In the credit card processing business, it is common, or should I say most probable, that every merchant will run into a salesman who blows smoke, and sells a bill of goods that is FAKE NEWS!  In fact, most likely, every merchant in the country has one time or another gotten taken, scammed, or hoodwinked with “I am going to save you money on your fees” GOBBLEDYGOOK!

I recently spoke to a merchant, Mike, who has an inflatable party rental business.  He switched over to us after having been scammed and actually abused by another credit card processing salesperson.  Call the scammer, Bob from Brand X.

• Bob told my new merchant that he would get a rate varying from 1.5% to 1.7%. My merchant does e-commerce transactions, so that was a total lie since those transactions average 2.5% to 3% and higher. Those rates are not even real for swiped transactions!  Here are more of Bob’s lies:
• He neglected to tell Mike that there were extra fees to get a mobile gateway account. In addition, he forgot to tell him that he would need to set up a second merchant account with additional monthly fees just for the mobile gateway!
• Bob from Brand X told this merchant he could send him swipers for his mobile phone at no charge. The swipers never arrived, but the fees were deducted from his bank account.
• Bob had charged my new merchant $85 for a Non-PCI compliance fee. Never had he given him any information on how to become PCI-compliant, nor was this exorbitant fee disclosed.
• He also told Mike that his wife could sign all the paperwork for him. Not so, since his wife was not a member of his LLC.
• Niether Mike, nor his wife, ever actually signed an agreement.
• Now he cannot get a hold of Bob.
• Now Mike is trying to cancel both of his accounts for the fraudulent lies at the time they were set up.
• Now he is finding out that he has not 1, but 2, huge termination fees for breaking both of his contracts early.

Unfortunately, this is an ever so familiar, sad story!  We hear variations of it all the time, and I mean all the time.  Check out our category of blogs from our website at ElectronicMoneyCompany.com, called, “Scams of Credit Card Processing Salesmen”.  You can educate yourself with more Bob from Brand X scams to watch out for.

A typical sales system for payment processing companies is to hire telemarketers to call merchants and pressure, pressure, pressure with half truths.  And that is being kind.  I used to think that maybe our industry just didn’t train their salespeople well and that they stupidly gave out incorrect information.  But over time since the year 2000, I have come to accept the fact that many processors out there, actually push these scripted lies onto their salespeople.  Some salespeople leave after they find out they are scamming people, and many others learn how to hard close with the lies and make a lot of money.  They are never going to talk to that merchant again, so who cares? So they keep the system going.  They keep finding merchant prey, who are honest and upright individuals themselves and never suspect the trouble they are getting themselves into.  And yes, it is a nightmare to get out of an agreement like this one.  Mike is cancelling his bank account to rid himself of the nightmare.  He doesn’t care if it affects his credit, which it unfortunately will.

I got so sick and tired of hearing these sad stories that I wrote a book called, “The Secrets of Credit Card Processing Fees Revealed”.  You can download it from the About Us Page.