I own a clothing retail store where I sell Indian dresses averaging $200-$300 so one sale of $3774.72 is not a everyday thing as matter of fact my monthly credit card swiping is around $2000-$3000.
On April 5th, 2012 I had 2 ladies with a child who walked into the store looking for dresses and picked out clothes and artificial jewelry totaling $3475 with tax it came out to $3774.72 and they gave me a debit card to swipe.
Talking about debit cards, I was new to running a business so I had no idea that processing companies don't charge you interest on Debit cards they only charge you a transaction fee and I was paying a $0.20 for a debit transaction plus 1.59% per swipe INITIALLY and then on my statement I was charged an additional 1.55% on these debit transactions. When I learned that usually its only $0.10 to $0.20 per transaction and no fees I contacted them and I was told I signed a contract and I cannot change it and had to abide.
Anyhow coming back to April 5th when I received the card instead of a name it said "A Gift for you" so that kind of made me cautious and then the lady told me that there is a password associated with the card so she had told me to press a certain button which I don't recall and then enter a numerical password and after doing all this I got a receipt and everything seemed normal but this whole process seemed fishy so I asked the customer if I can swipe the card without password and she said it wont go through but I did it anyway and yes it came declined. Since this is not a small amount, pretty much my monthly salary, I wanted to be thorough so I took all the actions I can to make sure I wasn't getting screwed. So, so far I swiped the card with pass code and received a receipt and then tried it again to have it decline and now I called the number on side on my machine which was 1-877-333-3728 for OnePay or Federated Systems LLC - Customer Service. I spoke to a person named Peter told him the whole story and I was told yes there are cards with pass codes so there is nothing to worry about. He even assured me by telling me that he sees the transaction on his side and it seems fine, and believe me I am not exaggerating when I say I at least confirmed that everything was good about 5 times. After his assurance I gave the merchandise away.
Since this was a big amount and the whole thing was messing my head I forced a batch and then called back and spoke to Shawn K. (this time I got their last initial) and he told me the batch had gone through and everything seems fine and I will receive the money as usual. (One thing that boggles me is that every time you call a company they state they are recording the conversation so how come they cannot recall or get that recording to assure what the person said.)
Well after all this to my surprise I got a chargeback letter from ChargeBack Processing Center stating there is a charge back on this transaction for the amount $3774.72. So I called OnePay back and spoke to a person whose name I forgot to write but he told me that I had to fax the receipt and details since the charge is because the person said he never purchased the items and he also told me regardless I now have to deal with the chargeback department. So I called the chargeback dept and spoke to Malissa who advised me to write everything up and fax it to them so they can look into the case. Well after following up with them for about 2-3 weeks I was told the reversal is denied and the reason is that the card was decline and I still swiped it. After telling them repeatedly that it decline the second time after I swiped initially with a pass code they kept repeating it was declined and apparently according to them if you keep swiping a card after many declines IT WILL GO THROUGH, imagine that. Anyhow this was only one swipe and it was after it went through with a pass code. Anyhow she told me they will look into it that was the last I hear of her.
After 1 week I called back on June 13th and spoke to Lisa in charge back and told her the whole thing and she said she will contact OnePay and speak to Peter and Shawn K. I called her repeatedly everyday after that and got her voicemail finally after 4 days I spoke to her and was told she cannot reach Peter since he was off for a few days and she will get in touch with him in a day or so. After this when I followed up with this I received her voicemail again and this time I tried to speak to other rep from charge back and was told that it was out of their hands and the chargeback has already occurred.
Meanwhile OnePay tried to take 3774.72 out of my bank and it was reversed since I am not that rich or doing so well that I would have that much money in bank. Anyhow, now I started talking to supervisors in One Pay and spoke to Dave and after heated long arguments I was told I could never have been told it was ok to recieve a pass code from the customer. Since its OnePay who has to give me a code and then he said that they are not responsible and I should have contacted the number on the back of the card and not them. But finally he said he will look into it and tell me if they will take any responsibility. That was the last I spoke to him.
Now finally I receive a call from Evans Bercy stating I owe them $3955.93 even though I was given 3774.72 less their processing fee of around $60 and they are holding a couple of hundred from my transactions. Well this person now tells me that regardless what happened and what their employees told me its my responsibility to know if I was being screwed. Their employees telling me that the card went through has nothing to do with the charge back and if I was not sure I shouldn't have listened to the customer service reps and its not their job to tell me if the card or transaction is good. He stated all this is in the contract. When I asked to see the contract since I have never seen the contract when I was given papers to sign, he mailed me a copy of the contract which is 4 pages font size 4 maybe and it has a small line where it says "You are fully liable for all transactions returned for whatever reason..".
So, after consulting a lawyer I mailed him a letter to get details of everything in writing I never heard from him and now I received a letter from William Chapman of Greenberg, Grant and Richards Inc. stating that now they are handling the case which is now $5538.30. I called this person and asked him to mail me all the paperwork that shows how it went upto $5538.30 and he said there are legal fees added and his words "I rather not mail you anything" being a little surprised I asked again and he said he rather not.
As of now I am consulting with a lawyer but I would love to get suggestions and any help from others. You can email me at [email protected]
You can work for them for more than 7 years. You can account for 70% of the company growth while employed by them. You can set standards and reach goals, yet to be achieved by others. Revenue on your work exceeds any other comparable effort. You ARE the top 1%.
None of this will ever be remembered. The residual income, your livelihood is vulnerable. Your efforts will be forgotten in the blink of an eye. You will be nothing to them. You WILL become the enemy.
We own a restaurant establishment who processes credit card transactions. We entered into a contract for their services on November 3, 2008. The contract ended on November 3, 2011. Prior to signing the close account form we confirmed the date the contract ended. We faxed it to the company and confirmed receipt and they "closed" our account. Then on Nov 21, 2011 Federated debited my business account for $295.00 for a early termination fee. I called the company immediately and spoke with a rep that informed me that because I did not give them 90 days notice prior to my contract ending in writing that I wanted to close my account, this is why they charged me the fee. I disputed that fact and ended up speaking with Mr. Johnny Louis and he told me he would make an exception and reverse the debit he put through on my account once I disputed it with my bank. My bank gave me a provisional credit of $295.00 on November 25, 2011 and then proceeded to complete their investigation of this matter. On February 13, 2012 my bank then debited for the $295.00 stating that they recived paperwork from federated via fax on February 1, 1012 and based on those documents I was not entitled to the credit. They told me that I had to work it out with Federated.
I contacted Federated again and spoke to Johnny several times and he agreed that I was debited for the money and said once he saw the credit from my bank he would reverse the money back to me. He never kept his word as of February 28, 2012. I have spoken to his assistant Vicki he told me that they never received the original money back on November 21, 2011 clain=ming that my account was overdrawn, which was incorrect. I faxed the documents from my bank proving that they recived their money on November 21 and Chase gave me a credit and then reversed it. Vicki stated after I reiterated the facts back to her again that she would review it and call me back. I did not receive a call from Vicki nor Johnny. My next step is to my lawyers office and small claims court in Suffolk County to file a claim against this company.
My company has been with federated payment systems for 6 years. I was offered a much better rate (0.5% lower!!) from another company therefore I switched. I traveled overseas therefore I told my office to call to cancel the service in Nov. 19th, 2010. Federated told the office that someone authorized had to call so the request for cancellation was unsuccessful.
I came back on Dec 17, 2010 and immediately called Federated to cancel. However I was already charged with Annual Fees, Statement Fees and Compliance Fee etc, totaling $104,even though there was no transaction at all. I spoke to Linda from customer service over the phone and spent 10 minutes to go through the whole cancellation procedure. At the end of the call, she told me that there is a form that she will email me and sign back. That's it. She DID NOT mention that if you did not get the form or did not sign back, the account is not cancelled. And guess what? SHE FORGOT TO SEND THE EMAIL TOME!!! My Outlook mailbox has 20 emails that day and no record of any email from Linda.
So I thought the account and been cancelled.... Until I got a Dec statement on Jan 5th with all the fees and ... a IRS Reporting Fee of some sort for year 2011 totaling $134. So I called immediately to speak to Linda. I made sure that she sent me the email so that I can fax it back to her. She said she will submit the IRS charge for review. I asked her, does that mean it will be not refunded? She said, most likely it will.
Until now, no refunds has been issued. I called again to inquire about the refunds and a supervisor named Darrell respond to my call. He understands that Linda did not send me a email but insisted that there can not be refunds regardless. He also made two comments:
1. He said that I have been a good customer (providing them with revenue) for six years and because I did not call them tolower rates when switching to another company, I deserve to be charged and of course they won't give refunds because the account is now closed.
2. Even though he undestands his employee made a mistake by not sending out the form, it is my fault that I did not call back and ask for it.
Here is my advice for everyone:
1. Federated overcharges and will try everyway to make more money off you and their customer service department are the worst. Do not use their service! there are alot of cheaper alternatives out there!
2. Make sure if you cancel their service, call your bank and ask to stop ACH payments from Federated so that similar cases can be avoided!
Our business experience with federated payment systems has been absoultely terrible. Their intial contact with us through the sales rep was promising gold quality service, the lowest prices possible and other promises which turned out to be outright lies. We purchased new machines throught the rep, not the company Shady), so we could eliminate the need for the three year contract. Having two locations we were told they required separated accounts - no problem there. So far so good.
Months later we are being overcharged for nearly everything possible from percentages of qualified, mid-qualified and perk cards, batch charges, swipes charges and more. Their calls to many customer service agents. He was able to fix some of the overcharges. This process had to be repeated again two months later.
The other large problem was their billing of discounts. We had arraged to be billed monthly whic worked initially. A couple months into the contract the billing switched withoutnoticfication to discounts being processed with every batch. Anyone who has reconciled quickbooks can attest this as being a complete nighmare. Andrew was called to fix it, which he did.
Two months later the billing switched to daily discounts again. Andrew was called to resolve again, which he did. The discussion stated we were extremely unhappy with the service level and wanted out of the contract entirely if anything else happened. He concurred this as acceptable.
Fast forward a year and we have been overcharged for mid-qualified from the beginning and just missed it. We switch companies and are very happy now. To cancel our contract took an act of god. Nobody wants to release the fax number to the cancellation department. I had to actually get the operator to hold while i faxed it over to ensure it was received - after 4 previous attempts.
Federated payment system is now claiming we owe $295 per each of two contracts and threatening collections. They have nothing documented and refuse to negotiate.
Warning: federated payment systems is thought of as the scam artist throughout the merchant service community. We highly recommend using some other than federated payment systems.
Federated Payment Systems LLC Reviews
I own a clothing retail store where I sell Indian dresses averaging $200-$300 so one sale of $3774.72 is not a everyday thing as matter of fact my monthly credit card swiping is around $2000-$3000.
On April 5th, 2012 I had 2 ladies with a child who walked into the store looking for dresses and picked out clothes and artificial jewelry totaling $3475 with tax it came out to $3774.72 and they gave me a debit card to swipe.
Talking about debit cards, I was new to running a business so I had no idea that processing companies don't charge you interest on Debit cards they only charge you a transaction fee and I was paying a $0.20 for a debit transaction plus 1.59% per swipe INITIALLY and then on my statement I was charged an additional 1.55% on these debit transactions. When I learned that usually its only $0.10 to $0.20 per transaction and no fees I contacted them and I was told I signed a contract and I cannot change it and had to abide.
Anyhow coming back to April 5th when I received the card instead of a name it said "A Gift for you" so that kind of made me cautious and then the lady told me that there is a password associated with the card so she had told me to press a certain button which I don't recall and then enter a numerical password and after doing all this I got a receipt and everything seemed normal but this whole process seemed fishy so I asked the customer if I can swipe the card without password and she said it wont go through but I did it anyway and yes it came declined. Since this is not a small amount, pretty much my monthly salary, I wanted to be thorough so I took all the actions I can to make sure I wasn't getting screwed. So, so far I swiped the card with pass code and received a receipt and then tried it again to have it decline and now I called the number on side on my machine which was 1-877-333-3728 for OnePay or Federated Systems LLC - Customer Service. I spoke to a person named Peter told him the whole story and I was told yes there are cards with pass codes so there is nothing to worry about. He even assured me by telling me that he sees the transaction on his side and it seems fine, and believe me I am not exaggerating when I say I at least confirmed that everything was good about 5 times. After his assurance I gave the merchandise away.
Since this was a big amount and the whole thing was messing my head I forced a batch and then called back and spoke to Shawn K. (this time I got their last initial) and he told me the batch had gone through and everything seems fine and I will receive the money as usual. (One thing that boggles me is that every time you call a company they state they are recording the conversation so how come they cannot recall or get that recording to assure what the person said.)
Well after all this to my surprise I got a chargeback letter from ChargeBack Processing Center stating there is a charge back on this transaction for the amount $3774.72. So I called OnePay back and spoke to a person whose name I forgot to write but he told me that I had to fax the receipt and details since the charge is because the person said he never purchased the items and he also told me regardless I now have to deal with the chargeback department. So I called the chargeback dept and spoke to Malissa who advised me to write everything up and fax it to them so they can look into the case. Well after following up with them for about 2-3 weeks I was told the reversal is denied and the reason is that the card was decline and I still swiped it. After telling them repeatedly that it decline the second time after I swiped initially with a pass code they kept repeating it was declined and apparently according to them if you keep swiping a card after many declines IT WILL GO THROUGH, imagine that. Anyhow this was only one swipe and it was after it went through with a pass code. Anyhow she told me they will look into it that was the last I hear of her.
After 1 week I called back on June 13th and spoke to Lisa in charge back and told her the whole thing and she said she will contact OnePay and speak to Peter and Shawn K. I called her repeatedly everyday after that and got her voicemail finally after 4 days I spoke to her and was told she cannot reach Peter since he was off for a few days and she will get in touch with him in a day or so. After this when I followed up with this I received her voicemail again and this time I tried to speak to other rep from charge back and was told that it was out of their hands and the chargeback has already occurred.
Meanwhile OnePay tried to take 3774.72 out of my bank and it was reversed since I am not that rich or doing so well that I would have that much money in bank. Anyhow, now I started talking to supervisors in One Pay and spoke to Dave and after heated long arguments I was told I could never have been told it was ok to recieve a pass code from the customer. Since its OnePay who has to give me a code and then he said that they are not responsible and I should have contacted the number on the back of the card and not them. But finally he said he will look into it and tell me if they will take any responsibility. That was the last I spoke to him.
Now finally I receive a call from Evans Bercy stating I owe them $3955.93 even though I was given 3774.72 less their processing fee of around $60 and they are holding a couple of hundred from my transactions. Well this person now tells me that regardless what happened and what their employees told me its my responsibility to know if I was being screwed. Their employees telling me that the card went through has nothing to do with the charge back and if I was not sure I shouldn't have listened to the customer service reps and its not their job to tell me if the card or transaction is good. He stated all this is in the contract. When I asked to see the contract since I have never seen the contract when I was given papers to sign, he mailed me a copy of the contract which is 4 pages font size 4 maybe and it has a small line where it says "You are fully liable for all transactions returned for whatever reason..".
So, after consulting a lawyer I mailed him a letter to get details of everything in writing I never heard from him and now I received a letter from William Chapman of Greenberg, Grant and Richards Inc. stating that now they are handling the case which is now $5538.30. I called this person and asked him to mail me all the paperwork that shows how it went upto $5538.30 and he said there are legal fees added and his words "I rather not mail you anything" being a little surprised I asked again and he said he rather not.
As of now I am consulting with a lawyer but I would love to get suggestions and any help from others. You can email me at [email protected]
Thanks for your interest.
You can work for them for more than 7 years. You can account for 70% of the company growth while employed by them. You can set standards and reach goals, yet to be achieved by others. Revenue on your work exceeds any other comparable effort. You ARE the top 1%.
None of this will ever be remembered. The residual income, your livelihood is vulnerable. Your efforts will be forgotten in the blink of an eye. You will be nothing to them. You WILL become the enemy.
We own a restaurant establishment who processes credit card transactions. We entered into a contract for their services on November 3, 2008. The contract ended on November 3, 2011. Prior to signing the close account form we confirmed the date the contract ended. We faxed it to the company and confirmed receipt and they "closed" our account. Then on Nov 21, 2011 Federated debited my business account for $295.00 for a early termination fee. I called the company immediately and spoke with a rep that informed me that because I did not give them 90 days notice prior to my contract ending in writing that I wanted to close my account, this is why they charged me the fee. I disputed that fact and ended up speaking with Mr. Johnny Louis and he told me he would make an exception and reverse the debit he put through on my account once I disputed it with my bank. My bank gave me a provisional credit of $295.00 on November 25, 2011 and then proceeded to complete their investigation of this matter. On February 13, 2012 my bank then debited for the $295.00 stating that they recived paperwork from federated via fax on February 1, 1012 and based on those documents I was not entitled to the credit. They told me that I had to work it out with Federated.
I contacted Federated again and spoke to Johnny several times and he agreed that I was debited for the money and said once he saw the credit from my bank he would reverse the money back to me. He never kept his word as of February 28, 2012. I have spoken to his assistant Vicki he told me that they never received the original money back on November 21, 2011 clain=ming that my account was overdrawn, which was incorrect. I faxed the documents from my bank proving that they recived their money on November 21 and Chase gave me a credit and then reversed it. Vicki stated after I reiterated the facts back to her again that she would review it and call me back. I did not receive a call from Vicki nor Johnny. My next step is to my lawyers office and small claims court in Suffolk County to file a claim against this company.
My company has been with federated payment systems for 6 years. I was offered a much better rate (0.5% lower!!) from another company therefore I switched. I traveled overseas therefore I told my office to call to cancel the service in Nov. 19th, 2010. Federated told the office that someone authorized had to call so the request for cancellation was unsuccessful.
I came back on Dec 17, 2010 and immediately called Federated to cancel. However I was already charged with Annual Fees, Statement Fees and Compliance Fee etc, totaling $104,even though there was no transaction at all. I spoke to Linda from customer service over the phone and spent 10 minutes to go through the whole cancellation procedure. At the end of the call, she told me that there is a form that she will email me and sign back. That's it. She DID NOT mention that if you did not get the form or did not sign back, the account is not cancelled. And guess what? SHE FORGOT TO SEND THE EMAIL TOME!!! My Outlook mailbox has 20 emails that day and no record of any email from Linda.
So I thought the account and been cancelled.... Until I got a Dec statement on Jan 5th with all the fees and ... a IRS Reporting Fee of some sort for year 2011 totaling $134. So I called immediately to speak to Linda. I made sure that she sent me the email so that I can fax it back to her. She said she will submit the IRS charge for review. I asked her, does that mean it will be not refunded? She said, most likely it will.
Until now, no refunds has been issued. I called again to inquire about the refunds and a supervisor named Darrell respond to my call. He understands that Linda did not send me a email but insisted that there can not be refunds regardless. He also made two comments:
1. He said that I have been a good customer (providing them with revenue) for six years and because I did not call them tolower rates when switching to another company, I deserve to be charged and of course they won't give refunds because the account is now closed.
2. Even though he undestands his employee made a mistake by not sending out the form, it is my fault that I did not call back and ask for it.
Here is my advice for everyone:
1. Federated overcharges and will try everyway to make more money off you and their customer service department are the worst. Do not use their service! there are alot of cheaper alternatives out there!
2. Make sure if you cancel their service, call your bank and ask to stop ACH payments from Federated so that similar cases can be avoided!
Our business experience with federated payment systems has been absoultely terrible. Their intial contact with us through the sales rep was promising gold quality service, the lowest prices possible and other promises which turned out to be outright lies. We purchased new machines throught the rep, not the company Shady), so we could eliminate the need for the three year contract. Having two locations we were told they required separated accounts - no problem there. So far so good.
Months later we are being overcharged for nearly everything possible from percentages of qualified, mid-qualified and perk cards, batch charges, swipes charges and more. Their calls to many customer service agents. He was able to fix some of the overcharges. This process had to be repeated again two months later.
The other large problem was their billing of discounts. We had arraged to be billed monthly whic worked initially. A couple months into the contract the billing switched withoutnoticfication to discounts being processed with every batch. Anyone who has reconciled quickbooks can attest this as being a complete nighmare. Andrew was called to fix it, which he did.
Two months later the billing switched to daily discounts again. Andrew was called to resolve again, which he did. The discussion stated we were extremely unhappy with the service level and wanted out of the contract entirely if anything else happened. He concurred this as acceptable.
Fast forward a year and we have been overcharged for mid-qualified from the beginning and just missed it. We switch companies and are very happy now. To cancel our contract took an act of god. Nobody wants to release the fax number to the cancellation department. I had to actually get the operator to hold while i faxed it over to ensure it was received - after 4 previous attempts.
Federated payment system is now claiming we owe $295 per each of two contracts and threatening collections. They have nothing documented and refuse to negotiate.
Warning: federated payment systems is thought of as the scam artist throughout the merchant service community. We highly recommend using some other than federated payment systems.