BankCard USA WARNING!!! STEER CLEAR of BANKCARD USA! Westlake Village California

I hope that this is accepted without checking ANY star, as this company doesn't even rate 1 star! So, if you see 1 star highlighted, you'll know it's ONLY due to the fact that it couldn't be submitted w/o checking at least one. (Ok, I had to check something, as it was a "Required field." Unfortunately, 1 star was only "Poor." They should have offered a "Very Poor")

Now then, let me explain why I STRONGLY suggest that you steer clear of BankCard USA. I own an advertising & marketing company in greater Chicagoland, and I signed with BANKCARD USA on February 14th, 2008.

After finally getting my terminal and everything up and running, I was able to process my first transaction on February 27th, and then my 2nd the following day. Today is April 10th, and I have yet to receive ANY money deposited into our business account--but you can bet that they've debited our account for their FEES!

Initially, I was told that their turnaround time was two days. So, after approximately 5 days (I gave them a few extra days), I called my sales rep to inquire as to what was going on. He pointed me to "Customer Service" (yeah, right), who told me that my account had been "flagged." When I proceeded to ask him just why I had not received a call from Bankcard USA informing me of this and why I had to call THEM, he had no answer, other than to pass the buck off to someone else...Risk Management. I was told to speak with a person named Ms. Campbell, and I was given her extension. Unfortunately, to this day, I have yet to receive a phone call back from her (or ANYONE from Bankcard USA for that matter), despite numerous voicemails, e-mails & faxes. "Customer Service" is EVERYTHING in business, yet with this company, its not even on the RADAR! They have no problem calling you several times a day trying to GET your business...but once they actually HAVE it, you can forget about hearing from them if you've ever got a problem. I think they've forgotten that credit card processors are a dime a dozen.

By the way, I finally DID receive an e-mail from Ms. Campbell, who till this day, has yet to tell me exactly WHY our account was flagged to begin with. There certainly was not any reason to flag it, seeing as though we did not go over our average transaction volume or our monthly volume, have not had any customer complaints or charge backs. So, they've taken money from our customers...but they have not sent any of it to us, meaning that they themselves have the money somewhere. Do you smell a "RAT?"

There IS a silver lining in all of this, however. We signed on with a different processor on April 1st, by the name of MERCHANT WAREHOUSE. I dealt with Shannon Andrade. We received our terminal on the 3rd, charged our first transaction on the 4th (a Friday), batched out later that evening), and received the money in our checking account by Monday morning. It may have even been there earlier than that, but I'm not sure, as I did not even check our account until Monday morning. Talk about FAST TURNAROUND! And their customer service appears to be exactly what I've heard from others...and what they themselves claim and pride themselves on. If they do something to prove otherwise, sometime down the road, you can BET that you'll hear about it from me!

BJ
Roselle, Illinois
U.S.A.