If you are a reatiler stay away from Merchant One for sevicing your credit card sales. We closed our account yet they continued to charge our bank account for fees. They would not refund nor would they pro-rate any of these fees! Once our account was closed we returned all of their equipment (at our expense) but we received daily emails telling us if the equipment was not in their hands they would charge us for it! They are only out to take you money.

When this service was ordered, I was given a 30 day free trial. This account was
never used and I was told that I would be charged $ 295. 00 to cancel. Not only
did I not use this service, I was billed for the first 30 days when it was provided
free.

Opened a merchant account. I explained to the salesman that I was a very small businessman and I did not know whether I would be in business for 1 month, 3 months or forever. I explained I would be doing internet sales and point of sales. The sales rep did not explain they were setting me up with 2 accounts. This cost an additional $30 per month. From my understanding it was a month to month contract but as I found out that was not the case. I did not need 2 accounts or a 5 year contract! When I tried to close one of the accounts, I was told it was on a 3 or 5 year contract-no one knew for sure. To get out of a contract it was going to cost me $25 per month per contract for 3-5 years depending on who I spoke to. After trying to resolve the issue many times with customer service, they said I could cancel one account now at no charge. My sales rep said he would work with me in 2010 to resolve the other account.. I felt like I was caught between a rock and a hard place, so I agreed. They email me a cancellation letter and nowhere did it state that I would be charged. So I contacted Nancy (a supervisor) at Merchant One and told her I would not sign this until she sent an email confirming that I would not be billed. Her email stated
“Kelvin-I have attached a cancellation form. Please note: Your business will not incur any penalties for terminating one account because you still will have one active merchant account with us. Thank you.”
Within 24 hours of faxing the cancellation letter, Merchant One took $800 out of my account. After this I was no longer willing to wait another month to work on the other account. I contacted Merchant One immediately. They admitted money should not have been taken out of my account and said it would be replaced in 7-14 business days. That is great that they will return the money but now I have overdrafts and other fees acquiring. I no longer had money for a show that I wanted to do, I was hoping to get some sales before Christmas, well that never happened. The money was finally returned but it has cost me in many other ways. Merchant One’s excuse for taking the money was that I did not send the fax to the right person. I believe the sales rep said what he needed to say to get me to sign and once I did, all the terms changed. I signed up for a $25 per month account and got a nightmare.

This is so sad, I have spent over a month trying to figure out this problem and they tell me that I was aware of everything happing, YA RIGHT, If I was aware of everything I never would have agreed to it and wouldnt be trying to figure this out now. Summary: Lied to andor neglecting to disclose terms & agreements of account (s)Poor response from customer service
Unauthorized monies taken from account after email says it will not happen
Poor response from messages or emails

I attempted to cancel my account before activating and was assured on the phone. Merchant One then continued to pull money out of my bank account. When I tried to fight the charges they informed me there was cancellation paperwork needed that I was never told about.

After I received the paperwork there were additional cancellation fees that were not on my original application. They have an addendum to their application that outlines the 3 year contract and extra fees, this addendum was never provided to me when I was being hurried to sign up by their aggressive sales people. Their management will not return my phone calls as I want to be refunded for the fees I did not agree to and their customer service reps don't have the athority to issue the refund.

Merchant One baits small businesses with low rates and locks them into a 3 year contract (that is not disclosed)and additional fees (that are not disclosed) at the time when you sign up. They have aggressive sales people that push you through the system with as little information as possible.

Believe the real reviews online, I wish I had taken the warnings more seriously and stayed away from Merchant One.

Lately we become the latest victim of Merchant One and their fraudulent activities.

In July 2009 they defaulted our business relationship by withdrawing monies from our account without our acknowledgment or permission, and for the past 6 months they have failed to give us our monthly statements.

We started processing credit cards with Merchant One on 8/2008 and our sales person was Mark Raasch an Acquisitions Manager there at Merchant One.

Our company quote provided by Mark on behalf of Merchant One stated “no commitments or long term contacts”. We were also to receive a dedicated account representative with the normal monthly statements.

In July we prepared out taxes for the state and went to review our monthly statements from Merchant One only to realize that we have not received them since Jan 2009. We made a phone call to Merchant One and the person was very rude and told us that they did not get any returned mail. They also told us that they sent them. I asked for copies of all the reports and was told that they would have someone call me back. I never got a call back from anyone at Merchant One.
I called several times only to get more rudeness and more lies.

I put a call into Mark Raasch thinking that he was our “dedicated account representative” and he never did call me back. I also sent him and email that never got answered.

At this time I realized that I was not going to get my monthly statements or a returned call from Merchant One. They were completely ignoring me. So I called in and requested that my account be closed and that they send me the proper paper work and my monthly statements since I did pay for them.

The next day I noticed a unauthorized deduction from our account made by Merchant One. (July 2009) I called them and asked why this was only to be told that it was for PCI. (Very interesting) I asked what I was never notified that I would be charged for this and they told me that I had in one of my monthly statements (hum I have not been getting them).

Well I closed the account including my business account, I re-read all my documents with them to make sure I am not liable for anything and also sent them to our attorney.
The bank is refunding all monies withdrawn (only those that were unauthorized).

2 weeks later I get a call from Jason on behalf of Merchant One, saying that I owe them money for canceling the contract and also for the PCI. I told him that I was not under any contract and that the monies for PCI was taken from the account with out any authorization. Jason told me they were going to send this to collections and take legal action.

All I can say at this time, to all those looking for a Merchant provider, read the BBB on Merchant One, Read the complaints and problems on Merchant One and then pass the word around to everyone to stay away from them and if they are under any contract with them, do renew it when it comes up.

If you have any problems like this also call the Attorney General of Florida. Blog about it and blog more about it. Report to BBB!

We can get the word out and stop companies from praying on smaller business.

Shame on Merchant One where is your honesty????