A big no go for Total Merchant Service TMS, they are a huge scam!

[sebastian]

This company is an absolute joke. They scammed a good friend of mine out of $37,000.


He was selling electronics online and this TMS company decides to shut his merchant account off without telling him. Of course they let him continue to charge cards but they withheld all of the funds. He noticed after about 2 days that he wasn't receiving his deposits and they told him that there were a few technical issues and the funds would all be deposited the following monday. 5 days later monday rolls around and no deposit. So he calls this company and some broad tells him that they have suspended his merchant account for being "high risk." No further discussion. No warnings. No letters in the mail.


Funny part is that my buddy never received one chargeback in 12 months processing with this crap company and his sales were only growing at about 6% per year. Thankfully he's been in business for awhile so he has the capital to sustain the loss. I can't even imagine what would happen to a newer/smaller business.


He is unchaining the lawyers on this crap company. So if you know anyone currently processing or thinking about processing with Total Merchant Service just take a look at their BBB report and their numerous ripoff reports.


If someone from Total Merchant Services reads this thread you can kiss my a*s for screwing over an honest, hardworking individual.


Anyone should go to the last post in this thread and consider any business dealings with Total Merchant Service at their own.

 

[rotaro]

I feel lately many smaller Credit card processors and payment gateways are burning their merchants and running with the money they owe towards their clients.


Sorry to hear your friend lost that much money.

 

[Spinat]

Never worked with this company, they look a bit amateur but even if they was in the right to terminate the merchant account, they have no right to keep the money, the funds should be released at the latest of 180 days, at this time they are also sure that no more chargebacks will hit the account.

 

[SysOp]

Thank you for sharing this with us, sorry to hear that you friend lost all his money... have you tried to contact some collecting service near to the company?

 

[sunbroker]

With high risk accts. you have to have back up merchant accts set up. In Advance. Get your contingency plans set up!

 

[Spinat]

Yes always have more payment processors never put all your egs in one basket.

 

[rotaro]

I found a lot of bad reviews for this one man company... looks like it is really a BIG SCAM be allerted.

 

[rland]

I am currently an Account Services Director for Total Merchant Services. I encourage anyone check out our BBB report. Every issue listed we either resolved, or made a sufficient attempt to resolve. We are by no means a one-man show. We have a 30,000 sq. foot facility in Colorado, and a second office in Oklahoma City. We have been in business over 14 years, and do have an A+ rating with the BBB. We offer ABSOLUTLEY FREE equipment, rates as low as 0% for debit transactions, and garauntee to have the best total value in the industry. I would be interested to see exactly what those transactions were that were held back, and where they were coming from/going to. I have never seen a reserve of more than 15% on any transaction, and we cap the reserve at $5,000. The only reason we ever do a reserve is for high ticket amounts. The reason for this is because we deposit your money into your account within 1-3 business days of you swiping the card. We don't take our fees until the first of each month. So, the merchant is getting paid long before we are. Well, let's just say, if you have a $2500 transaction on the 15th, we give you the $2500 on the 17th, and we try to collect our fees on the 2nd of the following month and the account is closed? For large transactions like that we do have to protect ourselves. Even for high ticket amounts, a reserve is not always required. We also garauntee that we have the best overall value for our customers, or we will give them $500.00 and terminate the account with no penalties. If anyone has any questions, or would like more details, please feel free to call Rainey at 1-866-308-3437, ext. 4433.

 

[JohnLocke]

Welcome to the forum rland, please, if you have any evidence/documentation of the details you describe in your first post, then please post it here for us to evaluate this thread to be removed, closed or stay open on this forum, thank you.

 

[rland]

Evidence


I tried to attach the files I send my customers, the application, the free equipment offer, all the stuff they sign to start service, but they are PDF files and they are too big to upload. The forum also won't allow me to add any links. As I stated in the inital post, I'll be glad to email the documents if anyonye would like to contact me.

 

[JohnLocke]

We have closed this thread, we have send you a PM

 

[JohnLocke]

We have received information from the company and consider the posts in this thread not to be valid at all and will therefore not reopen the thread and even edit some of the posts within the next 48 hours.


Some of the public information we received:


A+ BBB Rating - Better Business Bureau


Total Merchant Services | Better Business Bureau Review | Basalt, CO


Total Merchant Services outgrows Basalt | AspenTimes.com