Intrepid Payment Processing First American Payment Systems, Certified Payment Processing, Apex Merchant Group Bait and switch sales tactics. Details not disclosed. Internet

Intrepid Payment Processing, also known as "Certified Payment Processing", is a DBA of "First American Payment Systems", which is in turn affiliated with "Apex Merchant Group".

This is all important because as you will see, the company changes its identity regularly to escape their terrible reviews and bad reputation.

They use aggressive bait and switch sales tactics to enroll clients. Specifically, in my own case, I was initially pitched a per-transaction fee of 1.65% with a flat monthly fee, only to discover that the full contract terms also included annual fees, other monthly costs, equipment leases, and per-transaction fees well-above 2%.

They also did not disclose the fact that within their client agreement, in the fine print, there is a three-year contract. So if you try to cancel your account  (like I did) , they demand a $495 termination fee.

If your account is inactive, they charge other fees that can amount to over $100 per month. What the hell?

During the sales process they claim that their rates are cheaper than competitors, but the rates vary, and when you add all of the monthly fees they charge, they are actually incredibly expensive! The fees are never discussed during the enrollment process. Their website is very vague on pricing and policies, as well as terms of service.

The company is very unethical and has terrible reviews online from both customers and former employees. They hire independent sales agents and have received a high number of complaints about their sales practices. They will even take money out of your bank account without permission once they have your information.

DO NOT do business with IPP. In my research I discovered that they change names very often to escape negative reviews and evade legal trouble. This is confirmed by former employees. Evidence for this can be found here:

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Certified-Payment-Processing/reviews

Intrepid Payment Processing claims to have existed for over 10 years, but its social media profiles have only been active since August 2015. The Intrepid Payment Processing website lists an address at 3350 Boyington Dr., Suite B, Carrollton, Texas 75006, which is also the address for:

• Certified Payment Processing

• Summit Merchant Solutions

• TransTech Merchant Group

• Axis Payments.

• First American Payment Systems

• Apex Merchant Group

You can't trust a merchant provider or credit card processor that plays shell games with its business name. Buyer beware.