Merchant Services Direct These guys are fraudulant LIARS!!! Spokane, Washington

I appreciate the professional response you provided this time! As I stated in my last post, I believe that every company's corporate office has the intent to conduct business in a professional, honest, ethical way. Unfortunately something did, however, get lost in translation with your San Diego office, and I appreciate you taking the time to investigate this serious issue! To be clear, my complaint is not that your phone reps represent themselves as Visa/Mastercard employees when accepting INBOUND calls. Obviously there is no need to do that! My complaint comes from your employees representing themselves as such when making OUTBOUND (cold) calls. Associating themselves with Visa/Mastercard when cold calling is an easy way to get their foot in the door with potential clients and, unfortunately, I've had many complaints from my clients that your employees do this consistently. It is my sincere hope that I am able to shed some light on the serious offenses your San Diego office continue to commit, since putting a stop to unethical practices will benefit everyone in our industry. PLEASE, keep a close eye on your San Diego branch!!! Thank you again for your response and attention to this matter. I wish you the best and hope we can move forward past this for the sake of our industry!

Though we cannot verify the validity of these claims, we take all complaints seriously and have formally addressed your concerns internally. With that said, we still maintain that all documentation presented to every merchant makes it clear that we are not affiliated with Visa or Mastercard, and all communication with our corporate office begins with thanking the customer for calling Merchant Services Direct. If you or anyone reading this has an encounter with one of our sales agents that does not meet this standard, please call 877-928-0305 ext 273, so your concerns can be addressed. Thank you.

The names of your sales reps I have talked to are as follows: Jameson (told me over and over that the rates are 0.50% with NO INTERCHANGE FEES). Alana Bukaty. She told my client that they were paying 2.5% (even though they are paying Interchange + 0.40%) and that she would lower it to 0.50%, resulting in $150/month savings. David (don't have his last name) who works in the Kearny Mesa, CA territory. He also told me over and over about the incorrect pricing.

PLEASE do your research and call the San Diego office because I have multiple counts of their sales reps misleading and flat-out lying to my clients. I would never slander another company. I am simply fed up with my clients constantly calling me with complaints against your company. It is my true belief that your corporate office in Spokane practices ethics, but your San Diego office is being run a completely different way and you need to investigate it for the sake of your company.

I will be happy to provide my phone # if you would like to discuss further. Thanks.

Hello!

Merchant Services Direct does not and has not represented itself as associated with Visa or Mastercard. As the author of this complaint provides no specifics about which agents they are referring to, or the merchants our agents allegedly spoke with, we obviously have no way to look into this accusation further. All we can say is that our sales agents are taught to inform every merchant that we are a third party credit card processor, and when a merchant claims they are told otherwise, the agent is punished with fines and is required to take an online ethics course. All of our paperwork, including our contracts, marketing materials, and business cards very clearly state the name of our company, and every time a merchant calls our corporate office, we begin the phone call by thanking them for calling Merchant Services Direct not Visa or Mastercard.

Calling us a MIDDLE-MIDDLE MAN and a joke is both unprofessional and petty, and we are surprised that a claimed sales rep/account manager for a processing bank called Elavon would use such language on a public forum. We will be contacting Elavon to let them know that Norm of Placentia, CA appears to have no interest in doing research before slandering other credit card processors.