Elavon review: Merchant Processing Services 31

lets file a class action law suit! How do we start one?

We have experience nothing but the runaround at Tangerine. We have been trying to get a solution to our problem since October last year! Promises to have someone call back are never kept. I phone them at least once a week and get no where with them! Elavon is just as bad. Elavon tells me its a Tangerine issue, Tangerine tells me its an Elavon issue. IM FED UP! A class action law suit?! We are in!

We are having the same kind of problems. WE signed for a rate of 1.61% and 5 months later they increased to more than 50%. I have tried for 4 months to get them to change it. So far they want us to sign a new agreement with an increase. I do not think is right! If there is a class action we are in.. They never answer the faxes or the calls...I am telling everyone not to do business with them...If anyone has a better idea please let me know...

Carmen
Laval, Quebec

I wish I had found this website before I signed a contract with Elavon/Tangarine! I am having the same problem with both Tangarine and Elavon. I originally signed up with a 1.61% commission promised and they raised it to 4.20%! I have been fighting with them for months and I am getting extremely frustrated. Promises to call back, promises to fix the problem - it doesn't happen. As they have access to our bank accounts, they just take whatever they want. I feel helpless against this big monster! I didn't realize there were so many other businesses taken in by this pirate company. It doesn't make me feel better better but perhaps we can fight them together. If there is a class action law suit - count me in!

Same story as everyone here. The problems I have had with Tangerine are much longer than I can list here. They are a phantom company that is all smiles and promises and sooooo helpful and responsive before you sign the contract, but once you sign that piece of paper they rear their ugly head and then dissappear and will not stand up and awnser to their actions.

And now on top of it I see they are charging another "one time fee" of 99.00 to upgrade some kind of PCI compliance Bull...! Basically they are stealing money from our bank account without authorization...any time...any amount they like. I as well wish I found this website before. If your reading this and are having problems with Tangerine please add your experience here. If people keep adding complaints here perhaps a class action suit truly can happen against these [censor].

Thats what they do...The best company in this regard is Moneris Solutions..They dont change their rates and their Sales Reps are very nice and friendly..and are always there to help out their customers.

Horrible company. I signed up with Elavon through CollecitvePOS. I'd be in with a class-action lawsuit myself.
Not only do they decide on a whim to re-open chareback disputes, but their customer service goes nowhere. I've been charged too many times for mistakes, and they are charging me way more on fees than what was agreed to. I want out of my contract but I'm afraid to cancel with their horrendous cancellation fees. I think I might just close my bank account on them.

We have an stop payments, the machine is out, Now I will payback the same way,
I won't answer phone calls, in a long time, if they want their obsolete machine they have to pay for the devolution, they make my life miserably and they make us suffer. now we are doing the same.

I have same problem with this company, , almost having heart attack..they don, t return my call..steeling money from my account...bad bad service...fraud on my contract( i signed for 0 month of contract==any time can cancel) now they send me copy of 60 month or $1000 penalty)..I can not believe in Canad this kind company are aloud to Kroc people and nobody can do anything i have to stop pay this nightmare company..if anybody taking a legal action pls let me know.

You dont fight it, mastercard and visa reevalute theit fee in april and october of each year, if the fee's increase, they pass those increases along

I guarantee none of you stupid complainers took the 5 - 10 minutes it would take to read your contract, if you had, you wouldnt be complaining because you would see that you agreed to everything

Tangerine and Pivotal solutions are both not recommended by me, I have four of them at my four Subway restaurants. I am currently stuck with them after signing 5 year contract. I was fooled by their attractive rates but their service is so poor that if you need to contact customer service via their phone line, it is almost impossible. I have tried differnet times of the day to check if any particular time has more availability but got nowhere. Their hardware terminal Ingenico also has issues, their software is not stable at all. Their chip slot does not work, they have been trying to write a software update that would allow them to use this feature, that is available from other providers for many years now. I would never recommend them for any merchant processing solutions. I would rather pay a little higher processing fees and not worry about the downtime.

Tangerine has changed their name to Pivotal Payments. Geez what a surprise!

Hey complaining crybaby
- the contract does NOT state that the rates will mysteriously go up after a few months.
- The contract Does not state that different rates for auth and non auth cards are compounded together.
- The contract does NOT state that Pivotal or Tangerine or whoever they are will cut off all communication and refuse to anwser or return any customer service calls.
- The contract does NOT state that their machines are junk as well as their gift cards which are non functional.

i have no clue about tangerine, they are not elavon.

people really need to get educated about credit cards and how they qualify. some card automatically downgrade because of the tye of cards they are, such as corporate and commercial cards. also foreign cards always downgrade. they fall to a non qualified rate, which is your highest rate and is usually somewhere between 3 - 5% but can be as high as 5 - 7%. to the poster who said the rates were raised 76%, they weren't, you just had alot of sales that downgraded. also doing things like not settling your batch the same day, keying a card instead of swiping it, and if your a mail order/ telephone order or internet merchant if the address information doesn't match or if you don't ship the order within 7days, these are all things that can cause transaction to downgrade. You guys would really do yourselves a favot by learning more about how cards qualify. Also lookup the 2009 Interchange Qualification Guide, there's some really good info in there

the pharaoh, they didn't raise your rates, 4.20 is you non qualified rate i can almost guarantee and you probably just had alot of sales that downgraded. Your rates are states in your contract, which you should always read, just dont trust the sales person to tell you because they're only going to quote you the qualified rate. Also guys, if your not happy with your rates you can always ask for a rate review, as long as you haven't had one in the past 6 months, and they will look at your rates and see if they can lower them. I hope that some of this is helpful

To Complaining cry baby and anyone else who is interested. I have been a moneris solutions machine holder for over 12 years and considered switching to tangerine due to their good introductory offers. I do not have a complaint about the service of tangerine because I did my due diligence and read enough to know that no one should switch to this company. Luckily for us we were turned off by tangerines aggressive sales force which called me on an average 4 or 5 times a day. However i would like to point out to complaining crybaby and anyone else talking out of there a-- that I have never heard of different levels of credit cards when it comes to the visa and MC charges and I suspect that it is some bs excess to charge the pos holder more money. Moneris Solutions has one rate for visa and MC and that's all you ever pay. I can not believe I almost changed companies as it obviously would have been a huge mistake. If any of you idiots that want to defend misleading and fruadulant business practices want to contact me I will be happy to discuss this matter with you at murrayflewelling@rogers.com . For everyone else I suggest you do your homework and stay away from companies like tangerine or whatever they call themselves

I am using Moneris Solutions for 2.5 years. The rates stayed the same since I signed the contract to be 1.59% Visa 1.69% Master. They both just increased by 0.30% which I think it's acceptable. They have the best services ever, very responsive and helpful.

Tangerine called almost every month. The way they talked always sound sneaky to me.

"Hi my name is Casandra from Merchant Processing Service"
"Okay"
"We are here to doule check if you already have the 30% maximu reduction on the rates you are supposed to take advantage of. May I know what are the rates you have right now?"
"(as careful as I always am) I don't havemy statement here. What are the rates you can offer me"
"We can't really tell you what the rates are unless you can fax us the last page of your statement of your current company"
"Which company are you?"
"We are Tangerine Merchant Services Provider"

First, the word "double check" bothers me. Either you know or you don't know if I have the 30% reduction. "Double check" doesn't sound convincing.

Second, asking the rates we are having. This only happens to those companies who are not sure of their products. When I got a call from Moneris Solutions, right away to the point: "we can offter you these rates". Direct and honest.

Third, asking for personal statements. They are trying to get some ideas of how my company is doing and also to know about the advantages that Moneris gave us.

Notice also they did not present themselves as "Tangerine" but only "Merchant Processing Services".

I don't think I have to actually use their services to know how sneaky and fed up this company is... I strongly suggest small business owners to carefully make your choices and not jump into a trap with the hope of saving up a few cents! Go with some more trusted companies such as Moneris or banks. It's worth it eventho it might be a little bit more expensive.

Law suit ? I'm all in ! Elavon just froze my merchant account AND took all of my money from all of my Oct. transactions to put in to what they call a reserve account. I had a customer place a charge back on my account for approx $4000.00 for no good reason and Elavon took that money out of my bank account instantly without any notification what so ever and now they say that I can keep taking customers credit cards but the funds will not go into my bank until their reserve account is satisfied, and I can't even find out from them what that amount is ? I have called several times and the one and only person that handles these issues is never there, but will call back, Ya right. I'm thinking of just closing my bank account and may even change banks to stop the bleeding. I just heard of a merchant service co. in Scottsdale AZ. named Merchant Service Solutions and they offer the world ? I have to take credit cards but I do not trust any of them! I think they are all BANK ROBBERS!

Tangerine just called me inviting me to switch from Moneris to their service.
I figured I'd Google them first. Glad I did. Thanks for posting here.
I think I'll stick with Moneris.

middlemen buy processing off processors like moneris, elavon, etc and then re-sell it. Tangerine and Pivotal are big companies that ppl are buying the rates from and re-selling it. Some of the re-sellers are honest, most are not. The re-sellers dictate the price increases, I know because I have a portfolio and I buy my rates. I have not raised my rates once and provide service so great that not a single client has left me in two years, but most companies are not like me. So by generalizing that one whole network is good or bad is irrelevant to your issues. It is like saying you got a bad deal on a car and blaming the manufacturer ...it depends who you bought it from, it is generally not the manufacturer that dicatated the price but the sales rep/company.

I've been with Elavon for 18 months now with no problems, and no rate increases. But I have a deal through Costco. I've been courted by pretty much all the processors, including moneris, and I've taken the rates offered and broken each of them down in comparison to my statements. Elavon through Costco is the best deal out there. Moneris guaranteed they would beat my rates, but after I broke it down and told him he couldn't, he didn't believe me, so we went over my statement together and he said he couldn't beat it. If I switched to Moneris, I would be paying and extra $7.00 in rental, and extra $5.00 activity fee, and extra 0.01 per debit transactions, and an extra 0.25% for non qualified cards. The only rate they could beat was in qualified credit cards, but since I'm currently about 50/50 in qualified vs non-qualified transactions, I would end up paying more as the Moneris non-qualified fee is higher then Elavon. He kept saying their customer service is better, etc, but so far I have not had a problem with customer service. Also, he said they have same day deposit, but I've noticed that if I do a settlement by 5pm, the funds are usually in my bank account by the time I get home and log in to my bank account. They also argued that Elavon is not chip ready. Well, the other day, I was having problems processing debits cards, and when I called in, they uploaded new firmware to my terminal, I was not supposed to know, but it was the chip card firmware, and after I played with my terminal for a while, I discovered that my terminal is now chip ready and can accept credit and debit chip cards. I guess the reason I was having problems is they updated their network in preparation for chip cards.
Also, the other argument is Elavon does not offer electronic gift cards. Well, they do now, and they are a lot cheaper then Moneris, Chase, or anyone else! Low minimum order with flat rate fee per transaction. It works out a lot cheaper then the other rates I was quoted. If I remember, Moneris was about $1.89 per card. Elavon is $1.09 per card, but with 0.20 fee to load, and 0.20 fee to redeem. do the math, and if a customer only uses the card to load and redeem, it works out to $1.49, and if they reload, I'm now looking at $1.69, and with another redemtion, I'm now at $1.89 per card. No other fees, with all the fees, card prices, etc, my quote from Moneris was over $600 for 200 cards. About $3.00 per card.
But don't just take my word for it. If you are a Costco member, check out the Elavon deal. Even if you are not a Costco member, paying the membership fee and going with Elavon will be worth it. they are now chip ready, have electronic gift cards, and the best rates.

I got an unsollicited call from a person called Fatima to send her my current charges with Moneris to see what they can offer me. I have sent it by hiding all the account information etc. 1 week after I received a call from Mya Karonah (aka Saini) offering me better rate than my current provider Moneris from supposedly Tangerine Merchants acting as an independent broker. She really offered a very interesting rate over the phone. She faxed me the papers and called me back right after and after going through the rates she asked me to sign the paper on which she had filled the rates and I had not enough time to read all the fine prints. She mentioned that she will fill the missing information and send it back to me but to speed up the process it would be better if I can return it signed. I have faxed it back to her and started to wait for the completed form and for the machines and in meantime I read the fineprints and asked to other competitors to give me an offer. What I realized is that the rates written on the paper had a small sign + in front which was contradicting what she had told me over the phone. i.e.: I was supposed to accept Amex and the form has no mention of Amex except for the charges. No one asked me my Amex merchant number to complete the missing information. The rates are written in a way that consumer can get trapped easily. Despite the fact that I asked repeatedly the rates and she kept repeating the lower rates when I was asking her if she was sure about the rates. I tried to call her back several times but always got an answering machine. I was not able to get the + sign clarified. After 1 week I did not receive a call back from Mya Karonah (SAINI). YesterdayI received a call from another person Reenu Sharma telling me that the papers faxed to them were not accepted by the bank because not readible and she wanted to send them back by email to get them picked up by Fedex once I sign them. I mentioned my concerns and my numerous calls not returned and that I wanted to cancel the application. She said she will pass the message to Mya. I did not hear anything until I sent an email to her "VP" mentioning the situation and that I wanted to cancel the application. Then I got a call from Mya. At the end, they want to charge me $ 500 x3 because I have 3 small business and needed 3 machines for "Liquidated Damages". I have not received the machines, did not start the service and never received the completed application forms. My mistake was to trust the lady and send her the signed forms half filled. I have reported this to Better Business Bureau and tomorrow I am calling Consumer Protection Office. There is a serious misrepresentation between what they say over the phone and how they are writing on the documents and how they can use it against you. I have left messages to my bank to inform them to stop any money withdrawal from my account under Tangarine Merchants or Tangarine Payment Solutions. I mentiond clearly to TANGARINE TO CANCEL MY APPLICATION. They tried hard and threatened me to proceed with the payment of $ 1, 500 if I cancel or move forward with the application. I made it very clear that I was asking the cancellation of the application and they can not withdraw money from my bank account. Really deceiving to see that there are very unscrupulous people ready to "steal", and do misrepresentation to trap you. Please investigate this company to prevent them to fraud other small merchants like me. I am very nervous because I am sure they will try to withdraw money from my bank account. How they can charge $ 1, 500 for "Liquidated Damages" when I have never received the completed form, never received the 3 machines and the bank has refused to lease because it was not readible and asked for new documents with my signature which I have not signed. In this situation they can even not pretend that they were sending me the machines because the lease did not go through. I am sure there are other merchants trapped with them and not knowing what to do because the documents are misleading and the phone conversation is completely misrepresenting the truth. The only soltion is to close the account and open a new account.

For anyone here having problems with any other merchant services provider in Canada - we have the solution.

My name is Ron Seigel and I'm a Sales Manager with Securus Payments. We offer the lowest rates in Canada and guarantee that they will NEVER increase - period. We don't start you out with teaser rates just to increase the 6 month later. We don't hide fees. We value our clients and don't have to stoop to those levels.

For those that are interested in taking a look at what we have to offer please call me at [protected] and I'll show you just how much you can save with Securus.

Have you seen this blog: http://pivotalpaymentssucks.blogspot.com/ ...truly unbelievable. These guys are criminals!

After some digging I found out how to get to a live body!

Here's someone's phone# at Pivotal who will take your call

John Zanetti
Manager

685 Cathcart, Suite 1000, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3B 1M7
Tel: [protected] x8046 Fax: [protected]

I hear these stories everyday as I'm an agent with a competitor and speak to merchants that were with Tangerine, now purchased by Pivitol Payments. If any of the merchants that are having problems want to look at a different option, which includes a complimentary chip enabled terminal, so you don't pay any more monthly rental or leasing fees, or just want some explanation into any of the fees you're currently paying, you can reach me at ronsbb4@gmail.com

Thank you all for such insight into how Pivotal / Elavon / Tangerine all operate. I have been on hold for the past 20 minutes with Pivotal in order to reach someone to discuss why a friend was charged $1100 to cancel his contract early. In reading the contract I discovered that it is for 5 years! Most of the companies out there only put merchants on a 3 year term, and the cancellation fees usually range in the $300 area. Tangerine lists it as $500 or the amount determined by computing the number of months left on the contract, and multiplying that number by the average monthly fees paid by the merchant. WHICHEVER IS HIGHER!

There's a new Merchant Services provider on the market now that is really starting to gain a lot of popularity, they're called: Payfirma and are based out of Vancouver. They have 100% transparent pricing, and do not place you on a contract with them. I've spoken with a couple of their reps and have found they are courteous, responsive and above all, HONEST!. check them out: http://www.payfirma.com/

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Your problem may not be with Elavon it may be with the ISO Tangarine either way there now a code of conduct for Credit Card Processors in Canada mandated by the Federal Government. You have 90 after you are notified of an increase of any kind to get out of the contract. This may include increases in Assessment fees upcoming from Visa and Mastercard. Unfortunately there have been many questionable dealings in this business in the past. My suggestion is never to sign a contract there are ISO that will give you a good rate with no fixed term contract or cancellation fee and do not lease equipment. For more information go to www.smallbizassist.ca

Someone at that company needs to get clipped.

Honestly, I had to cancel my bank account before they even started ripping me off. The next thing I plan on doing is paying a rock fiend to crack a rock over the execs head and letting him know our appreciation for the hassle. I am a blue collered worker, I do my business with honor and respect, and these two timing widgets are in need of some serious disposal.
My heart and heat goes out to other small business owners who have had to put up with these guys but they will not be forgotten in our side of town. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you my son.