bank, among others).

We would have had the option upon filing the application to put it through any other processing bank that we have access to if you'd had a prior unfavorable occurrence with First Data, and because we are the service provider, you'd likely have contact with us before going to the processing bank directly.

My apologies again for the miscommunication. We are a reputible company, and have been in business for over 14 years. Our intent is to stay in business, and we most assuredly would not try to scam our customers in any way.

All the best,
Laura