First Data Global Leasing

Unknown 48-month lease - In 201, I leased a debit card machine for an evening of anticipated sales at a jazz function sponsored by Zeta Phi Beta Sorority. Last year, I inquired about returning the machine, as it had never been used. I was told, I'm certain, that I was under a 2-year agreement to keep the machine. A week or so ago, I inquired about returning the machine and was then told the lease contract was for 4 years. A few days later, I received a letter threatening legal action if I did not honor the contract.

I was signed up to First Data Global Leasing by Bank of America Merchants. I was assured that I could cancel at anytime with zero penalty. "We have such great service, why would we want to lock you in, etc". What a bunch of baloney. 9 months after opening our store, we were given 30 days notice to vacate as the building was going to be demolished. We lost our shop, through no fault of our own, and to this very day, 9 months after we lost our store, I am still being charged $35.77 a month for a terminal that is sitting in the box it came in. That's $321.93 so far going into thin air. They will not let me out of the lease - not even with a buyout. I am livid. Never ever use this company, heartless, unreasonable, snakes.

And, of course, B of A won't do a thing about it, even though it was their own rep who swore up and down that I was not locking myself into anything by going with them. See, it's a different company, so there's nothing they can do. Terrible what these guys get away with, getting filthy rich by scamming overly taxed and overly burdened small business people.

First Data Global Leasing is a rip off company referred to me by Wells Fargo bank. I started using a credit card terminal provided by First Data Global Leasing in 2004 and continued with them by paying a $26.99 monthly fee until this month when I elected to use another company. I have paid First Data about $3,000.00 in lease payments for a terminal which can be purchased for $200. Now that I wanted to return the equipment to them, they say I have to give them $276.39 as a "Buyout" (read Extortion) before they accept their terminal back.

What sort of low-life outfit is this? Sad that these snakes can hide below the radar, could care less about their reputation and stay in business. It amazes me that Wells Fargo would maintain a relationship with this company and profess to have no responsibility for maintaining the relationship because it is strictly speaking not an in-house Wells Fargo operation.

Undisclosed fees and contract terms: We signed up with Wells Fargo Merchant Services (a third-party reseller of First Data services) and were not fully informed as to the terms of the lease for the card reader (a 4-year, non-cancelable lease) or the fact that there is also a 3-year commitment for the transaction processing service, which comes with its own $500 termination fee apart from whatever amount First Data claims would be owed if the equipment lease is broken. We did not use the reader or process any cards through them last month (zero activity) and still had to fork out $165 in fees, of which only about $57 was for the actual equipment lease. That is $108 in one month for them doing nothing.

Another scam they hit customers with is where the contract says you can avoid a $10 monthly fee by eliminating paper statements and signing up at their website for paperless statements. What they conveniently leave out is the fact that once you do this, you are required to sign on to the site at least once per month or else they still stick you with a $10 fee (they hit us 2 consecutive months, so I can attest to this personally). By the way, anyone who is not yet an indentured servant to these scumbags, use Square, use Square, use Square! Go to SquareUp.com. It is a free phone app, the card reader is free and their fee schedule is straight forward. Intuit also offers a similar service now, as well.

I am in no way affiliated with Square. I simply want as many people to avoid this experience as possible and to eventually put these unethical types out of business for good. As it stands now, we still have 29 months left on the equipment lease and 17 months left on the transaction processing contract to break the lease and be done with them outright. They are claiming that we would have to pay them somewhere around $4,900 ($4,400 for the lease and $500 for the processing contract). To anyone else encountering this situation or similar, I would be more than willing to join a class-action lawsuit against First Data, in order to put an end to this absurd and blatant fleecing of small-business owners across this nation.

I leased credit card equipment from First Data Global Leasing for 5 years. It's the worst move I ever made in business. When I terminated the relationship and returned their equipment, they continued to charge my bank account.

I just signed with Payment System. The sales rep never mentioned or disclosed anything regarding a 48-month lease with First Data Global Leasing (equipment that I don't even use). He referred to the charges as monthly equipment charges. I even asked explicitly about the cancellation fees. He only mentioned a $299 fee. Never did he mention anything about a non-concealable lease termination fees, and he obviously made an effort to omit any disclosure of a lease term with First Data Global Leasing.

I now received a nice welcome package from First Data Global Leasing with a surprise 48-month non-concealable lease at $599 a month, that's $28,800 for leasing equipment I don't even need. This shady practice of First Data Global Leasing and their service provider (in my case Payment First) need to stop. If anything, we need to protect future small business owner from this predatory scam.

I am an attorney. My client (an automotive body shop) was contacted by a representative of a company called Access Fleet. They convinced him that if he would sign up for credit card processing with them, they would send him a guaranteed minimum number of fleet customer referrals. It never happened. Meanwhile, they required him to change his credit card processing over and (among other things) had him sign a lease with First Data Global Leasing for an FD-100 terminal, FD-10 keypad and a cable. The monthly payments were $99 plus sales tax for 48 months.

By the time my client found out the whole thing was a scam, he was already out nearly $1,400 to FDGL for equipment you can buy online for around $250. Now, FDGL has turned the matter over to collection, dinged his personal credit and is attempting to squeeze about $4,000 more out of him in order to remove the credit dings. When I told the collection people that FDGL isn't authorized to conduct business in California, they responded by emailing me a corporate entity number which I traced back to a company called First Global Data Corp. USA. I contacted them and they told me they were not related to FDGL. My suggestion is that all of the people who have been ripped off by FDGL, Fleet Access and the like to band together and go after them. These people don't deserve to stay in business.

I signed a merchant account lease with ICON Payment Solutions. They were to lower fees for credit card processing. The credit machine they sent is so cheap, it is not compatible with my digital phone lines. After calls to their tech line, we were told go buy a filter. We said no way, we want out. This is a breach of contract. They kept debiting my account $86.00 a month, I had Chase bank stop the debits. Now I have First Data threatening me for payment. Help.

We were approached by a First Data sales person about new fleet accounts. These would begin to be sent to us regularly, and would be of a great volume for our automotive business. We were told that in order to process these new fleet customers, their cards would have to be processed through their machine, and that our machine would not take them. The lease was for $79 per month, and would be far outweighed in returns with these new customers, not to mention the savings on the credit card fee. To make the long story short, not one lead, customer, or any benefit has resulted in this association. Our credit card fees are higher than ever, so that was a bold faced lie, and they have withdrawn $85.50 each month for the lease (I hope this is my out being charged a different amount than the lease). The lease is for 48 months, and cannot be cancelled, and is supposedly, a separate company than the credit card processing company.

We have since switched credit card processing companies to offset some of these costs, but are now trying to find a way to break this lease. In the long run, this lease will pay them $4,104.00 for a piece of equipment that is worth only between $200 and $600 new. We are usually way more careful than this, specially with our checking account! The absolute promise of many new fleet customers was good, and we know they are out there needing our services. I allege collusion between the credit card processing company, and the lease company. Best of luck to all of you who have been taken in by this same scam. If I find a way out, I will post it, but for now we let the lease payments continue, because they have unlimited access to our business checking, and can ACH late fees and penalties, even if not appropriate, and then we are stuck trying to get our money back.

This company is a scheme. Please beware, they ruined my credit and it was impeccable.

I had met with Nadine from First Data before I got the doors opened on my new business. She was refereed by my banker if I took credit cards; I made the mistake of signing that day, and paying a deposit. I received the equipment several weeks later and was billed right away for a monthly fee for the leased equipment, as well as the service charge.

I tried after being open for a while to contact them. I found out about stopping the lease, but was informed that it could not be broken. After several months, I did get the service charge fees dropped, but they still would not break the lease. My equipment has never been out of the box, and my sales representative contacted me only once after several attempts through First Data, just for her to inform me that she never even knew that I tried to reach her.

I had tried several times to reach the regional sales representative that was with her that morning when they sold this equipment to me, but he has never contacted me. I was informed that the only way that the lease could be broken is if the sales person picked up my equipment, and sold it to a new customer. Nadine informed me that wasn't true, and would not happen.

I have the lease amount drafted monthly from my bank account, and that will go on for the remaining amount of time on the lease. The lease is for 48 months, and I signed on as of 03/01/11. The only thing that I have received from them is that from the insurance department; telling me what a valued customer I am, and if I have any questions I was to call them, that their commitment is to provide world class customer service. Their telephone number is, 1-877-257-2094--what a joke. Customer service is one thing that they do not care about. All they want is a contract and your money, then you are screwed from then on.

I executed a lease agreement with First Data Merchant Services Corporation First Data Leasing after having referred from Sam's Club to FDGL, a business unit of First Data Merchant Services Corporation, for equipment to accept credit cards. Payments to the lease account were to be automatically transferred from our checking account on the 25th of each month and reflected as FDGL on the checking account. The term of the lease was 48 months. The monthly payment was $29.95 (plus applicable taxes).

The first payment was due on 08/25/2006. The method of payment was through ACH (Automatic Clearing house) for Lease Equipment FD-100 Merchant Channel Sam's Club Customer Service First Data Global Leasing. RV Resort was sold in October 2008. FDGL was contacted on October 2008 regarding a buyout. FDGL whose address is First Data Global Leasing, Denver, CO 80207 replied on 10/06/2008 with a letter pertaining to the buyout amount to include shipping the equipment to the following address: First Data Global Leasing Melville, N.Y. 11747. FDGL continued deducting payments through 12/26/2008. (A total of 29 months).

At the end of 2008, we closed the RV Resort bank account. In January 6, 2009, we wrote a letter and sent a check drawn on another account owned by Faith Place, Inc. Letters were sent to both address of record to FDGL via registered mail, return receipt requested to FDGL from Faith Place, Inc. for the 19 payments remaining on the account.

The check cleared Faith Places account on 1/09/2009. The equipment was returned and mailed along with a copy of the check and letter to the address provided in Melville, N.Y. We received confirmation that the certified mail sent to Melville, N.Y., received and signed for January 12, 2009. The letter and check sent to Denver was stamped being received January 8, 2009 by Bernal. Much to our surprise, on 5/28/2010, FDGL deducted $162.98 lease payment from the account of Faith Place, Inc. (Apparently they kept a copy of the check used to pay the 19 months.) I contacted FDGL about the deduction and was informed that the charge was for the equipment. I told them that I had returned the equipment. They claim they never received it. I went to my bank and put the withdrawal in dispute. I have all the letters and receipts.

This company riping merchant off and making millions of dollars. This has to stop. [They] were advised that my bank had no record of a rejection that company submitted an invoice or a charge for October 2009. [They] were able to withdraw money from my account in September 2009 and in October are unable to withdraw rental fee. I find that hard to believe. I have asked my bank to block [them] from withdrawing any monies from my account until this matter is resolved.

My contract states that fees should be billed to my account on the 10th of every month. Why are [they] withdrawing money from my account on November 04, 2009? [They] have broken our contract agreement.

[They] have not submitted any evidence to me that you tried to withdraw money from my account in October and that transaction was rejected. Please remember that this email was sent to me on October 06, 2009 and fees are due on the 10th of each month. The information that I gave in our telephone conversation have not changed. No banking information has changed.

No submission of fees should be submitted to my bank before the 10th of every month. [They] were given all information on October 06, 2009 before any submission to my bank for fees for October 2009. [They] have broken our contract agreement. They are billing my account for fees with no evidence or proof. If not for my careful eye on my bank account they would have gotten away with thousands dollars for fees that doesn't exist.

In 2007 I sign up for a merchant account with Card Service International. I was given a wireless terminal. Not knowing that card Service International is a subsidiary of First Data and First Data Global Leasing.

(Way Systems,) sells it $400) and that I was financing $700.

The total amount paid throughout 2007 was $570. At the beginning of this year I asked to pay off the mechine considering that I was financing $700.

First Data Glabal Leasing is asking me to pay $1400 despite the $570 paid last year and at least $350 this year.