Worldpay I/D verification issues

[No Business Yet]

Good morning, I have been with Worldpay for years and they now require me to prove who I am. This is causing problems as no matter what proofs I provide, they want more. It is now at the stage where I provided by tax UTR in October and they have just come back wanting a recent HMRC letter in my name and certified by an accountant or solicitor. As usual, if I do not comply, they will withhold my money. Why do Worldpay want me to certify a letter that I have received from HMRC when HMRC are quite happy who I am, surely Worldpay are significantly overreaching their due diligence requirements ?

As mentioned, this has been ongoing since October with no end in sight and everytime I phone up, I get a foreign call centre where staff are clearly reading from a script and unable to help.

Has anyone else had these issues ? How did you resolve them - other than the obvious continuing to feed to monster !

Many thanks

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

For the last four years they have been hounding me to do this and that I have told them I'm not doing it and am not prepared to put the time in .
They are very expensive and I don't expect the hassle I have explained to them anymore of it and I will be going somewhere cheaper

 

[No Business Yet]

Once I can get to the New Yer, that is also my plan, do you have any suggestions ?

Meanwhile I can not afford for them to start holding my money. Since the pandemic ended, the majority of our sales are now card whereas previously it was only about a third.

 

[fisicx]

You are not alone. I suspect worldpay have had their knuckles rapped about compliance and are now chasing businesses. It’s all about money laundering regulations.

Either you comply and get your money or don’t and lose your money.

Change to another payment provider and you may well have to do exactly the same.

 

[No Business Yet]

Great, and here I was hoping for a new start next year with a more reasonable company and possibly save some money.

They already had the majority of the information they have requested. It is as if they created a new department and told them to start from scratch, rather then check their existing records and simply fill in the blanks. Asking for an accountant to certify a HMRC letter is stupidity, do they then want some sort of verification for the accountant ? Where does it end ?

 

[fisicx]

People can easily falsify an HMRC letter. All they are asking the accountant to do is verify it’s a genuine letter.

 

[Glen Wheeler]

Are you stuck on World Pay? Are you on there for a specific reason, perhaps it's specific to a system or platform you use?

There are so many better alternatives these days.

Hope you get the problems resolved anyway folks.

 

[No Business Yet]

Not stuck, just using them for in person card payments. I want to move but every time a rep comes in and promises big savings it turns out to be more expensive.

Someone has recently recommended Sumup, so I am looking into them but on first inspection, they too are more expensive.

 

[Glen Wheeler]

Are you using a POS system?

 

[No Business Yet]

No, just a traditional electronic till.

 

[Elliott Coleman]

I had this letter from Worldpay too. They wanted me to provide all the information via email so I told them to get knotted. No way I was going to send personal information and copies if ID through an ensure method. I told them that if they made a way for me to upload it via my account then I would be happy to do that.

They left me alone for a few months then I got another letter. This time I could upload my documents via my account so it seems they did at least listened and realised that email was stupid.

I didn't bother getting anything certified by anybody and just sent them a copy if my drivers licence and the letter I got from HMRC with my VAT number. They've gone away.

I've been dealing with them for 7 years. Funny they want to know who I am now.

 

[No Business Yet]

Exactly. I have been with then for eight and now they want information. I recently sent them the accountant certified HMRC letter with my name and address. A few days later I get an e-mail from Worldpay saying they now want me to verify my address ! I pointed out the address was on the recently submitted certified HMRC document. So far - about a week, I have not heard anything back so I have no idea whether or not I am " compliant " or not and have no plans to phone up to find out. Clearly they are employing people to read a script and not paying them to think and trying to actually speak to someone who will give an answer is impossible.

I am now looking round for an alternative provider. Does anyone have any suggestions that would actually be cheaper than Worldpay and would not hound you for three months for duplicate information.

 

[fisicx]

Whoever you choose will want similar identification documents. It’s all part of the money laundering regulations.

 

[Elliott Coleman]

Whoever you choose will want similar identification documents. It’s all part of the money laundering regulations.

I don't think anybody is complaining about providing the documents.

 

[Tim Oddy]

Good morning, I have been with Worldpay for years and they now require me to prove who I am. This is causing problems as no matter what proofs I provide, they want more. It is now at the stage where I provided by tax UTR in October and they have just come back wanting a recent HMRC letter in my name and certified by an accountant or solicitor. As usual, if I do not comply, they will withhold my money. Why do Worldpay want me to certify a letter that I have received from HMRC when HMRC are quite happy who I am, surely Worldpay are significantly overreaching their due diligence requirements ?

As mentioned, this has been ongoing since October with no end in sight and everytime I phone up, I get a foreign call centre where staff are clearly reading from a script and unable to help.

Has anyone else had these issues ? How did you resolve them - other than the obvious continuing to feed to monster !

Many thanks

 

[Tim Oddy]

We have been with Worldpay for seven years and like you have fallen foul of their verification methods and incredibly poor communication. They are withholding monies owed to us and like yourselves keep moving the goalposts so there is always further information being requested. Why they cannot ask for all the information they require at the start I don't know. It seems they are either totally incompetent or deliberately withholding our funds for their own ends. It won't be long before they'll have bankrupted our business but they seemingly don't care with whatever we say to them making no difference whatsoever. I honestly despair.

 

[ecommerce84]

Try and approach other card processors and ask them to match or beat your current rates. Even some of the traditional banks such as Lloyds or Barclays will offer up competitive rates.

I’ve never used them but I would recommend avoiding Paymentsense based solely on what I’ve read on here over the years.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

It won't be long before they'll have bankrupted our business

How?

One assumes that when this started you changed providers to get cashflow starting again?

 

[fisicx]

@Tim Oddy - were you drawing down daily? If so there shouldn’t be a lot of cash in your account.

And as Paul suggested, as soon as the block happened did you switch to a backup system?

 

[kedelltd]

We have been with them for 15 years. They sent an email that said they were cancelling our account as we had not verified our business. Stupid people don't know who we are after 15 years. I checked one of the contact numbers in the email and it came up as a payment scam, so I ignored the email. Then they stopped our account while holding £26k of our money and we couldn't take card payments. I acted immediately to get verified via their online facility.
They came back to me saying one of our shareholders who held 25% of the shares but no position in the company needed to be added as a Person with Significant Control on Companies House records. I pointed out that the government's documentation clearly stated that you need to have MORE THAN 25% shares to qualify as a PSC.
I made a complaint about the endless delay in verifying us and called everyday to get updates. You couldn't speak to whoever was dealing with verification and kept being told it was pending. They said they would escalate our case everytime I called and that it would be another 24-72 hours to get a reply. After a month we registered with Lloyds instead.
Then I got an email apologizing for the delay, but saying our complaint about the delay was not upheld as we had now been verified and our funds would be released.
We lost thousands of pounds in sales and our reputation was damaged, as when people couldn't pay by card they thought we might be a scam business, or they just went elsewhere.
I am quietly furious. Their incompetence beggars belief. We will never go back to them no matter how cheap they get as reliability is more valuable.
We had no issues signing up with Lloyds and I wish I hadn't waited a month hoping against hope that Worldpay would get their act together.