Innovative Merchant Solutions review: Salesman misrepresentation! 40

A salesman came in my store one day in Sept 2007 and said I could try out his credit card processing company. Said their rates were cheaper than BAC and I should just sigh up and it costs nothing, no risk.. well they called back and programed my card processing machine October 1st 930am 2007.to start their processing my cards. Well on October 7th I got a charge for September when I was with another company BAC. Of course there were no transactions, so they charged me $35.00. I called them back and said they made a mistake, and they couldn't care less. So I canceled that day, after 7 days, and I got a termination fee of $295 and growing. Will never pay and would love to be involved in a class action suit...

This Company is horrible they charge you $295 without telling you and claim its on your contract from 2years ago! I am taking them to small claims court asap dont trust them. They also set us up with a account that we did not request. The customer service do not tell you any information about your account and its a price to pay when you deal with this company. I found the corperate office is in California [protected] you can report them on CNN IREPORT. This is a fruadgulent business and they should be shut down asap ! thank you for reading

I opened an account with Innovated Merchant two weeks before my business was up and running. I sell hardwood floors and had not yet establish a cliental but wanted to be ready with a credit card machine. I told the rep that I would activate the machine as soon as I need to. About a month later an unauthorized debit from my business checking in the amount of $55.00 was debited and a month after that another $55.00 was debited again. I called them and asked why I was been charged if the machine was not activated. I was very angry and I cancel.
I was told that all I had to do was to send back the credit card machine; I was never told that I had to pay cancellation fee or tax fee on the credit card machine that I returned unused and never activated. It is totally a rip off to have to pay for something that I did not use or to pay tax on something that I do not have.
I refused to pay for it and now a collection agency is call me I either pay or my credit will be ruined. What can I do?

I have sent in my $100.00 in gas receipts from exxon and have not received any gift cards in the past 3 months...I will like to know how to get my gift card...since i have not received any card for the past three months...

I switched to this company because they promised lower rates. I used their services for over three years without contract month to month. When I decided to terminate their services and go with another company they charged me $295 termination FEE. They are unethical and have bad customer service. DO NOT USE THEM.

THEY are not cheap at all...THEY Will take you money...again and again...

Their salesman misrepresents things and never said anything about a termination fee. I never would have signed if they had been upfront about a termination fee($395.). They are a very crooked and their representatives are horrible at providing customer service. They suck, suck, suck!

Fraudulently opened account, billed us for charges for this account even though we have never used their service and or gave confirmation for account.

I believe the most proactive way to get the word out about this company "Merchant Solutions, aka, Merchant Solutions Fundings" is to call your local BBB, Better Business Beaural. Merchant Solutions has an "A" grade rating wyith "0" complaints in every state because they litterally buy there grade. The BBB unfortunately is more concerned with turning a profit these days instead of giving out accurate info. There site is loaded with unofficial, nonexistenting businesses because the money is more important to them.
There are 5 star businesses who refuse to join the BBB because of this practice. Unfortunately these 5 star businesses are given an "F" grade rating If they receive even 1 complaint. The business could serve 10, 000 customers a day and the complaint could already be a resolved but it doesn't matter, unless they pay the BBB a minimum of at least $395 a year they will continue to have a F rating for there business.
That's all Merchant Solutions has done is pay the BBB and people check them out and believe the BBB to be reliable as it use to be and Merchant Solutions stays in business.
ABC did an indepth report on this whole issue with the BBB in 2005. It's very good, google it and you'll get all the info you need.
I believe the BBB to be the best start to ending this company's unbelievable practices.
I'm so sorry you all had to go through what you did. I wouldn't have believed it but you all had the same exact story. Good luck. Jereen

Its so unpleasant to be calling them and asking for your own money. Suddenly after processing almost half a million in the past 2 years, rep. Kelley held 2 of my deposits for over $3, 000. What's more interesting is that deposits after that were not held and released to me. My question is, if they intuit feels that I am committing some type of fraud, why deposits after that 3K were released to me. Are they being nice to me? Also there were only 2 charge backs cases, about 1 year apart from each other, out of thousands of transactions and when I called last time, another intuit rep used these charge backs cases against me. More interesting, both of the cases happen because customer forgot that they buy products from me. As far as I am concerned intuit risk management is operating based on their emotions and common sense things like history, respecting merchant who makes good money for you don't make sense. What their risk management does not know is I am credit card security specialist and I used to consult in this area. I know a lot more compare to people who pick up the phone at the processing company risk management. I used to program systems that they use. Anyway, bunch of BS... Its just wrong how they can just hold your hard earned money for no particular reason at all. Nobody gives a crap about little people like me and you. Our country is full of crap like that. Monopoly is what I call it. Small business owners can't get anywhere because they are at the mercy of some people at the risk department, because of whom businesses lose their revenue and go out of business. Thanks god I saved most of the money I made. I also process in 3 different banks. My recommendation to all of you, stay below the radar. Never depend on just 1 processor. Get as many merchant accounts as you possibly can and spread your processing across many - that's the only way to keep your business going, otherwise you are facing some nerve wrecking idiotic conversations with people who can care less about you. Intuit is not the only one who treats merchants this way. Remember you are just little tiny ant compare to them... Keep that in mind you little people.. I am up for class action! ShopPharmacyCounter.com if I don't get my money very soon.

I had problem with Innovative Merchant Solutions aswell. They approved charge then several days later disapproved. When I called they were rude and unprofessional. I cancelled charge that they at first approved then later didn't so they charged me for approval that they didn't even approve, after they would't refund money I cancelled account with them and they charged me again. They are scam artist.

signed up last year with the same understanding as a lot of others. My salesman was also a cold call everything he promised and quoted me turned out to be a lie .I was told they were a direct prossesing company and that I would no longer be on a three tier system just a flat rate 1.69 then 10 cents per swipe.Now im getting chared More than double .when I call customer serviceall i get is thats what you signed up for !.company is a complete fraud will be filing a complaint wiht the atterney general we should all get togeather and start a class action.

I have called Innovative Merchant Solutions customer support many times and found that much of the time their representatives are shockingly rude and unprofessional. They are unhelpful and provide the minimum possible enthusiasm to help. Many seem to have an attitude. I even had one young woman say "Thats not our problem" when I needed assistance.

I strongly agree with everything Mrs. Miller stated. This company is nothing but a big fat lair. The sales rep I talked to, she told me not to worried about the exisiting merchent service I was using. She said it was no problem at all to switch to Innovative. Before she started her big fat lying mouth, that was the first question I asked her: how am I goona swith to you guys if I've already have a contract with Capital One? She was so sure that it would no problem at all to switch. She even said that by signing the application only means that she can go ahead and see if I can get approved for the account, it does not mean that I am agreeing to swith to Innovative. Long story short, I had to pay $295 canellation fee to get rid of these lairs. Please pass on the experience and help other people from getting tricked by this no shame, lair company!

Here are a couple of sites to help get enough people to see this issue in a broader audience. If they are enough people to voice their personal situation with this company perhaps there is a change they might chance their questionable business practices.

Here are links already posted to these sites, you can comment or created your own individual posting.

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-420919

http://clarkhoward.com/p/boards/ch/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=clarkhowardripoffs&Number=1306119&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&part=

If you have had issues with this company, please file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. They are BBB accredited and they should not be.

http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/Commerce-Technologies-Corporation-13133452

I had the same experience with this company, they want to charge me 295.00 for canceling even after
6 years of doing business with them. please don't for any reazon sign up with them don't make the same
mistake I made.

We should do a class action lawsuit with this merchant provider. We have the same thing as all of the above post. They misrepresented the information, promised everything we need and could do, their service is horrible and we all got stuck with the cancellation fee. I am in for the lawsuit is anyone wants to join me.

Me and my husband had the same thing happen to us almost verbatim!
The sales rep said we have 60 days to try it out and if we didn't like it there would be no cancelation fee.
We did not even use their services when we found out that the software wasn't compatible with our current POS. The rep said it would be.
We were also told by customer service that we signed a contract with a $295 cancellation fee and that they do not offer a free trial period.
We were also charged $35 for two months for a service we never used.

I can't believe that with all these complaints our Attornies General are not doing something about this company. If someone out there wants to form a lawsuit I'm in on this one! This is ridiculous that they are not requiring their sales people explain the cancellation fee in their "pitch". My salesman was a "District Sales Manager" and he, Robert D. Herzog even scribbled out the termination fee and they won't give me my $295 back either.

I signed up for this service 5 years ago. I was going to start a website and was told I would need to hhave a merchant account to process credit cards. I was told by a sales representative that the cancellation fee was there for those who got cold feet and wanted to cancel. I was told if you kept it for at least a year, and then cancelled that there would be no fees. The monthly price I was quoted was about 20 dollars a month. He failed to mention the 10 dollar fee, 14.99 and 22 dollars that has been charged each month and the 75 dollar fee at the end of the year. Needless to say, I never did anything with the website, but waited for 1 yr to cancel. I was told by a service rep that I would be charged the cancellation fee because I didn't have the account long and they would have to recoup the loss. He strongly implied for me to keep the account another 2 to 3 years to avoid the cancellation fee. Well, 5 years later and having spent over $2200 for a service I never used I finally cancelled. I was told by a service rep when I asked about the charges that I would only be charge for the month of october. What a load of crap! 2 days after debiting my account for 22 dollars, they charge me $295 cancelation fee! Everytime I have called to complain, I am belittled or just hung up on. The last person I spoke with transfered me to a number so that I can leave a message requesting the refund, but I have yet to hear from anyone. There needs to be consequences for their business practices and they should be held accountable.

This company was here at my store again. They scare all my employees saying "IMS" but it kinda sound like "INS" Immigration. They also hire one dude that is the same race as yours and speaks your native tongue and make all kinds of promises. I signed with them five years ago and after reading about their scams on line what I did was I never got to download and use their machine but they were able to take out like 25.00 dollars a month for using their so called "service" I told the bank to close the account and told them we were going out of business. So we went to a new bank and been happy ever since. I told those guys to leave today and they wouldnt go. I got really loud and still they wouldnt go. My dad is an idiot for entertaining them showing them our current charges from who we currently using for our machine. I snatch the paper out of his hands and stared them in the eye and still they wouldnt leave. I've never towed anybody's car before but man if only I had the number to a towing company as my blood pressure rose. I will print out all these complaints and post them in my restaurant.

The very same thing happened to our company. Our contract was month-to-month. We also used their services for about four years. When I asked why I would be charged a $295 fee, the representative informed me that while our contract was month-to-month, our "agreement" carries a cancellation fee. can anyone explain the difference? My rep sure couldn't. I was also informed, at the time of cancellation, that it would take two weeks to cancel.

Had the same problem as RNET. Transaction was approved, they held the fund, had to fax all kinds of documents, cancelled the transaction and now I'm waiting to have this finished so I can charge the customer with my previous merchant, where I never had any problems with.

I also have been taken by this scam of a company. $295 termination fee? Are they crazy. It's companies like this that should be shut down. Where's the government regulation for these guys? Oh, how did I forget... they are too busy bailing out these other idiots at our expense. What was I thinking?

WOW!

i just had a sales rep come into my store, and after everything he said about the company, I was really considering moving over to them. Thank God I decided to google them and that's when i came across this post.

THANK YOU ALL for taking the time out to write these reviews. You have just saved me a headache I don't need.

Innovative Merchant Solutions does not support their clients. Their passive approach towards disputes puts their customers at risk. In all of our dealings with this company they have taken the easy way out and failed to perform their functions. They deny claims based on failure to rebut within the time frame when they actually received the paperwork. My only guess is that they are not willing to make any effort actually review the claims or defend their clients. I would not recommend this company to any company. Their association with QuickBooks was our reason for selecting them but it was a very costly mistake which we have now rectified by cancelling our association with this company.

In my case as others Innovative was unable to provide service. Tech. support was rude and never returned calls. I canceled my account with them and denied them access to my bank account. They were unable to debit me for there cancelation fee so they turned it over to a collection agency ( Consolidate Recovery Group ) which put it on my credit report. They call me every couple months and send letters saying they are suing me. I am waiting until I get something from the court. In the mean time I am applying for credit and if denied I will be seeing them in court.

I just called the office of the President of Intuit to complain about Innovative Merchant Solutions. I was told by Perry that someone will contact me within 4 hours. She said Intuit executives review all complaints that come in to the President's office. She also said she has not received many complaints about Innovative Merchant Solutions. I would suggest that if you have a problem with them call the President of Intuit and complain.

I reached them through their corporate offices in CA: [protected]

I've been a customer for several years processing small charges using Quickbooks. Then last month a client wanted to pay a large bill via credit card (about $6800), the charge was approved, but Innovative Merchants withheld the funds. I waited for days to find this out, then told me I had to fax an invoice, and I also gave them the clients name, address, phone, etc, to verify he is willing to pay the invoice via the credit card (that WAS APPROVED)

I don't hear from anyone for days, the money never appeared in my account. I called my client and he said the money was taken out of his account. I called the merchant back and for some reason the person handling the issue wasn't in. I sent an email, left voice messages, no one called back. I had to call again and ask for a supervisor. They said it was the Las Vegas branch that was handling it, and gave me their contact info. I sent an email, never got a response. I called the next day, left a voice mail.

Finally someone called me back, but they said they would not transfer the funds to me because some of the work on the invoice was older than 6 months. I argued that they could call the client and verify he is willing to pay the invoice. They told me it's against their policy to process charges for services older than 6 months, and that I had to issue him a credit. All this took over 12 days to find out, and only after a half a dozen or phone calls. I had to issue a credit back to the customer.

I then had to ask my customer to mail me check, that my merchant service wouldn't allow the charge (made me look unprofessional). He paid through his paypal account, which went through smoothly in a few days. Then, about a week or so late, he called me to complain that the original charge was never credited back to his account.

They took his money right away, held it for over 12 days, then took over a week to credit back his account. I lost the client because of this. On top of all this they charged me almost over $480 is processing fees (they took their fees coming and going). Even though Intuit never actually funded my account for the charge, they made me pay fees for the charge AND the credit.

A week later, another client wanted to pay an invoice. I processed the charge, it was approved. Again, they made me fax an invoice, this time it was for work done within 30 days. The charge was approved on 2/27, I faxed the invoice on 2/28. It is now 3/14 (over 2 weeks later), and I don't have the funds. I made about a dozen calls so far, and no one is giving me a straight answer. Again, they said the Vegas branch is handling it. I call and they're either out to lunch or at a meeting. I leave a voice mail, send email and get no response. I called today (saturday), they put me through to the vegas branch and the person answering sounded like he just woke up. He told me no one was there to give me an answer as to why they are witholding my funds AGAIN.

The people I spoke to were unprofessional, unresponsive, and didn't care the least bit how this hurt my business. Worst customer service I've ever encountered from the merchant service. I thought Intuit was a reputable business as the makers of a major widely used accounting program. This experience has changed my view dramatically.

It's absolutely unacceptable in how I am being treated and how they are handling these transaction in a completely unprofessional manner. They 'claim' to fund your account in 48 hours, yet I had to wait 12 days to find out they withheld funds because an item on the invoice was over 6 months old, then had to return the charge, and they took a high percentage both times.

Now, I processed another 'APPROVED' charge without any date issues, and it's been over 2 weeks and NO ONE has told me why the funds are being held again. The office handling never responds back with an answer.

This company charged me every month for a year for services I did not get from Quickbooks. To top that off, they double charged my bank acounts for services fees and sometimes charge my account for things I didn't do or want. In addition to all that they charged my accounts in December for their Christmas vacations and overdrew my account because they did not inform me before their withdrawl that they were going to take the money out. I ended up having to close my accounts all together to get them to stop chatging my accounts for everything and had to move my accounts to another bank.

IMS is committed to transparency of pricing and fees, including termination fees. The application language quoted in the report regarding termination fees is printed in bold and is located immediately above the applicant's signature line to help draw attention to the fact that termination fees apply. The Merchant Agreement, which is an important part of defining the obligations of the parties under the relationship, clearly describes the standard termination fee. IMS takes care to describe merchant obligations in clear and unambiguous terms in its application and merchant agreement. It encourages and expects that merchants entering into such an important relationship take appropriate time to understand their obligations under the relationship.

I was told I was going to have my previuos merchant canceled and paid by them, never happpened and now they owe me over 400 bucks. Then when I canceled they immediately took 500 dollars from my account lol, I almost ready to throw all my merchants out the door. The only people that really keep me in bussiness are cash and check customers anyway.

My husband and I have had the very same problems from this company. We closed our business and they assured us they would not charge us the cancellation fee because we were not going to another company. We supplied proof we did not "jump ship" and go to another company and they said we did not send the proof in time so they charged $295 cancellation fee anyway. The whole company is a bunch of liars and cheats.

I signed up in November of 2005. I did notice the termination fee and questioned the sales rep Mitch Wolfe. He said that was there only to insure that customers didn't "jump ship" a few months after signing up. He assured me it would not apply if I completed two years or more of business with IMS.

I did change my CC service earlier this year after more than three years with IMS because of their extremely high processing fees. I was charged the fee and IMS denied knowing their own salesman!

Please do you self a favor and stay away from this dishonest and lying pack of thieves!

Hi guys, we all should file a formal class action lawsuit against them. They stole thousands from me and have no intention do deposit the fund to my account. I've gave them all the supporting docs they need and they have no reason to hold the fund. Please contact me if you are interested on filing a lawsuit. We all should work together and destroy all these scammers.

I have the same problems with these low life ### buckets. I'm going to bite the bullet and dump them for another company that is honest. I don;t care about the cancellation fee. I just want to run from these idiots as fast as I can.

IT seems that this is the way they do business. I have had a similar bad experience.

I am dealing with same kind of problems with this company also.I felt, hopless, discourage, pushed down, unrepectfull since the first day I got the service with this company''innovative merchant solutions'' and is getting worst and worst.
I see other people have problems with this company and I hope somebody do smth, for all this stress we getting for nothing.We are paying for their service, we working hard to make those money they takes from us, but they are never for us when we need their help even worst their bringing more stress in our lives.I am getting depressed every day more and more and feeling hopless for the fact that they dont care for us.
We are small bussines .We put a lot of hours to keep the place open for people.
We dont deserve this from that.
They sent a salesman to our bussines to give info what they offered.

He promissed me they will pay for the penalty I will get from my previous company if i discontinue with them, THEY NEVER DID...
He promised me i will get better rates especially on debit cards, but they were procesing every cards as credit card so i didnt get that benefit
I got promissed for help if my machine brake down, even a free machine if i started with them.Since I had a new equipment that time I didnt bother them, but the worst thing is happening naw...
I have 3 weeks without service because my credit card a far as they say is not any longer good .I should purches from them a new one.I ordered omni 3200 machine from them they sent me twice wrong machine, different way set up that i had to return to them .They charged me more than they told me ...and i havent seen the credit back even that i delivered within 14 dayes as they told me.
My bussines is going down, my customer are leaving and not coming back .I mentioned to the person named Noel with ext 22139 and he had bad attitude, I felt disrespectful.
Anybody can advise me what I should do.
English is my second language and i feel discreminated about this with the people that work for ;;innovative merchanant solutions''

This also what happend to us-almost verbatim. We were also told our machine was compatible with their services , only to find out we couldn't accept food stamps or checks through them, yet the rep said we could. I called to complain & cancel the serivce before it was even set up & then was told about the $295.00 cancellation fee. Before we signed a contract my husband asked if we could cancel if we were not satisfied & the rep said "of course. If we were not satisfied we could cancel within 60 days and there would be no charge" When I complained to the company they said the rep must have made a mistake and they weren't responsible for what the reps tell us. I could write a book about this company but now they are trying to take me to court & pay their legal fees!

Innovative Merchant Solutions an Intuit Company

This company is a bunch of Liars and Thieves! Where there is smoke there is fire. If you properly research this company the same complaints repeat themselves over and over again. The theme of deception, misrepresentation, rude service, run around tactics, non-disclosure, padded fees, and account hijacking. Instead of performing like a responsible company they operate like the mafia branded with a LLC! Make no mistake this company lies, cheats and steals money from your account! All under the pretense of a convoluted contract which you will need a lawyer to read the fine print and a lawyer to get you out of! They are poorly organizated and unfortunately that burden will fall on you the convented customer to both protect yourself and battle for your livelehood, money and respect! They are the rudest most confortation people I have ever had the displeasure of doing business with barr none! Which leaves to wonder if the employees are trained in obnoxiouness 101, and rudeness 101. This prevelent practive is unacceptable for a company in the finanicial service industry. This company is not worth the paper it advertises on and should be left for other like minded gypseys, tramps and theives. They took $266.00 of funds to cover for $8.00 worth of fees. They charge anywhere from $295 to $395 to patronize another company after 1 or 10 years, they charge annual fee of $75.00 compare to companies that charge none, they charge monthly service fees, hijack your money, they also charge $50.00 charge back fees versus other companies that charge $25.00. This is just the beginning...Is this a company you want in your bank account, processing your money? Please think, think twice there are Kool-Aid stands with more business morals than this company. They are bold face liars, ill-tempered with your money and skating close to scam artists.

Pissed and not afraid to tell Others
Atlanta, GA