Getting out of Payment Sense Contract

[kaggylupin]

I am looking into the possibility of closing my shop after Christmas as we are just not making any profit, we only opened in June. I am extremely worried about the costs attached to closing especially the Payment Sense Contract. I have read on this forum and they have verified that as a sole trader I can get out at a cost after 18 months. I am currently paying £25.00 for rental of machine and £21.00 + per month for processing which considering we have never taken over 40 card transactions a month is just silly, and considering I was quoted 11p per transaction is not what I expected. Does anyone know have an idea how much it will cost to get out of the contract after 6 months?? I feel this will be the biggest cost.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

I am looking into the possibility of closing my shop after Christmas as we are just not making any profit, we only opened in June. I am extremely worried about the costs attached to closing especially the Payment Sense Contract. I have read on this forum and they have verified that as a sole trader I can get out at a cost after 18 months. I am currently paying £25.00 for rental of machine and £21.00 + per month for processing which considering we have never taken over 40 card transactions a month is just silly, and considering I was quoted 11p per transaction is not what I expected. Does anyone know have an idea how much it will cost to get out of the contract after 6 months?? I feel this will be the biggest cost.

Hi

OK if you decide to close your business down, you will be liable for your rental payments up to month 18 of your base contract. Therefore assuming you started your contract in June of this year (2013) and you are paying approx £ 25 PCM inc VAT, your o/s liability would be until December 2015 (18 months) as your Lease is governed by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 which allows you to exit the Lease after month 18.

You may also be subject to a cancellation fee from FDMS for your Merchant account, but I believe that due to your circumstances, this might be negotiable, however we cannot make any promises re this.

Re the quote you mention of 11 p per transaction, what was this for exactly and is it stated in your contract anywhere, as it is most certainly not a rate I recognise that PaymentSense would ever offer, especially to a New To Cards Business ?

I would suggest you contact our Customer Services Team on 020 8962 5445 and ask them to see if they can help you by reducing your charges, whilst you try and improve your trading position, and hopefully we can then at least help, whilst you turn your business around or if your only choice is closure in January, you will need to negotiate closing your contract and see if you can negotiate a reduction on the FDMS cancellation fees.

Please feel free to PM me your details and I will also raise a case on your behalf if this will help you at all.

Kind regards

Mark

 

[BenKirkwood]

I am looking into the possibility of closing my shop after Christmas as we are just not making any profit, we only opened in June. I am extremely worried about the costs attached to closing especially the Payment Sense Contract. I have read on this forum and they have verified that as a sole trader I can get out at a cost after 18 months. I am currently paying £25.00 for rental of machine and £21.00 + per month for processing which considering we have never taken over 40 card transactions a month is just silly, and considering I was quoted 11p per transaction is not what I expected. Does anyone know have an idea how much it will cost to get out of the contract after 6 months?? I feel this will be the biggest cost.

Hi Kaggylupin,

So sorry to hear your business is not going as well as expected, Drop me a PM with your details and I'll connect you directly with a customer services manager who will work with you to look at your option and to minimise any costs.

Ben.

 

[Talay]

Opened in June 2013, chucking in the towel in September 2013 ?

 

[promdressers]

I am looking into the possibility of closing my shop after Christmas as we are just not making any profit, we only opened in June.

It is always sad to hear of a business closure, due to insufficient profit. Would it be rude to ask what line you are in, and if you can pass any pointers on. You may not be in the right frame of mind for it, but could help other folk thinking of starting up. (Like me, as it happens)

 

[mhall]

And next time don't ever be bullied into signing for a long contract for credit card machines. Make sure you triple read the whole contract, score through any area where details can be added after you have signed.

That said, did you really think the whole thing through if you have only lasted four months?

 

[LMDServicesUK]

An observation, I know this Merchant and I can absolutely assure you that they were not "bullied" into signing a 5 year contract.

This is an issue in this industry and it is something that PaymentSense does not support or undertake, if this was ever shown to be the case, they will take disciplinary action against the sales person(s) involved, have no doubt about that.

Having said that your advice is correct and I would support it, however in this case bullying was not part of their sales process.

Rgds

Mark

 

[Sparx]

And next time don't ever be bullied into signing for a long contract for credit card machines. Make sure you triple read the whole contract, score through any area where details can be added after you have signed.

That said, did you really think the whole thing through if you have only lasted four months?

Who said anything about being bullied?

 

[mhall]

Sorry, "Bullied" was perhaps the wrong word to use. Shall we say "Persuaded" ?

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Sorry, "Bullied" was perhaps the wrong word to use. Shall we say "Persuaded" ?

Fair comment, but in this Merchants case their min contract term was actually 18m not 5 years, as we operate our contracts subject to the Consumer Credit Act 1974 unlike some of our competitors..

Mark

 

[mhall]

Fair comment, but in this Merchants case their min contract term was actually 18m not 5 years, as we operate our contracts subject to the Consumer Credit Act 1974 unlike some of our competitors..

Mark

and to be fair I only said "long", not " 5 Years"

Your industry has got a long way to go to get over the crooks of the past. I hope you continue to run your business properly. If you do so, you will do well.

 

[baben]

Few questions and facts for Payment Sense guys who are monitoring posts:
1. I have been (still with them) with PS almost for 4 years and initially signed a contract for 5 years without knowing. So no, I have not been bullied or persuaded but the guy who signed me up has never told me about 5 years contract. He sat there going through what he needed to say and sneakily never mentioned 60 months contract. Obviously my mistake that I have never took my time and read properly through the contract.

2. Since I have past 18 months being with them I guess I can leave as I am sole trader and the law says that contracts with sole trader can not be more than 18 months (or are not valid after 18 months, not sure). So I spoke to customer services at PS and they told me that I can leave but I will have to pay two charges which are related to the card machine we rented. These two charges together come to £400. So my question here is, if the law says that no contract more than 18 months should be valid with sole trader, why do I need to pay these charges if I want to leave when I long passed 18 months?

3. I have just opened my statement this morning and noticed that my account has been charged with £47.99 for the last month in addition to my normal monthly charges .I called the number from the statement and been told that PS decided to charge everybody with this amount for "hardware maintenance". I have never paid this before so basically they decided they will do and that's it. No letter sent to my business about this charges, they just did it. Unbelievable.

Looking forward for the comments about each of my points above.

 

[Deleted member 226268]

3. I have just opened my statement this morning and noticed that my account has been charged with £47.99 for the last month in addition to my normal monthly charges .I called the number from the statement and been told that PS decided to charge everybody with this amount for "hardware maintenance". I have never paid this before so basically they decided they will do and that's it. No letter sent to my business about this charges, they just did it. Unbelievable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Didn't that used to be called " Theft " once upon a time ?
Fraud ?

Where in your initial contract does it say that you may also
be liable to pay sporadic charges of an "unspecified" amount ?
What hardware maintenance ?
Anyone come around to service your machine ? No.

Seems to me that a lot of companies are doing this now,
Paypal, phone companies, hidden service charges + any other

companies that have their hands directly into you bank account through direct debit etc.

Everyone seems to be getting away with these underhand
charges, and so the practice is rapidly escalating.

Problem is that you cannot any longer refuse
to pay the dubious charges,
because it has already been taken !

Is there any chance of recovering this blatant theft through
the small claim courts ?

 

[baben]

Yes, this is shocking. I guess do some good research before you sign up with anybody. But the thing is I have some other important things to do than spending hours on the phone trying to figure out who will not screw me in the future. This is all wrong.
Have they ever heard about "customer retention"? Dont think so...

 

[a1anm]

3. I have just opened my statement this morning and noticed that my account has been charged with £47.99 for the last month in addition to my normal monthly charges .I called the number from the statement and been told that PS decided to charge everybody with this amount for "hardware maintenance". I have never paid this before so basically they decided they will do and that's it. No letter sent to my business about this charges, they just did it. Unbelievable.

Looking forward for the comments about each of my points above.

We just received our latest statement and also have this charge. Seems like they will be adding this on every month?

I haven't checked yet but I don't think we received any notifications about this new charge.

 

[baben]

We just received our latest statement and also have this charge. Seems like they will be adding this on every month?

I have just called them. They said that these charges are YEARLY account maintenance fee. On your statement you will notice says "MONTHLY" but that is not correct. This is yearly fee paid once a year. They claim that they sent a letter on 24th Jan 14 informing us (this is a fat lie) but we have never received this letter. Also the lady on the phone said that they are bringing these charges to match industry standard.

Personally I have spoken to at least 5 companies in the last month and none of them has got any account maintenance fee, also 3 out of 5 companies do not charge for PDCI compliance (Payment Sense charges me £5.00 pm), some of them do not have even authorisation call charges for every transaction which is low around 0.03 pence but it still comes to £4.00 pm.
In addition to that I pay double for every visa transaction to what I would pay with some other company.

The fact that they can just wake up one day and decide to charge us whatever they want is shocking.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Few questions and facts for Payment Sense guys who are monitoring posts:

Hi Baben,

1. I have been (still with them) with PS almost for 4 years and initially signed a contract for 5 years without knowing. So no, I have not been bullied or persuaded but the guy who signed me up has never told me about 5 years contract.

Point 1.

PS have always offered a 3, 4 or 5 contract term for the terminal lease, if you were not offered these options, we can only apologise that you were not advised of them, however the benefit of these longer contracts is that your Merchant rates are CAPPED for the duration of the contract.

2. Since I have past 18 months being with them I guess I can leave as I am sole trader and the law says that contracts with sole trader can not be more than 18 months (or are not valid after 18 months, not sure). So I spoke to customer services at PS and they told me that I can leave but I will have to pay two charges which are related to the card machine we rented.

Point 2

The charges you are referring to for the benefit of other members are the terminal restocking fee which is £ 190 plus VATY and is levied by the leasing company FDGL. So yes you can exit any further rental liability after month 19 under the 1974 CCA, but you are still liable for the restocking fees. This again is explained in the leasing agreement.

The other charge is a cancellation fee from FDMS who provide you your Merchant Services, and is normally only raised if you end your agreement before the end of your committed lease period, so again it is not related to your terminal lease.

To put this into perspective other companies combine the charges into a single exit fee, so this is normal Industry practice amongst most of the UK providers.

3. I have just opened my statement this morning and noticed that my account has been charged with £47.99 for the last month in addition to my normal monthly charges .I called the number from the statement and been told that PS decided to charge everybody with this amount for "hardware maintenance". I have never paid this before so basically they decided they will do and that's it. No letter sent to my business about this charges, they just did it. Unbelievable.

Point 3
Can I suggest that you speak directly to our Customer Service team on 020 8962 5445 and they will discuss these fees with you, and see if they can work out something for you. We have no direct control over these charges, hence our recommending that you speak to Customer Service in the First instance.

A more general observation would be that most service agreements that Businesses sign up today will contain a clause about introducing new services or charges, and it will probably state that by signing the agreement you accept any changes.. Not great but something the majority of Companies are now doing..

Mark

 

[LMDServicesUK]

I have just called them. They said that these charges are YEARLY account maintenance fee. On your statement you will notice says "MONTHLY" but that is not correct. This is yearly fee paid once a year. They claim that they sent a letter on 24th Jan 14 informing us (this is a fat lie) but we have never received this letter. Also the lady on the phone said that they are bringing these charges to match industry standard.

Personally I have spoken to at least 5 companies in the last month and none of them has got any account maintenance fee, also 3 out of 5 companies do not charge for PCI compliance (Payment Sense charges me £5.00 pm), some of them do not have even authorisation call charges for every transaction which is low around 0.03 pence but it still comes to £4.00 pm.

In addition to that I pay double for every visa transaction to what I would pay with some other company.

The fact that they can just wake up one day and decide to charge us whatever they want is shocking.

PCI fees are charged by all Merchant Services Pproviders, in our case monthly , other companies charge it annually, and if you fail to become compliant you will be fined.

You are right re Auth fees, some do not charge, but for example WorldPay/Streamline have just reintroduced them for all their Merchants from 1.4.14..

If you are trading at a higher volume than when you fist signed up with PS, speak to Customer Service and if you can demonstrate a regular higher monthly card t/o I am sure they will undertake a rate review for you.

 

[baben]

Thanks for your reply Mark.

1. I would never ever ever sign contract for 5 years not even 3 if I knew and if that guy told me.
The fact that my rates are capped means nothing as I found out this morning when new charges have been applied to my account, all because ..well...they can do it and nobody can do anything about it.

2. Contract with sole trader should not be longer than 18 months and that is what law says. So why is my contract on 5 years? I just don't understand. I should not be liable for any charges after 18 months regardless of the agreement as agreement is not valid after 18 months. This is how I understand it. I might be wrong but would appreciate if you could explain.

3. I called customer services and surprise surprise they can't do anything about it.

 

[baben]

PCI fees are charged by all Merchant Services Pproviders, in our case monthly , other companies charge it annually, and if you fail to become compliant you will be fined.

Not true. I have just spoken to other provider and they do not charge a penny for compliance. I do my compliance every year.

I called Payment Sense for rate review and they offered new rate so they said they can lower the rate from 0.28 to 0.27. I thought it was some kind of joke. A competitor just offered 0.16

Honestly all these rates do not bother me but the way your rep did a business with me without mentioning duration of the contract and the way you introduced your annual maintenance fee is unforgivable.

Why don't you look after your existing customers instead of chasing new ones all the time?

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi Baben

The length of your contract would have been clearly stated on the lease agreement you signed, but I can appreciate you are not happy but if the contract length field is not completed, the contract cannot be processed.

To be fair to PS they only ever guarantee your Merchant rates and terminal rental are CAPPED for the duration of your contract, a lot of the other fees are not within their control, so no commitment could be made re those..

As a Sole Trader your FDGL Lease agreement (which is a 5 year agreement) is governed by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 which allows you to exit your Lease agreement early after month 18 if you so wish, and be no longer liable for any remaining lease payments thereafter.

So whilst you can quite legitimately stop paying the leasing fees after month 18, you must then return the terminal to FDGL, and then pay the Restocking Fee as per the Leasing agreement that you signed.

The restocking fee is completely separate to the lease charges, and is not subject to the CCA, legislation as is also the Merchant Services agreement that you entered into.

You signed two separate agreements one with FDGL for the terminal Lease, the other with FDMS for your Merchant Services.

I hope this helps

Mark.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi Baben

You obviously know my Industry better than I do so I will not argue the point re PCI Compliance management fees. Every MSP charges them, anyone who tells you otherwise is at the very least being misleading..

Re our existing customers, we have over 30,000 live merchants and the majority of them are very happy with us, so yes we do sometimes get it wrong but most of the time we get it right.

I can only apologise if you feel you were misled in the sales process, but as with any legal contract as the buyer you should check you know what you are signing up to..

I will however ask if a Manager can contact you to see if we can do anything else to help you re this whole issue.

Mark

 

[baben]

Hi Baben

The length of your contract would have been clearly stated on the lease agreement you signed, but I can appreciate you are not happy but if the contract length field is not completed, the contract cannot be processed.

To be fair to PS they only ever guarantee your Merchant rates and terminal rental are CAPPED for the duration of your contract, a lot of the other fees are not within their control, so no commitment could be made re those..

As a Sole Trader your FDGL Lease agreement (which is a 5 year agreement) is governed by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 which allows you to exit your Lease agreement early after month 18 if you so wish, and be no longer liable for any remaining lease payments thereafter.

So whilst you can quite legitimately stop paying the leasing fees after month 18, you must then return the terminal to FDGL, and then pay the Restocking Fee as per the Leasing agreement that you signed.

The restocking fee is completely separate to the lease charges, and is not subject to the CCA, legislation as is also the Merchant Services agreement that you entered into.

You signed two separate agreements one with FDGL for the terminal Lease, the other with FDMS for your Merchant Services.

I hope this helps

Mark.

-------------------------------------------------

Thanks for explanation.

As I said before it was my fault not checking the paper I signed. The number of months have been entered so there is no complaint there. At my work place I am busy and can't read the paper for half an hour and I expect from the rep to tell me the most important aspects of my contract. The fact that I am signing the contract for 5 years, I find that to be the most important part of my contract. For him not to mention that within 1 hour talking to me is very very bad.

 

[baben]

Hi Baben

You obviously know my Industry better than I do so I will not argue the point re PCI Compliance management fees. Every MSP charges them, anyone who tells you otherwise is at the very least being misleading..

Re our existing customers, we have over 30,000 live merchants and the majority of them are very happy with us, so yes we do sometimes get it wrong but most of the time we get it right.

I can only apologise if you feel you were misled in the sales process, but as with any legal contract as the buyer you should check you know what you are signing up to..

I will however ask if a Manager can contact you to see if we can do anything else to help you re this whole issue.

Mark

-----------------------------------

I am not saying I know your industry better than you, I am only telling you what other rep told me this morning. But this rep could be misleading me and could be even worse than the one PS sent me 4 years ago, you never know. I will be careful next time, that is for sure. Thanks.

 

[Stephen Black]

It is pretty poor that they just introduce new charges without telling you and makes a mockery of their "Capped Rates" claim. I know LMDServices tries to defend this by differentiating between rates and charges but that makes it worse. To then go on and say "most companies introduce new charges" is also a mis-truth - any that do recognise this as a material change of contract which allows their customers to terminate at no charge. Funny how the posters above say that their Paymentsense letters advising of a material change never arrived.......a more cynical person would be suspicious. Finally - authorisation charges, there are still plenty of providers who don't charge these. You guys in the industry need to start issuing your quotes in plain English with summaries of key points for customers to see and appreciate rather than hiding important information in the small print of page 7. If you don't start getting transparent then some teenager with disruptive technology and a slimmed down operating model will come along and wipe you out......hopefully.

 

[babblemouth]

Restocking Fee

For a returned card terminal

 

[mhall]

"restocking fee" - someone's having a laugh.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Stephen Black:

You guys in the industry need to start issuing your quotes in plain English with summaries of key points for customers to see and appreciate rather than hiding important information in the small print of page 7. If you don't start getting transparent then some teenager with disruptive technology and a slimmed down operating model will come along and wipe you out......hopefully.

Re point one we do already all the fees are summarised on the 1st page of the application form that the merchant signs.

Re point two, yes our founders whilst not teenagers, were serial entrepreneurs from the IT Industry who saw an opportunity to disrupt the then Merchant Services Market back in 2008, they launched in 2010, and we now have 30K plus Merchants..

 

[mhall]

I think the contracts are simple- it's the rogues and crooks doing the selling and telling the lies - and it doesn't matter who you go with in my experience, there is zero control and even less acknowledgement that there is a problem. If the sales person is self employed - move on. Triple check the contract, make sure every box has something in it. Photo copy the thing so you have a copy and then sign it. We shouldn't need to take these precautions but we are dealing with shysters, pure and simple. The market is worse now than it has ever been and I am convinced that somewhere, the Merchant Services people, telecommunications people and electricity people all have regular meetings with each other to see just how they can screw us over next.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

As a self employed sales person, I am only successful if my clients recommend me to other prospective customers, burning my customers is not a good way to grow my business, so I take exception to your comment about "if self employed move on.."

How do you know if a sales person is "employed" in my experience it makes no difference as they get paid if you sign up or not, but they have targets that they HAVE to hit, we don't..

I can only assume you have had more than your fair share of bad experiences, so I would again state for the record, ALWAYS READ the contract before you sign and that way you know what you are agreeing to..

I personally now get a lot of my new clients as referrals from my existing merchant clients, so I must be getting something right !

Mark

 

[fathippy]

I would suggest that the majority of the 30k customers you keep harping on about are (like me) people who are desperately trying to leave. Everyone I have spoken to about this company have a very similar story to tell, despite your one-man protestations that everything is rosy. Furthermore, I have experience of a number of participants in this market, in fact probably all of the major players at one time or another, and Payment Sense are in my opinion by far the worst.

What seems odd if you honestly believe all of what you are saying, is why there is a conscious decision to avoid mentioning any of these added costs or fees. Surely if the whole market place was charging them, you would remain just as competitive being honest. The fact that you try every trick in the book to avoid mentioning them strongly implies it is not common practice, and also that you believe your customers would not like it or want it. This then also contradicts the assertion that most of your customers are "very happy". Who are these people who actively enjoy having chunks of money taken from their bank accounts from time to time?

Given that this forum covers a reasonable cross section of the UK small business marketplace, I would ask anyone who is not a stooge for payment sense, to come on here to explain their satisfaction with the service they have received.

I dont hold my breath.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

So how exactly were you miss-sold ?

If you have a genuine grievance re PaymentSense then please contact their Customer Service team on 020 8962 5445 who will happily investigate your complaint/concerns.

As I have said before and will do so again, if you have been genuinely miss-sold by any one representing PS, PS will take action as appropriate.

Making general comments like this, and inferring PS are some kind of "Boiler Room" scamming operation, is dangerously close to libellous so I would be very careful in your use of such language on an open forum..without at the very least providing evidence to support your claims does not help anyone..

Mark

 

[fathippy]

Why do you post on here with a payment sense logo and then constantly talk about them in the third party?

Speaking to customer services is exactly what I did do, and they are little or no help as they are set up in exactly the same way as everybody else which is to do their utmost to avoid any admission of guilt. There is the usual combination of accidentally losing the recordings of conversations, hiding behind unethical clauses along the lines of "227 b) we can do what we like " or " 854 g) in the event of dispute, payment sense are right ", and if the situation requires it, simply ignoring emails or promising to call back and not doing so in the hope that you get bored and go away.

You ask how I was mis-sold, so I will answer. I must have been one of your first customers as I transferred about 10 businesses to payment sense in 2010, which is when you claimed that you started. I point blankedly refused to sign the 5 year lock up, as I said (reasonably) that I had no idea what the businesses would be doing in 5 years and did not want to have the burden of long leases hanging over me. I had often in the past merged entities and split off shops and did not like the rigidity that these lock-ups created. The salesman gave it the real hard sell saying that this was "only to keep you from going to a competitor" and we would not enforce it in the event of liquidation or change of ownership or any corporate event. I asked for this in writing, to which he replied that his hands were tied and he could not write this down as it was against company policy. Stupidly I let it go at that point and took his word for it.

Two years later and we decided to knock one of the companies on the head so I rung the salesman back to organise closing the account, at which point he ummed and ah'ed a bit before going off to speak to the boss and coming back requesting a stack of fees and three years lease payments. I pointed out what we had discussed to which he replied that "we never talked about that". I was furious, and so spoke to customer services, who merely asked the salesman what had happened, and then told me that I was lying as nothing had been discussed. I asked for them to provide the tapes of the conversation, to which they replied that they didnt have them as it was not necessary to record every single conversation, but just the odd one.

This is the extreme, but the company attitude on all levels from the most minor point upwards is the same. It is a single minded desire to squeeze every pip out of the customer. The reason why you keep quoting these customer numbers seems to me to be that you have not actually been open long enough for any of your existing customers to get to the end of their 5 year lock up so you have absolutely no idea what your retention will be like. All of the existing customers are still in the phase one, and as a previous poster commented, the amount of effort that goes into new customer acquisition and the hard sell keeps the numbers ticking over.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

I am self employed and act as an agent of PaymentSense which is why I talk about them in the third person.

So if you "closed" the Business you presumably put it into Voluntary Liquidation and the lease would have then gone into the Unsecured Creditors liabilities for the liquidated business, ( so as a Director you have no liability), along with any other contracts that the Business may have held. If you signed up to a 5 year term as a limited company that is the term you commit to.

You would have had to sign a Leasing agreement with FDGL, as part of the application process to PS. The lease agreement you signed would have clearly shown how long a period it was for ( 36, 48 or 60 months), so how have you been miss-sold if you signed a Lease agreement without checking you were happy with the length of the lease ?

You come across as an astute business person so the idea that you signed an agreement without confirming how long the lease length you were committing to does seem surprising ?

You were obviously happy with the Merchant rates as offered ? or you would not have proceeded across all of your Business..

Re your arguments concerning signing a 5 year lease, we ask for 5 years as we CAP our Merchant rates for the duration of the contract, thus giving the Merchant peace of mind re their ongoing merchant charges, other companies do offer shorted terms but they will NOT CAP their rates.

If you PM me your Business name / contact details I will ask that a senior Manager contact you to see if we can assist you at all re your obvious still outstanding grievance with us..

Mark

 

[kelvin1950]

I find it amazing that people give pushy, obnoxious salesmen the time of day. We certainly don't and consequently we don't seem to get into these sort of contracts. I've verbally ejected two pushy Payment Sense sales people, and several who didn't work for Payment Sense!

 

[mhall]

They are all the same, and it matters not which payment provider you use. We must have gone through all of them over the years, including PaymentSense and never found one that ever told us the whole truth. We finally agreed a one year rolling contract with HSBC and every six months we check the rates. Ironically we have just entered our 5th year with them, proof that a decent contract will work. So far, so good although they have not been without their trials (the recent PCI compliance farce being one of them). It has to be said the same applies for our telephone, broadband and electricity suppliers.

The fall back will always be "you signed it".

The next fall back position is always "n'owt to do with us guv, that charge is levied by someone else". The fact that it is all part of the same, confusing contract is just shrugged off.

We have long since stopped any form of negotiation for anything unless it's in writing. We won't discuss anything on the phone (which gets rid of most of the shysters) and we won't entertain callers. It's a sad world we live in when we have to assume everyone is a crook, especially as we spend all our days being nice to people and making sure they know that we are honest and decent, but that's the case. "Buyer Beware" has never been truer

Hopefully there will soon be a few small players who can see the market for what it is and take advantage

 

[The Byre]

If we can get away from yet another hole-digging exercise by some sleazy company that digs its heels in -

The OP stated that he/she is giving up after just FOUR MONTHS trading! WTF!

With that kind of attitude, you will get absolutely nowhere! My first proper company was a five-window shop in the town square of a small market town. For the first three months, I didn't have ANY customers. I mean none! Nada. Nichts! Nothing! Nobody came into my shop.

I spent the day building stuff, rearranging things and generally trying to create value - but still the punters gave me the old body-swerve.

I then decided to get radical. I told all my friends and anybody else I could think of that there was free beer at all time in my shop. We were selling stuff that appealed to young guys and that weekend, the place was wall-to-wall people and I was selling expensive kit to all my new drunken mates that I never knew I had!

Stupid tricks like free beer, or some other daft idea really work and it is a great deal cheaper to give away a couple of hundred Quid in beer, fluffy toys, bondage handcuffs, DVDs, reading glasses or memory sticks, or one of a thousand other crazy objects, than to close your business and lose your investment.

Come on! Have an exciting re-launch of your business!

 

[Stephen Black]

Stephen Black:

Re point one we do already all the fees are summarised on the 1st page of the application form that the merchant signs.

Re point two, yes our founders whilst not teenagers, were serial entrepreneurs from the IT Industry who saw an opportunity to disrupt the then Merchant Services Market back in 2008, they launched in 2010, and we now have 30K plus Merchants..

Your response says it all - technically correct but not really getting the spirit of it!

Your "disruptive" business is a total commodity. You resell First Data's processing and someone else's terminals, nothing more complex. Success is largely down to aggressive sales people rather than some innovative product.

Re summarising fees - 1) most customers don't appreciate the finer detail and most sales people don't explain it adequately; 2) the ability to change fees at a whim is farcical and customers can't realistically break because they are tied into a separate terminal rental contract; 3) these "capped rates" are a joke - what's the point if other fees can be levied - I've seen other posts where people complain about new charges you guys have recently introduced? Also, I see you never mention the get-out on your capped rates which used to be on your website which allows you to increase them? Guess thats why your capped rates are not a contractual commitment from you.

Reading your comments, you seem decent, but am surprised at the lengths you go to defend the indefencible.

 

[ThePublisher]

How come I've been charged £47.88 monthly maintenance fee? Reading above this is for hardware maintenance. I don't have any hardware I only use the virtual terminal!

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Contact our Customer Service Team they will address this issue 020 8962 5445

Your response says it all - technically correct but not really getting the spirit of it!

Your "disruptive" business is a total commodity. You resell First Data's processing and someone else's terminals, nothing more complex. Success is largely down to aggressive sales people rather than some innovative product.

Re summarising fees - 1) most customers don't appreciate the finer detail and most sales people don't explain it adequately; 2) the ability to change fees at a whim is farcical and customers can't realistically break because they are tied into a separate terminal rental contract; 3) these "capped rates" are a joke - what's the point if other fees can be levied - I've seen other posts where people complain about new charges you guys have recently introduced? Also, I see you never mention the get-out on your capped rates which used to be on your website which allows you to increase them? Guess thats why your capped rates are not a contractual commitment from you.

Reading your comments, you seem decent, but am surprised at the lengths you go to defend the indefencible.

I am very happy re my defending PS against some of the feedback that is given about us and I stand by my observations based on my experience of the industry and the satisfaction that my customers feedback to me.

When the Business launched there was little if any choice for Merchant Processing o/s of the Big 4 Banks, with service levels to match. That has changed radically over the last 5 years, and Merchants have more choice than ever before and yes there are a few cowboys out there as well. But we have over 30K of live Merchants so we must be doing something right ( from Zero) for a "Commodity Business".

Also re our CAPPED Merchant acquiring rates Promise, this has been the case sine the Business started and it is still valid, what we cannot control however is other costs that the Business has to manage whether internal or as a result of the Service providers we work with.

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.