Credit card processing nightmare

[Mike Blakesley]

A few months ago we decided to switch over our credit card processing to Heartland. It's been a good experience so far and fees are lower.

We had been with the NATO program through Vantiv that was set up eons ago. Since then, it has been sold a few times. My problem is, I can't seem to shut off the processing from that company. I've always just deducted the monthly charge from the bank account. We used to get two charges: One for the actual transaction fees, and one for the account service charge. Since we made the switch, the transaction fees have stopped but they're still charging the monthly service charge. We don't get any kind of statements or paperwork from whatever company owns our account now. No emails or anything.

So now Heartland, is of course also charging us a monthly fee.

My question is, how do I get hold of Vantiv/Fifth Third/Worldpay or whatever it is? I've called a couple of phone numbers, and I finally got to a customer service agent with Worldpay who said the merchant ID number I have is not valid. Nothing would work: Street address, phone number, etc. For some goofy reason she said she couldn't look up the company by name.

I've done a lot of googling about this and have learned that Worldpay is almost impossible to get unhooked from.

I'm to the point where I just call our bank and tell them to de-authorize Fifth Third from taking money out of our account. But I don't want to foul up my credit rating or do any damage like that. So, any advice from anyone out there? How do I verify my merchant number since we're not using that service anymore? Is Fifth Third part of Worldpay or not? How do I know who to call, since I get no communication from them?

[Frank Cox]

Stories like this are one more reason why I'm glad I just take cash here, no cards.

And my bank is just down the street -- if I have a question or issue I walk in their door and have it dealt with....

[Mike Blakesley]

I had a feeling you would be the first comment!

I look at credit card acceptance as a customer service. About 6 months ago I started keeping track of the percentage of our sales that are credit card. The numbers are trending up, even though we've taken cards for years. 6 months ago it was in the 40s every week. For the past couple of months it's been in the 60s and sometimes over 70%.

It's just another cost of doing business, like the heat bill.

That said, I did call my bank -- which is also right down the street. They actually have a person who keeps track of this kind of thing and she gave me a number to call that I haven't heard of before, so I'll call it tomorrow and see what happens.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Before COVID, I guess that about 80% of the transactions happened cashless around here... Ever since COVID, that number bumped to around 95%. Cash transactions are the outlier. The only country around here still holding onto its cash is Germany. You'll find plenty of small merchants that still are cash-only. In Germany, you still could buy a house with a briefcase full of cash and nobody would look at you in a strange way. But if you'd go cashless here, you'd have a problem as a lot of people simply don't carry any cash anymore, so you don't really have a choice, you'll be out of business if you don't accept cards or other NFC payments (phone, tablet, etc.).

Both have pros and cons. Cash always works: Imagine the zombie apocalypse finally hits and nobody can access their virtual cash in the bank, cash has better privacy, but cash has, overal far less security.

The amount of errors will usually drop in a cash-less environment. Cash can be easily stolen and mishandled, both by external and internal "forces".

At least around here, the amount of bank robberies have dropped to absolutely zero, since none of them have any manual tellers left, so there simply is no way for the employees to acces any big sums of money. Since then, the focus has shifted on softer targets like smaller grocery stores, convenience stores and service stations. They not only target cash, but also easily convertable items like cigarettes. Robbing a cinema over here would be pointless, as they would handle close to zero cash and popcorn and nachos are probably not high on their demand list.

As for Mike's woes with his former payment processor: In such cases I usually write them a registered letter to the official address they've been registered. Since you couldn't contact them in any other succesful way, you at least have done all you reasonably could do to inform them about your cancellation. If they then kept on ghosting me, I'd eventually just pull the plug by cancelling the authorization at the bank. Once the money stops going in, that usually triggers some form of communication, something you can latch onto and tell them you've been trying to cancel their service for a while now, including a registered letter they failed to respond to. That way, you're positioning yourself on both the legal and moral high ground, in case the situation would require any further escalation. In any way, I wouldn't let them simply grab the money at infinitum, even if it's just a few bucks... It's not THEIR money, you worked hard to earn that money, they just took it and provided you NOTHING in return: The term "stealing" comes to mind.

[Harold Hallikainen]

I largely pay stuff over $10 with a credit card and $10 or under with cash. The receipt and credit card statement reconciliation make it easier to keep track of where money goes. One non-profit I am part of has members who bring no cash. We have a Zelle QR code that they can capture to make a payment from their phone. No service charges! On being unable to cancel an automatic payment from the bank, I don't give others access to my bank account. I DO set up automatic payments where I am in control of the money going out. The payments often end up being electronic transfers, but they are scheduled by me. Finally, another non-profit I'm part of just got the monthly bank statement. There was an unauthorized $2k debit to the account. The bank agrees it is fraudulent and will refund. The statement said something like "Web Purchase" and listed a non-existent bank. Our bank is setting up a new account and transferring everything over. Fun stuff!

[Mike Blakesley]

We used to get kids with pocketfuls of wadded up dollar bills. Now they come in with their parents' card, their seats are already reserved and they're off to the races. (The best thing about that of course is, they don't run out of money.)

The funny thing to me is checks. Sometimes I'd fill a whole page of a deposit ticket with checks. Now it's rare that we get more than one or two a month. Even during the height of "Top Gun Maverick," we still only got two or three checks for the whole run.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The funny thing to me is checks. Sometimes I'd fill a whole page of a deposit ticket with checks. Now it's rare that we get more than one or two a month. Even during the height of "Top Gun Maverick," we still only got two or three checks for the whole run.

No way? Really?! The check is finally dying?

Now imagine the richest country in the world joining the rest of the world, where people enjoy almost free, sub-second transactions between bank accounts using an international standard for account numbers instead of writing and sending each other IOUs on small pieces of paper, like it's 1923 or being ripped off with multi-percent processing fees by some multi-billion dollar credit card companies.

What's next? The U.S. is going to win the Soccer World Cup and people will actually watch them doing it? :P

[Mike Blakesley]

Well, we have all that sub-second transaction capability of course, but this town has a lot of older people in it who still like to write checks.

[Armand Daiguillon]

Your best bet for now since you dont have the associated merchant # is to have the bank deny all those ach transactions. Whatever company holds that account will eventually contact you and then you can resolve it fully.