Transone Merchant Services, First American Payment Systems Withdrawing money from my personal account for ridiculous closing fees for breaking a contract I did not sign Fort Worth Texas

Several years ago, my business partner and I signed up with Transone Merchant Services for our credit card service. We have a salon, and were unhappy with all the hidden fees from our last credit card processor. Transone swore up and down that they could save us money, and after going through everything to change over, the monthly cost was comperable to what we were already paying. We specifically asked the salesman about all the hidden fees, and he said it would just be a per transaction fee and a percentage on the sales. Of course he didn't include the $5 statement fee, monthly minimum, etc. But since it was comparable to the last place we were with, we just kept them.

So, with the hard economic times hitting us both hard, when another company came and said they could save us money on our credit card transactions we jumped at the chance. I double checked that our contract period with Transone was over and then signed up with the new place. Well of course, when I call to cancel Transones service, they inform me that when the contract elapsed, we were automatically signed up for another year. If we had wanted to cancel, we would have had to inform them 60 days before the plan expired! Now, I have gone back to the contract, and that d**n fine print says the part about being automatically re-signed, but of course nothing about the 60 days advanced warning required. Now that we had decided to cancel "mid contract" we would have to pay $500 a peice for "closing costs!" We were switching companies because we are both broke! I'm drowning in more medical debt than I make in a year and my partner is close to losing her home! We do NOT have $1000 to throw away these b.s. fees.

I called Transone and tried to talk to them, but got nowhere with them. My partner and I decided that the best thing to do would be to close the bank accounts that Transone has the info for, and that way at least they could bill us or sue us or something. They could send us to friggin collections, but they would have to get in a long line behind our many other medical creditors calling me every day. So we close the accounts and immediatly Transone calls the salon. They inform us that they were unable to subtract their fees from our accounts, and we informed them we had closed those accounts and we are contesting the closing fees. They called a few times after that, but we just told them we didn't have that kind of money to pay for some b.s. closing fee for a contract that we didn't even sign up for, and were not notified that it had happened. Well, one of the guys asked if I would at least send them the 30 or so bucks I owed them for the last months service fees. So I, being apparently the most gullible person in the world, sent them a check from my NEW account for the 30 bucks, and they turned around and used the account number to subtract 296.48! I came close to bouncing a few checks and was only saved by the in laws lending me some money to cover them.

Of course I called the bank and told them I had not authorized the withdrwl, and they are working on reversing the charge. I call the collections department at Transone and left a message with Ryan Bear (the guy apparently in charge of my account). I tell him that I did not authorize that withdrawl and that my bank was in the process of reversing the charges. I asked him to call me back. Instrad of calling back, they took out ANOTHER $231.84 out of my account! Now even if I, yet again, close my bank account, I have no guarentee I'm getting my money back, and they already have more than the original $500 that I owed. I suppose they think they will just take my partners portion of the fess out of my account also? I don't know. All I know is, every month I barely scrape by paying the basic bills, and I haven't been able to pay a medical bill, or pay anything less than the minimum on my credit card for years.

I called this Ryan Bear guy again today and actually managed to get him on the phone. I told him that I did not authorize these transactions and he said that by signing the contract I authorized them to take money from any account I have. I told him I have plenty of creditors that I have been paying slowly and none of them just take the account number and withdraw what I owe them. And that money I really do owe, whereas his withdrawl is for a questionable fee. I told him if he wanted to send me to collections, he could get in line with all the others. He siad "I don't wait in line very well." I told him I wanted to talk to a supervisor and he said there was nobody else I could talk to.

Other people have wrote on this site about Transone and the president of the company has posted a number to call him to try and resolve the issue. I tried that phone number today, and it is not connected anymore. I don't know what else I can do to try and resolve this.

Rachel
Santa Ana, California
U.S.A.