All Business Owners really need to pay attention to what is going on when signing up a merchant account or you will end up cheated and feeling like you have no where to go. First of all, First Data is a Monopoly Credit Card Processor here in the United States. They process over 75% or more of the credit card transactions in the country, therefore they feel they can do what they want as if they are god and no one can stop them. When your bank asks you to sign up for a merchant account with them, ask them who they use on the back end to process the cards. Chances are and I know for a fact that the following banks use First Data: Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Suntrust, and PNC just to name a few of the large banks. They also process for a lot of the smaller regional banks as well. Everyone complains about Visa/MC but really it is First Data who is causing so much pain to the merchants. They also own the STAR debit Network and Concord EFS, the Pay at the Pump fuel station transactions. They have become too big and don't respect their customers, there employees or anyone else for that matter and you are better off taking cash only from your customers than doing business with First Data "The Largest Processor". Most of the other guys are either selling under the pretense that they are "Bank of America Merchant Services" or "Citi Merchant Services" when in reality they are First Data employees. First Data has one HUGE call center and they have it divided up in sections by bank to take the calls from merchants who need help. The problem is if you sign up with Citi for example and you get upset for whatever reason and decide to leave Citi Merchant Services and go to your other Bank PNC or Wells Fargo, guess what you get the same service, same tech support and same customer service people to deal with all over again. You are the laughing stock of First Data, you pay your $500 cancelation fee from Citi just to sign right back up with one of the other banks who also use First Data, and when you cancel with them you pay First Data another $500 cancelation fee. What a rip off, this has to stop, the other scheme that they are pulling is if you are currently using First Data Today, take a look at your statement, and see if you see a $19.95 or $29.95 PCI Compliance fee on your monthly statement that you weren't told about? Go ahead check right now, See they probably have been billing you this for months, because its another way of just taking your money when your not looking. My advise when you hear First Data, RUN and don't look back.