Flagship Merchant Services, Quincy, MA

I am extremely displeased with the services I received from this company. Flagship Merchant Services does not operate at all like the representative stated to me before my enrollment a week ago. Last Friday, when I called customer support, I got bullied to the extreme from a representative called Joseph (Risk Department) who flat out refused to let me speak to any supervisor when I asked to, and later on in the conversation, just hang up the phone on me.

Today (Monday), I just found out that the above mentioned Joseph closed my account without my permission on Friday after talking to me. He didn't have the decency or/and the ethic to send me an email or to call to inform me about his decision. So my business was without payment means all weekend until today. When I called him today, he was very arrogant and condescending towards me and he bullied me anew. Also he informed me that according to my contract, he can close my account without stating any reason. He wouldn't explain anything to me and threatened to hang up the phone. Furthermore, he informed me that the funds of the two (2) transactions (approximately $1700) that were made from my business through this company within that week's membership, will be held up to 90 days for security purposes. He would not explain further.

I tried to call a supervisor or/and manager without success, but was always directed back to that representative, Joseph. Today has been two and a half weeks and I still do not have my funds and I still did not receive a call, no emails from Flagship Merchant Services. My business has a legal umbrella along with business insurance, and I am going to look for legal counsel because of unfair practices and loss of gain. Stay away from this company as they are a bunch of scam artists that will sit on your money forever and treat you like garbage. This is by far the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Believe me, no one should have to deal with such rude, disrespectful, and dishonest people.

I signed for a merchant account in June 2011 with Flagship Merchant Services. I have been charged month after month a variety of fees I was never made aware of.

None of my transactions have gone through at the quoted rate and my funds have been put on hold by their security department. I have found out that their sales team is taught to lie or at the very least leave out hidden costs.

I signed up under the impression I was going to be saving hundreds of dollars a month in processing charges and it has cost me thousands more. The company has a relationship with top 10 review website. All they do is pay for them to make Flagship number one each year and also pays them for each lead they receive.

I have found it much more cost effective to cancel my account (paying hundreds in cancellation fees) than to deal with this company any longer. The company is a reseller of services, their sales team lies, and the customer support is terrible.

Please do not sign up for service with this company. I am contacting a lawyer to find out if there is any legal action I can take.

Attention business owners: The worst mistake you could ever make is to set up a merchant account with Flagship Merchant Services. The account representatives were trained to mislead and to leave out costly rates/fees. Any rate you are quoted, please double as hardly any (maybe 1 out of 20 credit cards) will actually be processed at the quoted rate. Any rewards card, business card, international card are processed as non-qualified, which means the rate doubles. As well, any card you have to key into the machine or your computer, the rate doubles. Those are just a few of the examples customer service quoted me once I called them for explanations and only after my sales representative did not call me back after many attempts to reach him.

As well, be aware of monthly minimums, cancellation fees and your funds going on hold if you process a card outside of your agreed "parameters". They are still holding my businesses' money after 4 months of sending all of the requested information to their loss prevention department. They are just protecting themselves against a "charge back" and after 12+ years of running a business, I have yet to have any. I found out by finally getting an honest sales representative on the phone that these practices are a day-to-day occurrence in the office as they have high quotas to hit per day and per month. I quote him by saying "we are probably the shadiest merchant account provider in the industry and if we actually told the business owner all of the rates/fees, we would be lucky to sign up one account a year".

He also informed me that they are just basically a reseller of services. Also, the company pays the website "Top Ten Reviews" to make them #1 each year and that all that website does is get paid by Flagship to generate leads for them. The managers and owners keep track of how many leads come from Top Ten Reviews and they even have special discounted pricing for those leads. That is why when you call in the sales rep, they will ask if you found them through the Top Ten Reviews website or not.

I am working on finding out the owners' information at Flagship Merchant Services. Customer service so far provided me with the names Frank Csongor and Michael Gerstien. So if you are an upset merchant, please ask for one of those two men. I have already tried and somehow, they are never available or in the office before you get hung up on. Above is just a brief synopsis of my dealings thus far with Flagship. Please fellow business owners, this is just a friendly "heads up". Do not get a merchant account with this company Flagship Merchant Services.

I opened a merchant account with Flagship Merchant Services and was told that I had a transaction limit of $300 for the first 90 days. As I'm a wholesaler, I have a minimum order of $250 and an average transaction of about $800. I was told this would not be a problem after the 90-day period was over.

Six months after opening my account, I ran a transaction for $1,000. Flagship tried to contact an ex-employee (whom they had been informed no longer worked with us) at a number that they had been informed was no longer active. When they found the number disconnected, they cancelled my account and held my client's funds.

They never tried to call me at the active number they had been given and never emailed me to inform me that action had been taken on my account. When contacted, they were extremely rude and tried to make it all look like it was my fault (which we all knew it wasn't).

Note that my company has never had a single chargeback or customer complaint.

Flagship Merchant Services are fraudulent and thieves.

I had a merchant account from these thieves and they stole more that $10,000 dollars from me in hidden fees and holdbacks that they kept and wont give back. When I complained to them, they went into my back account 3 times and took money without my permission. These people are ** and not to be trusted. Now they won't even talk to me.

Flagship Merchant Services is a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Walnut Creek, CA

I had a merchant account from these thieves and they stole more that $10,000 dollars from me in hidden fees . Holdbacks that they kept and wont give back and when I complained to them they went into my back account 3 separate times and took money without my permission. These people are slime and not to be trusted.. Now they won't even talk to me.

Flagship Merchant Services is a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Walnut Creek, CA

On the 6th of August 2009, I opened a merchant services account with Stephen at Flagship Merchant Service. I asked a many questions, but it came down to I was originally concerned that it would take several weeks to process an account and Stephen let me know they could process my application within a couple of hours to a day maximum.

Because the short time to process an account, I originally let Stephen know that I would contact him back with my application when I had some appointments. He told me five times because I asked three, but he offered first that the monthly charges would not begin until I ran my first real charge but that he recommended that I process some test ones to ensure I knew how to run the charges over the internet. After he told me once, asked three additional times to make sure the monthly charges did not begin until in his words, "I ran my first charges." It was the only reason I signed a contract that day was because if it took me several months to six months to have clients of my own, that meant I wouldn't be wasting money that I didn't have due to be unemployed at the time.

I never ran a credit card through but eight to nine months later, I found that FirstData had been running monthly charges through my account. That was money I was desperate to put to other necessities like food, car note, rent and things of that nature while I had been trying to build a clientele. When I called in, I was upset and I kept getting hung up on because I dared to request a manager immediately, but under the circumstances, I needed someone in management to stop the charges on my account. Four days after starting to call, I finally got to a lady supervisor who listened to me and looked at the account. She said she would process a closure on the account.

The next month I had another charge through the account. I called back even more enraged, but couldn't get anyone at Flagship's corporate offices due to refusal by everyone. I finally received another manager who acknowledged the notes in the account and that it was supposed to be closed. She said she could not refund the last month's charges but that she would close the account. She kept apologizing and referencing notes that showed and giving the manager's name who did say she would close the account. The next month, there was another charge. Again, I tried numerous times to contact Flagship Merchant Services senior management but I was refused to contact them at all ends.

On the 6th of January 2009, I reached Geno who said there were no notes on the account that referenced the two supervisors that I gave him names, dates and times of my calls. He originally said he did not believe I called and spoke with them but I scanned and emailed to him my phone bills showing the calls and the time I spent on each call even though his database showed I did not call into their customer support at all. Show I proved that I indeed did call and he did say that there was a supervisor by one of the two names I gave him. Geno asked if I had completed a FirstData Account Closure form and I told him, "No." He said that every supervisor knew the only way to process an account closure was to complete the form and again he indicated that he did not believe I spoke with a supervisor, so I was enraged.

After a while Geno said he would process one of these forms for me and he emailed that form to me at 2:26 PM (EST). I completed and emailed the form back to Geno and was notified by Geno that it was processed but he finally said there would be one more monthly charge as a cancellation fee. I paid almost twelve monthly fees when none should have been processed and it was adding insult to the lies already perpetrated upon me, so when they pulled the fee, I refuted it with my bank explaining what had happened in writing. The bank was happy to process the cancellation for me. I received collection calls one year past the ending of my account with Flagship Merchant Services from Transworld Debt Collections at E. 5th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43218 from Mr. K. who gave me to Mr. L. Mr. L. refused to answer my question, "Are you an agent on behalf of Flagship Merchant Services or FirstData Corporation."

I explained that I sent on the 18th of January 2009 a Seize and Desist Letter to Flagship Merchant Services that encompassed them or any agent on behalf of them but because Mr. L. refused to answer my question, I can only assume that Transworld is acting on the behalf of Flagship Merchant Services. I can neither speak with anyone in senior management for Flagship nor FirstData, both refuse to let me pass the customer service personnel. Please prevent this company from its fraudulent practices. I am still unemployed and am being harassed by collection companies to collect money they should never have received from me. Thank you

My company signed an agreement with Service Merchants for their credit card services. We were quoted and had an agreement for $47.95. We signed our contract, but when the first billing came out of our banking account, they double billed us, causing our account to be in the negative. We are a small and newly established business, so we did not have a huge balance in the account.

After contacting the company, we were told that they would reimburse us for the overpayment and that the next statement would be for the $47.95, as originally agreed. Once again, on the following month, we were once again double billed. Now they were into us for $95.90. I contact the merchants and told them that once again it had happened, and that now I was canceling the contact, due to their "breaching" of the contact. I was told that they would reimburse us of the amt and then set our new payments of $25.00 per month instead of the original $47.95 per month. I told them that if this continued to happen, then I was going to cancel and seek advice from an attorney.

The following month, the same thing happened again, making it impossible to stop them. I went to my bank and had to close out the account in order to stop the funds from being pulled from my account. This has caused an extreme hardship on myself and my family, having to open a new banking account, just to stop someone from "stealing" money that doesn't belong to Flagship Merchants.

On Fri, Nov 14, I received a letter from a collection agency stating that I now owed the balance of the contact because I did not fulfill the contact agreements. I contacted the merchant and told them that I had cancelled their services several months ago for their "breaching" of the contract, and not me. I was upholding the contract, and it was them that was charging double the payments, and then when they would make an offer to even lower the payments, they did not follow thru on their agreement.

It was not until I got my bank statement that we were aware that they had even pulled anything from our accounts. Service Merchants had pulled 2 payments of $47.95 apiece for the 1st payment, in Sept 2008. I immediately contacted Josh Darwell, our rep, only to be told that he was no longer with the company. I was then transfered to Josh's supervisior, Steve to be told that they was going to fix the problem, and reimburse us for the over charges.

A few weeks pasted, without hearing from the company, and with no reimburements being applied, that I called once again. This time I was directed to "Geno". I was now being told that he was taking over Josh clients, and that he would handle it. I spoke to Geno, and he once again reassured me that this would be cleared and I was being refunded our overcharges for Sept 2008. He told us that it may take from a week to 10 days to get the refund back to us. We waited 10 days, and contacted Geno, and once again he tells us that he will clear it up and that this will not happen again. At this point, I told Geno that I am now demanding a full reimbursement and I am canceling the contract on grounds of "breach of contract," Service Merchants did not hold up to their end of the agreement.

Today, Oct 114, I find that on Oct 8, 2008, the company once again deducted 2 payments @ $47.95. Now this organization has $19180 of our company funds. I now have called the company again, and I was told that someone would get back with us, and at this time, no one has contacted me.