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Review 3/8/2010
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UPDATE on 3/16/2009! As with other complainers on BBB, United Payment Services threatened us with a law-suit for slander. My feeling is that this is an attempt to intimidate us by hiding behind small print that I may have overlooked in a contract; to that extent they failed. I also believe their contract is intentionally designed to conceal their business practices, which seemingly explains why other small businesses complain of being duped while United Payment Services consistently refers to the terms their contract. My personal disclaimer for the foregoing and anything that I post herein is that the same represents my personal experiences with United Payment Services and more importantly my opinion; and all of us are entitled to the latter. Before I continue, I am compelled to recommend a viable alternative to this company that we have used for more than a decade. First Data (https://www.linkpointcentral.com/) is reasonably competitive and our experience with First Data did not include any of the problems that we had with United Payment Services. That said, First Data does have three negative reviews from other small businesses and they only have a B rating.
As I mentioned to United Payment Services, I stand behind every statement that I posted. It is important to note that slander requires a misrepresentation of the truth. All of the statements below accurately reflect my experience with the company. I’m confident that the same is true of the other complainants on BBB. Or perhaps all of us are selectively misrepresenting the truth about this wonderful and highly ethical company; I think not. At this point it seems that enough of us have been financially injured to answer a complaint like this with a class-action suit. The time that I spent posting the comment below is worth more than the amount that I lost with this company. I spent a greater amount of time attempting to resolve this matter with the company (also a poor use of my resources). The fact that I am taking the time to share my experiences on BBB should be of great value to anyone considering a business relationship with United Payment Services. I proposed a viable solution for United Payment Services at the end of this posting and I'll update my submission to advise BBB readers when and if the company responds.
The company has a "C-" elsewhere in BBB and the "A-" rating here is highly inappropriate. I mentioned this to BBB and asked them to correct the problem. As of 3/16/2010 United Payment Services appeared 3 times on BBB and it is important to review customer complaints throughout all three listings of United Payment Services. They can be found by doing a search for United Payment Services without specifying a zip code and without appending "Inc." to their name. Most comments about BBB expose the company's unethical practices. The few positive comments about them lie in sharp contrast to the norm and appear to be contrived. Our experience and complaints by others with United Payment Services suggests that the company routinely practices deceptive sales tactics, gouging, payment delays, and fraud. The company appears to be a ripe candidate for a class-action law suit.
United Payment Services (UPSI) notes in some of their rebuttals how they strictly enforce their cancellation policy and we were treated consistently regarding that issue. However, UPSI fails to discuss their apparent practice (based on my experience) of ignoring repetitive cancellation notices when they receive them. It is my personal belief that they need this policy to retain the customers that they attracted through deception (frequently cited in other complaints about the company). Others are free to draw on their own conclusions; however, our cancellation notices to the company were ignored until we contacted BBB. We were financially injured by our decision to try them out. If this posting can prevent one unsuspecting small business from being victimized by UPSI, then the trivial amount that we lost through their deceptive practices was well spent.
We were attracted to United Payment Services by misleading claims of lower transaction rates. In our case, UPSI hid their true rates behind other fees that didn’t appear until the end of each month on a billing statement. This practice appears to be consistent among other complaints on BBB.
We elected to terminate our services with United Payment Services because they randomly withheld payment of some of our larger customer transactions for several weeks for what they called risk management purposes. My company used a handful of merchant service providers over the past 17 years and our experience suggests that this practice is unique to United Payment Services Inc. When we demanded prompt payment, a UPSI company representative was rude and dismissive. This practice appears to be consistent among other complaints on BBB. We immediately quit using their service and just ran out the contract. This was probably 4 or 5 months into our 1 year contract and reflects a poor decision on our part – the early termination fee would have netted a cost savings for our company.
I personally faxed a termination notice to United Payment Services in June, 2009 with an effective cancellation date that coincided with the termination date (in August) of our contract. In January, 2010 I faxed a second copy of the above referenced letter and a second notice demanding that United Payment Services discontinue billing us and debiting our bank account. By March, 2010, United Payment Services debited our business checking account just over $420 for charges that incurred after the effective cancellation date in the first notice that I sent. United Payment Services chose to ignore our first cancellation letter entirely. The second cancellation letter was partially honored only after we contacted BBB. We received a credit of less than 1/4th of the overcharges from UPSI after filing our complaint. It is important to note that UPSI debited our account separately in the same month for an unexplained charge that we were not credited for. We found it odd that the separate charge appeared under an inconsistent label on our bank statement. Our regular monthly charge was lowered by the amount of the separate charge. When UPSI credited our account, the credit amount reflected the reduced monthly fee and they pocketed the separate charge. The company seems to care more about taking these excessive steps to gouge out mere $12 than they care about the impact that their ethics will have on their reputation.
In my opinion the above practice speaks to the ethics of the company and the apparent desperation for small cumulative profits that they can gouge out of their trusting customers. In our case, UPSI claimed that they did not receive our termination notice via fax and attributed the problem to slow and faulty fax machines. This practice (of blaming fax machines) appears to be consistent among other complaints on BBB.
Here is my proposal for UPSI:
(1) Acknowledge receipt of the first cancellation letter that I faxed to UPSI in June 2009 (UPSI claims not to have received the same, which nets their company around $320),
(2) refund the FULL amount that I'm entitled to,
(3) refund the extra charge that hit our business checking account only days before I received a partial refund for the time that UPSI agrees they owed me (I. UPSI agreed that my company was owed a refund for the charges that we incurred from the date that they received our 2nd cancellation January. Subsequently, UPSI debited our business checking account an additional fee in March that we were not credited for), and
(4) Credit my company's account for the time that I spent so far addressing this issue.
In exchange and in consideration of fairness, I'll subsequently post that UPSI amicably resolved the problem.
While I will update this posting with their response, I will not recant any of the above statements.
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