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Report: #237630

Complaint Review: Leaders Merchant Services - Camarillo California

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  • Updated:
  • Reported By: Cary North Carolina
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  • Leaders Merchant Services leadersmerchantservices.com Camarillo, California U.S.A.

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I contracted with Leaders Merchant Services to process and collect credit card payements for a software product I am developing. In early January, 2007 I requested my account be moved to inactive status to minimize monthly fees because the product I am developing is not yet ready for sale. The account rep said they would do so, but the company failed to follow through and my account was charged fees in February resulting in an overdraft of my checking account. I had called in mid-January to follow up on some other charges to my account and was told that the inactive status would begin in February. However, I was charged the full range of fees again in February. When I called customer service to have it resolved, they refused to credit me back the unauthorized fees and now say they have no record of my January request. The dollar amount is not much, but I'm sick and tired of these companies with their arrogant, no-customer-service attitudes, thinking they can get away with ripping off other people.

Skip
Cary, North Carolina
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 03/01/2007 02:31 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/leaders-merchant-services/camarillo-california/leaders-merchant-services-ripoff-unauthorized-drafting-of-funds-from-my-company-bank-accou-237630. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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Updates & Rebuttals

REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
0Author
9Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#9 UPDATE Employee

LEADERS Does Care about its Merchants

AUTHOR: Sarah - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, July 23, 2007

This merchant has recapped his argument with LEADERS.

Once again, he claims that someone did not change his account onto inactive status. Once again, LEADERS must inform the merchant that there is no such request on file. Also, the notes cannot be deleted from the system once they have been added.

The merchant claims that LEADERS was not willling to put in effort to retain the merchant. This too is untrue. First of all, putting a merchant on "inactive status" (i.e. Seasonal Close) is something LEADERS does for merchants all the time and has no problem doing. The fee would have been $11.00 per month for the merchant. There is no reason why we would not have done this.

Secondly, the Customer Care Department did offer to lower the merchant's rates. The merchant declined this retention effort, claiming that it would not help because he was not doing business.

Lastly, the merchant was charged fees by GETI. Whereas this fees are not charged by LEADERS and the account cannot be cancelled by LEADERS, if the merchant had noticed the fees being charged in a timely manner, felt that it was a mistake, and reported it, then GETI would have asked LEADERS if we were okay with a refund of a couple months of fees. This would have been done without a problem in good faith to retain the merchant. Instead, the merchant complained about these fees AFTER the merchant account was closed.

LEADERS does care about its merchants and we do our best to serve them. We admit that human beings are fallible and mistakes happen, but we do our best to help out every single one of our merchants and clear up any problems that may have occurred.

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#8 UPDATE Employee

LEADERS Does Care about its Merchants

AUTHOR: Sarah - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, July 23, 2007

This merchant has recapped his argument with LEADERS.

Once again, he claims that someone did not change his account onto inactive status. Once again, LEADERS must inform the merchant that there is no such request on file. Also, the notes cannot be deleted from the system once they have been added.

The merchant claims that LEADERS was not willling to put in effort to retain the merchant. This too is untrue. First of all, putting a merchant on "inactive status" (i.e. Seasonal Close) is something LEADERS does for merchants all the time and has no problem doing. The fee would have been $11.00 per month for the merchant. There is no reason why we would not have done this.

Secondly, the Customer Care Department did offer to lower the merchant's rates. The merchant declined this retention effort, claiming that it would not help because he was not doing business.

Lastly, the merchant was charged fees by GETI. Whereas this fees are not charged by LEADERS and the account cannot be cancelled by LEADERS, if the merchant had noticed the fees being charged in a timely manner, felt that it was a mistake, and reported it, then GETI would have asked LEADERS if we were okay with a refund of a couple months of fees. This would have been done without a problem in good faith to retain the merchant. Instead, the merchant complained about these fees AFTER the merchant account was closed.

LEADERS does care about its merchants and we do our best to serve them. We admit that human beings are fallible and mistakes happen, but we do our best to help out every single one of our merchants and clear up any problems that may have occurred.

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#7 UPDATE Employee

LEADERS Does Care about its Merchants

AUTHOR: Sarah - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, July 23, 2007

This merchant has recapped his argument with LEADERS.

Once again, he claims that someone did not change his account onto inactive status. Once again, LEADERS must inform the merchant that there is no such request on file. Also, the notes cannot be deleted from the system once they have been added.

The merchant claims that LEADERS was not willling to put in effort to retain the merchant. This too is untrue. First of all, putting a merchant on "inactive status" (i.e. Seasonal Close) is something LEADERS does for merchants all the time and has no problem doing. The fee would have been $11.00 per month for the merchant. There is no reason why we would not have done this.

Secondly, the Customer Care Department did offer to lower the merchant's rates. The merchant declined this retention effort, claiming that it would not help because he was not doing business.

Lastly, the merchant was charged fees by GETI. Whereas this fees are not charged by LEADERS and the account cannot be cancelled by LEADERS, if the merchant had noticed the fees being charged in a timely manner, felt that it was a mistake, and reported it, then GETI would have asked LEADERS if we were okay with a refund of a couple months of fees. This would have been done without a problem in good faith to retain the merchant. Instead, the merchant complained about these fees AFTER the merchant account was closed.

LEADERS does care about its merchants and we do our best to serve them. We admit that human beings are fallible and mistakes happen, but we do our best to help out every single one of our merchants and clear up any problems that may have occurred.

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#6 UPDATE Employee

LEADERS Does Care about its Merchants

AUTHOR: Sarah - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, July 23, 2007

This merchant has recapped his argument with LEADERS.

Once again, he claims that someone did not change his account onto inactive status. Once again, LEADERS must inform the merchant that there is no such request on file. Also, the notes cannot be deleted from the system once they have been added.

The merchant claims that LEADERS was not willling to put in effort to retain the merchant. This too is untrue. First of all, putting a merchant on "inactive status" (i.e. Seasonal Close) is something LEADERS does for merchants all the time and has no problem doing. The fee would have been $11.00 per month for the merchant. There is no reason why we would not have done this.

Secondly, the Customer Care Department did offer to lower the merchant's rates. The merchant declined this retention effort, claiming that it would not help because he was not doing business.

Lastly, the merchant was charged fees by GETI. Whereas this fees are not charged by LEADERS and the account cannot be cancelled by LEADERS, if the merchant had noticed the fees being charged in a timely manner, felt that it was a mistake, and reported it, then GETI would have asked LEADERS if we were okay with a refund of a couple months of fees. This would have been done without a problem in good faith to retain the merchant. Instead, the merchant complained about these fees AFTER the merchant account was closed.

LEADERS does care about its merchants and we do our best to serve them. We admit that human beings are fallible and mistakes happen, but we do our best to help out every single one of our merchants and clear up any problems that may have occurred.

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#5 Author of original report

Final post from the merchant

AUTHOR: Skip - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, June 04, 2007

The employee replying to my post is correct - it is incumbent upon the merchant to read and understand the contracts they sign. But let's get to the root of the issue. I did not cancel my service with Leaders because of the terms of my contract. I cancelled because of the lack of service I receive from that company. I spoke to someone who was going to temporarily move me to a reduced service status (allowed by my contract) until my product was ready for market. That person failed to make the change.

I called to resolve that issue and was treated rudely by one of their customer service reps. After that, the records of my conversations ceased to exist on their computer system (deleted perhaps?). I decided to cancel the contract (which also was allowed). I paid the cancellation fee ($350).

Although they set me up with the other service providers, all the various contracts were sent to me and collected from me by Leaders. When I needed to temporarily reduce the amount I was spending they offered no help, no advice, no reminders that I feel I should reasonably expect from a "partner" that wanted my business over the long term.

The point is that nowhere along the way did anyone seem to care about keeping my business. As long as they could draft funds from my account they were happy. The minute I tried to save my company some funds by reducing my service, they became a nightmare to deal with. They could very easily have kept my business by having their employees do what they said they would do and treating me like I mattered.

The good news is that my product should be on the market next month and Leaders Merchant Services will not see another dime from me - that money will go to one of their competitors!!

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#4 UPDATE Employee

Merchants Must be Responsible for the Contracts They Sign

AUTHOR: Sarah - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Friday, June 01, 2007

This merchant has filed two updates on this merchant account, both of which have to do with fees charged by Global eTelecom, aka GETI, which is a check processing service that the merchant signed up for.

It is possible that the merchant did not pay attention to the various contracts that he signed when he agreed to the services that he wanted to be set up for. But it very clearly states on the check processing contract that the company that processes the checks is GETI. GETI charged both the $37.00 in monthly fees, as well as the $125.00, which was a cancellation fee. If the merchant called the number connected to the reference line on his bank statement, he would have reached GETI immediately to have the situation remedied. Also, GETI had been charging the merchant the monthly fees since he opened the account, which the merchant should have noticed.

LEADERS cannot be responsible for all the services the merchant signs up for when signing a merchant contract. LEADERS wants to be a one-stop shop, where the merchant can get all the services they might want in one session. These various services often have their own contract, sent to the merchant WITH the LEADERS contract. GETI, American Express, and Discover are clearly defined as separate entities when the merchant signs the documentation. When the merchant cancels with LEADERS, it is still his responsibility to cancel the various contracts with the various entities involved. Those entities will not accept LEADERS' request to cancel them, as LEADERS did not sign the contracts. This is the responsibility of the signer, who is the merchant.

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#3 Author of original report

More Information from the Guy that Filed the Complaint

AUTHOR: Skip - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Thursday, March 29, 2007

This is another chapter in the on-going saga of my attempts to get Leaders Merchant Services to stop taking money from my bank account. In my last update, I was charged $37 which the folks at Leaders could not identify. Turns out it was a charge from another company they set me up with to process checks. It seems that they will set you up with other companies, but when you cancel your contract with Leaders you have to cancel each of the other services individually - AMEX, Discover, Check Processing, etc. They provide no help or guidance in that regard. I checked my account today to find another $125 taken out, so now I'm on another goose chase to see what that is. Dealing with this firm is an absolute nightmare!

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#2 Author of original report

Follow Up from the Merchant

AUTHOR: Skip - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Friday, March 16, 2007

As the individual that filed the initial report, I feel compelled to respond to the rebuttal offered by the Leaders Merchant Services representative. In spite of their lack of records, I made initial contact on this matter on January 3rd. My goal was to go to inactive status and the lady I spoke with said that would happen. When my account was drafted a few days later, I called Leaders (this would have been in mid-January) to inquire about the charges. The lady I spoke with referenced my prior conversation - so they had the record then - and said the charges in early January would be the last time my account would be charged, except for the small inactivity fee I had agreed to pay during my Jan. 3rd contact.

To my surprise, I was charged the full slate of fees in early February. When I called then, I spoke to a very rude person who said there was no record of my previous conversations. I decided then to terminate the relationship completely. I am now having to chase down another charge that was drafted on March 5th in the amount of $37. Leaders says they don't know what the charge is. So in spite of my account being closed, I'm still having money drafted from my account. Caveat Emptor!

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#1 UPDATE Employee

The Merchant's Claims are Unsubstantiated and His Timing is Incorrect

AUTHOR: Sarah - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Thursday, March 15, 2007

This merchant is angry with LEADERS for not putting him on inactive status as he requested and now wants a refund to make up for what he was charged that he claims should not have been charged.

This merchant mentions that he called in twice, in early January and mid-January, and claims that both times he was told that the inactive status would start in February. But the problem LEADERS has with this claim is that there are absolutely no notes in the system to confirm this nor support it. We have notes in the system that the merchant DID call in mid-January to update his banking information. There are no notes before this or with this bank change that mention any type of request or confirmation of a pending inactive status. LEADERS also wonders why the merchant was submitting a bank change if he was going to be on inactive status and therefore not charged?

On February 13th there are notes that the merchant called in to Customer Care to close the account. He was offered lower rates, but declined because he was not using the service. Then the notes say that on February 19th the merchant faxed in a closure request and the account was closed completely on the 22nd.

No where within the notes from February 13-22 was there any mention of the merchant complaining that his account was not on hold or complaining that he had been charged fees and wanted a refund. There is nothing at all to support these claims he has made.

The last reason LEADERS will not refund the merchant's charges is because the merchant mentions twice that his inactive status was to begin in February. The February statements are received by the merchant in early March. Thus the charges that occurred in February that he was complaining about were January's charges. By his own submission, the inactive status started in February. Thus the charges were valid and there is no reason that LEADERS would need to submit a refund.

The merchant's account is now closed.

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