Smart Card Merchant Services National Processing CompanyVantiv Services grossly misrepresented. I feel I was defrauded. Phoenix Arizona

I began using Smart Card Merchant Services in February of this year. On February 1, 2017, their salesman, Mark Timbol, promised his rates would beat my previous provider. I showed him what I was paying (~2.5%) and he assured me that my costs would be lower. They did not provide me with a statement of charges for a couple of months, in spite of numerous email and phone requests for one. When I finally got a statement, I discovered that their fees were over 30% HIGHER than my old processor and about 60% higher than promised.

When I initially tried to contact them by phone or email to get this fixed, I was either given the runaround, was unable to get a representative, or my voice messages and emails were not answered. When I finally got in touch with Anthony Matthews, Director of Sales Support, he told me that they were mistakenly charging me retail rates instead of the wholesale rates that were promised. He said he would fix it and get me a refund of the overcharges, and that a bookkeeper would call me to explain the details of the refund and new rates. No refund came and no bookkeeper called.

When I finally was able to get back in touch with Anthony, he said he made a mistake and didn't request a refund, and that he would fix it and get back to me. He never did, and doesn’t respond to voice mails or emails. Still trying to settle this, I called support. After well over an hour talking to, getting transferred to and disconnected from various support personnel, a representative told me that my request for reimbursement of the overcharges had been denied. Attempts to find out why failed. Then I was told by a supervisor, Alex, that there was no record of any requests for reimbursements of overcharges. I can't find out who to talk to about this.

In addition, Mark Timbol told me that my version of Quickbooks (Enterprise 13) would work fine with their software, but the software strips out address information from my Quickbooks records when I process a charge. This is obviously NOT fine. Their solution for this is for me to spend thousands of dollars to upgrade my version of Quickbooks. If I had known their software wouldn’t work with my version of Quickbooks, I would not have signed the contract, since part of the reason I went with their company was that it was compatible with Quickbooks, a significant convenience when processing charges.

In connection with their contract, I was required to lease equipment from First Data Global Leasing with a 48 month contract. Although their contract says it is separate from the Merchant Services contract, since I can’t get the merchant services without the equipment contract, they are linked and not separate.

Their misrepresentations throughout this process, and their complete lack of response to my complaints and issues are very disappointing, to say the least. I feel that I have been defrauded. Therefore I have filed a complaint with both the Better Business Bureau and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. I am also going to post disparaging reviews of their companies on Yelp and Angie’s List, as well as any other review web sites that I can find.

Stay away from these dishonest people!