Common Credit Card Processing Scams Exposed!
What every business owner should know about merchant account providers...
Welcome! Thousands of business owners claim to have been approached by a credit card provider promising significant savings of processing fees, only to learn later, to their horror, that their fees increased profoundly. Moreover, they claim to be trapped for 48 to 60 months in a pernicious terminal lease, along with egregious account termination fees if they wish to change processing companies. We have investigated many of these claims and are now publishing what has been uncovered. We viewed flagrant misrepresentations of pricing and equipment schemes resulting in shocking financial losses to small businesses. Many claims were so pernicious that business owners were driven into serious debt or even out of business. These actions appear grossly pervasive affecting hundreds of thousands of businesses nationwide.
Watch these videos!
We are dedicated to protecting business owners from common scams in credit card processing. We are a non-profit association protecting business owners from common scams in credit card processing. Take a serious look at the following videos documenting the full nature and extent of this penetrating investigation! Some unsuspecting sales agents filmed above were seriously duped into making flagrant pricing cost misrepresentations with their affiliating company and have since left that employment. Knowing how to recognize specific misrepresented price and equipment schemes protects against anyone from any company offering you these deceptions. Another website you might find particularly useful is CardPaymentOptions.
The 1% and 0 Scam: Payment Systems
Payment Systems claims to offer wholesale rates of 1% credit and 0% debit with ERR pricing. Is it a scam? See the Payment Systems sales pitch exposed on hidden camera with a review of their merchant services program.
Terminal Leasing Sets The Stage: Northern Leasing
Leasing a terminal to process credit cards sets the stage for fraud. A plan used by ISO sales agents to scam merchants – courtesy of Northern Leasing and other leasing companies.
Disentangling The 1% and 0 Scam: Part 1
Disentangling the 1% and 0 credit card scam, part one. Performance Merchant Alliance exposed: Enhanced Recover Reduced (ERR) pricing plus lease scams merchants out of thousands of dollars EACH. Here is the link referred to in the video: The Lease The Ultimate Enabler
Disentangling The 1% and 0 Scam: Part 2
Disentangling the 1% and 0 credit card scam, part two. Enhanced Billback pricing scams thousands of merchants from National Card Solutions, Direct Processors, Prestige Payments and United Card Solutions sales agents with a deceptive PROGRAM FEE.
The Lease The Ultimate Enabler
The lease is the ultimate enabler. Elite Pay Global and Ironwood Payments sales claims captured on hidden camera and reviewed. Here are links referred to in the video: Homeless man free after 13 years for food theft, Phillip Parker link to Ironwood.
Ironwood Payments
Ironwood Payments: How the 1% and 0% SURCHARGE pricing scam triples or quadruples your processing fees.
See pricing and leasing changes made by Ironwood Payments in the video, The Lease The Ultimate Enabler
The Misplaced Card Scam: Securus Payments
The misplaced card scam: Securus Payments – How TIERED pricing with a lease can be manipulated to raise processing fees by thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
Perverting Interchange Plus: Wholesale Payments
Perverting Interchange Plus: Wholesale Payments uses layers of fictional WHOLESALE rate claims along with a misleading PROGRAM FEE.
Perverting Interchange Plus: Merchants Choice
Perverting Interchange Plus: Merchants Choice – How SLAMMING can cost a merchant thousands of dollars, perhaps even equipment from your Merchant Services Partners!
Click here to see the statement pages referred to in the video.
More videos coming soon!
Why This Documentation from Merchant Services Fraud Alert Association is Uniquely Important to Small Business Owners Accepting Payment Cards
The thousands of complaints registered online from small business owners across the country alleging fraud by processing providers all seem to bear two intense emotive elements. The first is bitter anger. The anger articulates an alleged malicious misrepresentation of complex pricing and equipment costs that are not easy to understand and verify. The second element seems to be frustration – with being unable to document the alleged fraud with evidence to back up the verbal claims of long gone sales agents.
Some very well informed blogs and websites have pulled together useful data about these alleged frauds, even grading many processing providers according to posted and researched material contained therein. A particularly useful website is CardPaymentOptions.com hosted by Phillip Parker.
We have gone a major step further in fully authenticating sales presentations using video and audio recordings to document and certify exactly what the sales agents are claiming. We have written documentation by the hands of these sales agents supporting their verbal claims. We have written documentation between the processing providers (and their sales agents,) and certain leasing companies called Vendor Agreements which detail 'who' – which party – is responsible for leasing fees in the event of misrepresentation and/or fraud on the part of any processing provider. While we are not a law firm nor do we give legal advice this information is important to know.
We have made available in our video links detailed information and documentation of many of the sales schemes used to mislead business owners regarding pricing and equipment fees and costs. These online videos are just a small portion of what we have accumulated during our investigations. These can all be made available to any business owner who may need and can use them. That includes full and complete length versions of videos and audios posted online here.
If you are a business owner who has not been disadvantaged by any of these schemes, watch and learn for your protection. Knowing the reputation of a processing provider is certainly useful. Knowing how to recognize specific misrepresented price and equipment schemes protects against anyone from any company offering you these deceptions. Another website you might find particularly useful is CardPaymentOptions.