Sage Payment Solutions charged non-PCI compliance fee and shared that with Sales guy who signed me up and disappeared. Austin Texas

I was a client of Sage Payment Processing for over 3 years. In that time, I did not notice that I was being charged a non-compliance fee of $35 PER MONTH.

When I protested I was told that my sales person should have informed me and provided me with information to get in compliance and thus remove the surcharge. That person signed me up and disappeared. He was a client of mine who signed up local companies here in Austin and always said (not implied) that he worked with vendors who used his credit card processing services.

That contract was up in 2012 and apparently the terms and conditions of the original agreement said it would autorenew at a 2 year contract and there is a cancellation fee.

I signed up with a new processor who made me compliant in 20 minutes. All it took was a quick meeting in my office, a phone call and a signature.

In talking with Sage, we found our sales guy, told him we were cancelling and he wouldn't do anything to make things right. they were going to hit me with a cancellation fee of almost $300 - the basis of the cancellation was lack of customer care, helping us become compliance, the automatic renewal that he said specifically he didn't need to tell me about it since it was automatic etc.

In talking with Sage today I was told they could not waive the cancellation fee - nor would they. I have been paying $70 per month since July to not process ANY payments - half of which was a $35 non compliance fee. I had been processing 10 - 15,000 per month with them.

The first person I spoke with offered to give me a 25% discount but that's all they could do. Her supervisor came on and in our discussion told me that that offer was a mistake and she would not honor it. When I pressed her on the fact my calls are recorded and the offer made could not be removed since it was on the phone, she realized it and reluctantly "reduced" it to $210 cancellation.

All they want to talk about is the renewal in in the contract, the terms and conditions etc. Basically its my fault that I want to cancel a contract for lack of service. They have no responsibility to provide customer service or education - the buyer had best beware.

I would definitely consider this company a total scam and urge anyone looking for a way to accept credit cards in their business to AVOID Sage.