Gingergaye here with Electronic Money Company Merchant Services to talk to you about telemarketing cold calls who are trying to scare and scam you into switching your services. Here are some of the frightening tactics they use. They always try to instill fear of loss if you don’t switch over to them immediately.
They start out by stating, “This is your merchant services calling!” Is that so? Have you ever gotten this phone call? If it was really your current merchant services processor calling, they would identify themselves by their company name. So if you get this phone call, get ready for the telemarketer to make up some B.S. to scare you into thinking you need to switch payment processors to them.
Here are more details of the scare tactics:
- There has been a cyber attack on your terminal and we need to replace it. If there was a cyber attack, your terminal would not be working.
- Your terminal is out of date and it needs to be replaced. If this was true, then your current payment processor would call you and identify themselves.
- You are out of compliance. All payment processors notify their merchants by email if it is time to renew their PCI compliance. PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. There is not one processor who calls merchants instead of notifying them by email. In fact, if you are out of compliance, an extra fee is added onto your merchant statement. The processor makes more money and enjoys the extra profits if you forget or choose not to renew your PCI compliance. You would never need to change processors or get a new terminal for this reason.
- Most credit card terminals cost $400 to $500. But the telemarketer tells them they are only paying $89.95, which ends up being a monthly fee for 3 years on a lease. That totals over $3,200 for a terminal that costs about $450. The lease cannot be terminated mid-term, so merchants have a long haul to pay off the lease or else they get a bad mark on the credit reports. Lawyers cannot get a merchant out of a lease and they charge way too much anyway. It costs more to pay the attorney than pay off the lease. Besides the grief of paying too much for the terminal, the leasing companies make it difficult to get out of the lease at the end of the term before they auto-renew for another year. Procedures to return a leased machine or buy it out require strict attention to notification requirements within a specific time, usually 30 days before the end of the term.
- Telemarketers are slick talkers and will proceed to pressure you into signing a new application. They make you think they are working with your current processor, but they are not. I have talked to so many merchants who have fallen prey to these pressure salespeople. They end up unknowingly signing a lease for another terminal for an enormous price.
The telemarketing salesperson is in this game for a big commission on the sale of the equipment. Then they move on to the next suspect. Lord knows there is plenty of room for a big commission when the leasing company makes such a huge margin over the cost of the terminal.
So please be careful of these telemarketing calls Feel free to call us at 505-296-2847. We answer the phone live and can guide you through the telemarketing spin. Check out our Better Business Bureau reputation compared to the company calling, if they even give you their real name.
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