Getting out of Payment Sense Contract

[ThePublisher]

Well apparently the monthly maintenance fee is nothing to do with hardware maintenance, it's to do with sending you your statement, supplying a helpdesk service (I last spoke to them 15 months ago) etc etc.

Have told them I wish to cancel my account. TBH I wish I'd stayed with Streamline.

 

[mhall]

Please name another Service Provider in this Industry, that has NEVER introduced or increased their charges at some point in a contract over the last 5 years, perhaps then this would be a valid criticism of PS.

OR, please name another Service Provider that has even a tenth of the complaints that PS seem to get here.

I am sure you are a wonderful, ethical guy Mark, but it does seem that the company you sell for/others selling the same product do not seem to share your ethics and you risk being tarred by the sticky brush.

Whether that is because the commission based, self employed sales people they use distort the truth and sell what they can without care or forethought, or whether the business itself encourages this sales technique, we have no idea - we can only speculate and guess, but it would seem that, with what appears to be the high level of complaints, the latter applies.

30,000 CURRENT merchants is actually not that many in the great scheme of things - still a great amount of income but nothing compared to the big boys. I wonder how many you will keep once they start to spot the rolling contract clauses and the tie in with other providers.

I think Payment Sense started with an admirable approach and a genuine desire to shake the market up, but their business model means they have become as bad, if not worse, than what was there before. Thankfully technology will overtake the lot of them, given time.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

I accept many of your points, and thank you for your kind words about myself, but high level of complaints, how many is high ? If we have 30,000 live merchants (all SMEs as this is the only market we only engage with), so of course we will have a percentage of unhappy Merchants (for various reasons) or Merchants whom invariably did not actually review the agreements they were signing up to.

Quite often when these Businesses hit a bump in the road or start failing.. they ring up to complain.

You have said yourself previously that you now use GP for your services, and you are on a 12 m agreement with them. However for example they will be charging you Interchange Fees on top of all the other fees, however we do not, so again different Providers different commercial offer.

This has helped me save quite a few GP Merchants considerable amounts of costs by switching to us for their Ecomms services..

The majority of our Merchants are very happy with the services we offer, and those that are not we try and address their issues as fairly as we can, and if we were at fault we have addressed their issues accordingly.

Bottom line PS remains far more competitive than any of the High Street Banks and most of the major ISO's when you look at the whole of life costs of a merchant agreement (especially for ecomm and MOTO accounts).

They are also much more likely to give a new SME Business a chance to take card payments, compared with our friends on the High Street..

I haver lost count how many Merchants who have said to me my provider just puts their fees up every year and have never offered us a rate review until we threatened to leave.. Not what I would call a good working relationship with a critical service provider.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

OR, please name another Service Provider that has even a tenth of the complaints that PS seem to get here.

RMS, HandePay, Cardsave...

 

[cartridgesave.co.uk]

Handepay

 

[colin pearce]

All this sounds familiar, PS. salesman visited me at my shop told him I wanted the same contract as our other shop which was for 18 months, he agreed, fine no problem etc. I signed whilst serving customers. When I got the contract back it had turned into a 5 year contract and they said they cannot change it. (When I complained, as I had only just opened the shop and did not as yet know how long I would be trading etc.) Also the salesman was no longer in their employ, convenient hey.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

With PS, If you are a Sole Trader or Partnership the terminal contract is governed by the 1974 CCA which allows you to opt out of the terminal rental after month 18 subject to a restocking fee. I assume you are therefore a Sole trader or Partnership ?

The Merchant Services element of the contract will always be 3 , 4 or 5 years. PS do not offer a shorter contract term than 3 years for Chip & PIN terminal merchants and this would have been very clearly stated on both the lease and Merchant Services Agreements that you signed, did you not check the agreement before you signed it to make sure everything was as you had agreed ?

As an experienced seller of PS Services I always explain this point in detail to my prospective Merchants, as I find if you are not completely up front with a prospective merchant it will always come back to bite you. Suffice to say I have not had this issue with any of my Merchants over the last 4 years of being in Merchant Services.

If you are not sure about anything always ask and read the agreement before you sign it.

 

[colin pearce]

if you read my post we already had an agreement for 18 months and I wanted the same which the salesman agreed to, as I was serving customers as I said I stupidly believed a salesman if he was up front and explained which he didn't I would of further questioned him but he took advantage of the situation and explained very little he just said it would be the same terms as our other shop

 

[Babsybay]

I have had virtually the same experience as Baben, I apparently signed a 5 yr lease, which is odd because at the time I only had a 3 yr lease for my business, I made this perfectly clear at the time in front of witnesses, that seems to make no difference, I’ve just spoken with them, they said because I requested a different terminal, that has extended my lease? I never requested a different terminal? Equally I never agreed to the boxes of terminal rolls they were going to charge me an arm and a leg for, I got out of that one? Basically they seem to play on the fact that you need something which they have and they say anything that they think you want to hear. I’m a caterer and too busy to wade through masses of paperwork, my mistake was believing the sales person, and the person on the phone who went through the T & C’s with me. Buyer beware! I’ve been with them for over 2 years now and have gone with a different company, they say I owe them nearly £400, so any advice would be welcome?

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

@Babsybay some merchant services/terminal providers will offer to buy out your existing contract. Have you checked this with the new company that you are moving to?