TOTAL MERCHANT SERVICES CALLED A FRAUDULENT PREDATORY SCAM - DO NOT USE THEIR SERVICES

Fraud - 1. intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value (money!) or to surrender a legal right. 2. Deceit, trickery, sharp practice or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair advantage.

If you are considering signing up for Total Merchant Services (TMS), please read through the following testimonials about their services and how they treat their customers.

If you are a current customer of TMS and are being subject to their predatory practices, the webpage will give you key stategies on how you can embarrass them so much they will pay you to go away.

My Story - I cancelled TMS many years ago and remember that they told me to throw away the terminal as it was too old. There was no mention that I needed to fill out a cancellation form before they would turn off my service (fraud). Out of the blue in 12/2020, I received a bill from them for $181.20. I couldn't even remember who they were until I called them. My balance today 5/26/21 is going to be much higher by now.

Lets hear from their former employees:

Laurie N - 1 star 09/27/2020

I use to work for this company when it was in Colorado. They had independent sales agents that would go out and get merchants signed up and lie to them stating that there was not a yearly contract and there was! Then the agent would make $500 for signing a business up and leave them high and dry! I worked in their call center and the staff in the call center were rude and even hung up on clients! When I went to report this to my manager and no results I went to their manager and no results! So I went into the HR person who hired me and she seemed to know nothing about any of this! I really couldn't believe that she could be so in the dark. I have great customer service skills and would NEVER stay with a company that treated their customers like that! I was always taught that your customers where like GOLD! SO left. It's been years now, I just happened to wander onto the company reviews and though I would share my experience! DO NOT SIGN UP WITH THIS COMPANY! Maybe they sold, or got new management? However, looking at the reviews it doesn't look like it!

Michael M - 1 star  02/28/2020

Take your business elsewhere. I am a former PARTNER of Total Merchant Services. They were acquired by NorthAmerican Bancard and the service to Partners went to **** in a hand basket, not allowing us to service current clients or board new clients more easily. They bought out the portfolios of many of the TMS PARTNERS, locking us into a do not pursue agreement for 5 years, and promising us a bonus if our clients continued to process with them for at least a year. Then they turned on our clients, forcing them into corners with lousy support, denying actual service to the clients forcing them to leave TMS which ensured we would never receive our bonuses. Many of my former clients have called me and told me how lousy the services were and how the company stopped providing the levels of service that I did. First I was told I was entitled to the bonus which as a Disabled Veteran this would have helped me, then when it came time for the company to pay out the bonus, they told me they were not going to pay it out and there was nothing I could do about it. That's NOT the way to do business and I am not the only Partner who was denied this bonus. I apologized to my clients for the lack of service and hoped they had found other alternatives. Many of them moved over to PayPal saying they got better service than with TMS under their new management. I would encourage other clients who are not happy with TMS now NorthAmerican Bancard to seek out another provider somewhere that **** give them the quality of service that they originally got when working with TMS long ago. That's my truth and my 1st Amendment Right to share about this company. All that I have said is TRUE 100% and is supported by a number of other Partners who have left TMS/NABancard and moved to work with other providers who are more customer-centric. Sincerely, ******* *******, US NAVY DISABLED VETERAN Former Total Merchant Services Partner

Total Merchant Services Lawsuits

In November of 2018, a U.S. District Court Judge approved a $7.5 million settlement resolving Naiman v. Total Merchant Services Inc.,Case No. 4:17-cv-03806, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a class action lawsuit against the company. The suit alleged that Total Merchant Services partnered with Quality Merchant Services, Inc. to create a telemarketing scheme. Telephone numbers included in the automatic dialer database were purchased from an unknown source, violating the privacy of the individuals whose data was part of that transaction in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Outside Sales Team

Total Merchant Services appears to employ independent sales agents and sub-ISOs to market its services. This hiring practice is common within the industry, and it is usually a major source of merchant frustration. In this case, we are currently able to locate over 100 negative Total Merchant Services reviews that describe deceptive sales strategies by sales agents across the country. The overwhelming majority of these complaints describe nondisclosure of terms, particularly with regard to early termination fees and equipment leases, and misrepresentation of rates or sudden changes in rates after signing up for the service.

Undisclosed & Unexpected Fees, Especially Early Termination Fees: The majority of the complaints had to do with some sort of fee dispute. This is usually related to the merchant being surprised by an early termination fee. Many did not realize that when they signed a contract, that contract was for several years (likely three years) with automatic renewals and early termination fees. Other fee-related complaints go to surprise fees/charges that the merchants were not told about by the independent sales agents. Some merchants discover the fee quickly and want the fee removed. Other merchants only realize they were missing money many months after mysterious charges had been deducted from their merchant account, so they belatedly demand a refund. The customer support team would often perform an investigation on the merchant’s file before offering a settlement amount. Typically, TMS would refund markups and stand firm about refunding wholesale fees. TMS tends not to refund fees that the merchant had been paying for years and claim that they didn’t know they were paying. (That’s why it’s so important to be aware of any monthly subscription programs that your processor signs you up for when you open the account. We have seen this sort of complaint a lot at Merchant Maverick relating to a variety of lackluster companies.)
    Unethical Independent Agents: The root of many of the complaints comes from the behavior of independent sales agents. Some customers recount stories of being pushed into giving their application information “just to see” if they can be approved. Others find, to their horror, that they were signed up to multiyear contracts with early termination fees when they agreed to no such thing. One or two were even unknowingly signed up by agents over the phone without their permission (although sometimes customer service was able to find contracts with signatures), or they were signed up to contract terms different from what they discussed with their sales agents. It’s worth noting that mentions of unethical agents seem to have quieted down in the last year or so, so maybe TMS is doing something internally to weed out these agents.

    I own a business and I know the power of social media, testimonials and reviews can play on the reputation of a company so I decided to check them out. Here is what I found out:

    BBB - 46 complaints, 11 reviews, all one-star - 2 reviews are by former employees exposing their fraudulent business practices - https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/woodland-hills/profile/credit-card-merchant-services/total-merchant-services-llc-1216-1014350

    58 one-star reviews on PissedConsumer.com - https://total-merchant-services.pissedconsumer.com/review.html

    73 one-star reviews on Merchant Maverick - https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/total-merchant-services/

    Rating of "C" with 60 negative reviews on cardpaymentoptions.com - https://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/credit-card-processors/total-merchant-services/

    31 one-star reviews on Yelp - https://www.yelp.com/biz/total-merchant-services-woodland-hills-2?start=10

    77 one-star reviews on RipoffReport.com - https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/total%20merchant%20services

    That's a total of 356 one-star or negative reviews.

    The solution to being released from their fraudulent predatory practices is to make them want for you to go away. Here is how you do it (these are all the steps that I will be doing myself):

    1. File a BBB complaint - this has been the most successful way of getting resolution of money back and canceling service. Use link above.

    2. File a Public Utilites Commission (PUC) complaint, I am not sure if they accept complaints about credit card processors but do it anyway. You need to look up the PUC office in your state.

    3. Put a complaint/review on all of the review sites list above every day. And I truly mean every day. It will be found on internet searches much easier.

    4. Go to their Facebook page and wherever it says comment, you post your complaint/review there. Again, you are going to do it every day. I counted 51 places you can post

    5. Find any other social media sites to post if you can.

    6. This is going to be the hardest one for some but is incredibly effective. You are going to call TMS, ask for a senior management person if possible and then idenify yourself and the problem with your account. Tell them that you are going to call them 1-2 rimes a day and then you are going to turn into a total bitch with speaking to them with the rudest and most disgusting potty mouth you can come up with. Again, we are trying to make it to where they want to close your account and give you your money back just so you will go away.

    Here's another thing that I am going to do. I have registered the domains totalmechantservicesscam.com, totalmerchantservicesripoff.com, and totalmerchantservicesfraud.com. I am going to create three websites with the text of this post and I am sure it will be found on page one if someone does a search for TMS so they can read about how terrible this company is.

    I have already put in a BBB complaint and I plan on calling TMS today to tell them what is going to happen if they don't close and refund my account.

    I have found out that the Federal Trade Commission is going after credit card processors that act the same way as TMS. It would be worth filing a complaint with them - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2002/02/ftc-files-first-complaint-concerning-credit-card-merchant-account.

    Here is another great article on how to deal with fraudulent credit card procesors- https://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/credit-card-processing/how-to-report-bad-credit-card-processors/

    Here is another - https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

    In addition, TMS is a registered ISO of Wells Fargo Bank, the most racist predatory lender in the US. They have been fined:

    1.2 billion for improper mortgage lending practices

    175 million for discrimination

    432 million for targeting African-American neighborhood for predatory loans

    335 million for their Countrywide Financial division that was charging people of color higher fees and interest rates than whites.

    10 million for discriminatory lending practices in Philadelphia

    6.5 million to the Navajo Nation for predatory practices

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