MERCHANT WAREHOUSE http://merchantwarehouse.com/ Sold Machine that WOULD NOT WORK FOR ME AND CHARGED A RE-STOCK FEE!!! Boston, Massachusetts

You see, this particular website, and others of this nature, take no responsibility for their content nor do they place any accountability on the poster to validate who they are or for the veracity of their statement.  This person could be a competitor, disgruntled former employee or, as we have seen on other occasions, someone confusing us for someone else.  There is also no perspective in terms of how many customers we work with in a month or have using our service at any given time.

So how do you respond to a complaint where the person is extremely vague, offers no personally identifiable information and simply makes inflammatory statements?  Well, here is my best shot.  I am going to summarize the events as thoroughly documented in our customer service tracking system with the account we believe is associated with this complaint.  Fortunately this was fairly easy to identify as we have very few returns and this particular merchant was easily identified by those who believe they spoke with her.  My intent is to show that, while I am not happy that we would have a customer so upset as to feel a need to post remarks like this, the truth is not always so simple and things people post online in a moment of frustration arent always reasonable.

Here is the record as I have confirmed with the multiple people who tried to help this customer:

1. We have a suite of mobile processing applications which work on various Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Android powered devices.  We sign-up hundreds of merchants a month on these platforms and the software is completely free.  If a merchant wishes to conduct swiped transactions using these applications, we do offer, for a cost, a Bluetooth enabled secure swipe device.  When the customer told our Account Executive that she had a compatible mobile device and wished to swipe cards, he had absolutely no reason to believe it wouldnt work properly for her.

2. This merchant had problems downloading the application properly, installing it on her device and the getting the Bluetooth reader to sync.  Again, I need to point out that hundreds of merchants a month go through this same exact process with no issues at all.  I am not sure why she had problems, but I do think it is fair to say that the problem is not that we have a bad application or don't support our products.

3. This merchant contacted us MULTIPLE times about her problems within a two week period and we consistently provided her with support to the best of our abilities.  Since her individual phone seem to have been the issue, it was virtually impossible for us to resolve or diagnose the problem.  Reading through the record, we had at least a dozen conversations with her either on the phone or email.  Unfortunately from both perspectives, it seems that many of these conversations were not fruitful.

4. When it seemed the problem was not going to be possible to resolve, we offered the customer a FULL refund on the Bluetooth swipe device and requested that she simply return it. 

5. The merchant returned the wireless reader but did not return the charging USB cable it came with.  This isn't simply a standard cable.  It is one specifically for this product.  It is spring loaded and self winding to keep the cords organized.  We cannot just order the cable from the manufacturer and we cannot resell the deice without it.  We contacted her to let her know we would need her to return it or that we would need to charge a restocking fee.  She did not return it and said she never received it.  We were very confident that it was in the package and the customer did not comment about not receiving it until we asked for it back.  Based on the circumstances of the interactions up until this point, and our very clear return policy, we did not feel the situation warranted us making an exception even though we very commonly do.

In summary, it is extremely unfortunate that we would have even one customer this unhappy with our service and support.  For a company which makes a big deal, and takes a great deal of pride, in our customer service, it is always upsetting to hear someone so unhappy.  That said, mistakes happen, people take different things from conversations and, in some cases, people do not have fair or realistic expectations.  Of the almost 3,000 merchants we signed up for our services in March, I am not willing simply jump to the conclusion that our service or support is poor because one person had a bad experience.  I hope you will agree.

Brian Waldman