Any reviews of "PaymentSense" Merchant Services

[littlebt2001]

Hi Mark

Thanks for reply. I have phoned streamline, the lady said there is a price rice last year for all the customers. but on my statement, all the percentage remains the same as what's written on the contract apart from this premium fee. She doesn't know why either, i am waiting for an explanation.

As to the payment sense, i didn't find compliance fee on the contract. I will have another carefully look. What puts my off is the sales guy, bad attitude.

[Nappyman]

My take on Paymentsense

Hello thought I would throw my two penneth in. I have spoken to PS lots, they used to say they were part of Bank of Scotland, but now they are owned wholly by First Data. I was very close to signing until a couple of issues raised there heads, firstly they wanted me to commit to them for 3 years, and should I terminate early then I would be charged a fee. If a company is confident they are offering the best service they should never expect people to sign up for more than a year at the time. Secondly they have changed company policy on payment Gateways, they used to issue MA's which you could use freely with Sagepay and alike, now they stipulate you can only use it with the Payment Gateway they supply, which as we know is not integrated with Actinic as they didnt want to pay the fee's (according to the sales bloke) So they look great, but are impossible to live with, I am guessing rather like a Super Model!

[Sean Williams]

This explains the First Data thingy: http://tinyurl.com/4x6vsow

[tad1]

Practical experience with Paymentsense

We moved to Paymentsense this year and lasted 2 weeks. The representative who set up our service seemed to do everything wrong. The contract was activated while we were out of the country, despite our express instructions to wait until we were actually back in England. This resulted in 5 failed attemps to deliver the terminal while we were out of the country and us being charged line rental while it sat in a delivery depot. The first terminal was faulty and had to be returned. The second had no supervisor card. The payment window was set to 6pm despite our business opening at 5pm! Payments took at least 7 days to reach our accounts and sometimes 10 days. It killed our cashflow and resulted in us having to pay some of our suppliers late. My husband's other business waited 3 weeks for payment. It could have put him out of business. I could go on but I think you get the picture.

[fleetwood]

Face to face over the counter.
"Streamline" into Nat West account.

* Mastercard Personal 1.58%
* Mastercard World 2.18%
* Visa Credit 1.55%
* Visa Debit 20.5p each
* Mastercard Business 2.1%
* Terminal rent £14.95 PCM + vat

MJE - as these charges are for face to face, could I ask what Streamline have quoted you for web based transactions?

[mje]

Sorry, only just picked this up (daughters wedding over week end )

For on-line we use Actinic Payments through a Streamline MA, the credit cards are between 0.4 and 0.5 % higher and the debit card transactions are charged at 23p. There is of course no terminal rent, but they do impose a minimum charge of £20 plus vat per month.

[Artisan]

Phone conversation with Streamline a couple of weeks ago:

Me: I've been with Streamline for over 6 years now and I'm still paying the original rates, can you reduce them?
Streamline: Certainly, what's your line of business?
Me: Website design.
Streamline: Do you provide web hosting?
Me: Yes.
Streamline: In that case, no, we can't reduce your rates.
Me: Why on earth not?
Streamline: Hosting has too great a risk of chargebacks.
Me: But I've never made a chargeback in the whole 6+ years!
Streamline: Sorry, we can't reduce your rates.

Has anyone else heard of this?

Malcolm

[fleetwood]

Thanks Mark - thats pretty much in the same region as we pay to PS (we pay a bit more for the web based debit cards).

Malcolm - sounds pretty much like an insurance company - any way excuse they can find NOT to pay you out, or in this case, lower your fees. Have you tried shopping around?

[Artisan]

Not yet, my monthly payments aren't that high as I'm not selling online so I'm not that fussed about moving, I just thought it might have been worth a try given the time I've been with them. It appears that providing hosting makes me an Evil Overlord

[Fairyglass]

On a similar note, I'm a member of Costco and have received over the weekend one of their regular offer leaflets. One of the offers is a partnership deal with a company called Elavon offering rates of 1.1% on credit cards and 12p on debit cards. The contract is 12 months. I've called for more information but has anyone heard of/used Elavon before I get into negotiation with them?
Thanks,
Ben

[willj87]

On a similar note, I'm a member of Costco and have received over the weekend one of their regular offer leaflets. One of the offers is a partnership deal with a company called Elavon offering rates of 1.1% on credit cards and 12p on debit cards. The contract is 12 months. I've called for more information but has anyone heard of/used Elavon before I get into negotiation with them?
Thanks,
Ben

Hi there, I work in association with Elavon. To put it simply we provide Elavon as a merchant processor... a bit like Costco do. Elavon have just won Merchant Acquirer of the year in the European marketplace (just search in Google). The Costco deal with Elavon is a good one, but you need to be aware of a few things... The rates aren't capped and the terminals are a Hypercom unit... I won't say anymore about the terminals with the risk of being accused of various things... but do your research There is a 1p auth fee too but 13p is still a good price on debits.

Do you take many payments which aren't face to face?

[poof603126]

Payment sense / first data termination

I switched from Streamline to Payment Sense at the start of the year.
Great rates
Very quick switchover - all approved and set up within days, including adding new MOTO account we didn't have before. The sign up process was mainly done online, and then documents were sent by courier and collected at their expense - all same day.
The POS terminal is far better than the standard Streamline one, as it connects via broadband, rather than dial up. Apart from being far quicker, this cuts out the extra 3.5p per call authorisation fee that Streamline were hitting us with.
No problem intergrating with AP
Very pleased so far

That 1.1% / 13p sounds like a great rate - even better than I achieved after heavy negotiation!

The only thing to watch, is that they try to sign you up for 'extras', when you go through the initial sign up process. Just stick to your guns, and only take what you actually want. My salesguy insisted that I signed up for ClientLine (£10 per month), giving online access to transactions data, and said I simply needed to phone up and cancel it after we were approved. Its how they make extra commision. This is cheeky and a bit of a pain, but not difficult to cancel.

Regarding 'the small print' - it looks like there is a cancellation fee of £200 or so, if you close the account early, so you have to weigh up with you can live with your rates being capped at a far lower rate than Streamline, or if you think you may cancel within the short term! I'm guessing they may do this to safeguard any commission that the card company (First Data) have paid over to Payment Sense, for getting the business. The salesmen are very 'keen'.

Good luck to you! We had the unfortunate opportunity to sign up with Payment Sense (First Data....) sometime @ May 2011. After @ 3 months, we noticed we were being charged £20 per month for something referrraed to as PCI Non Compliance. We rang to complain. After being passed from pillar to post, they eventually told us that we need to register .... using a password /details which they were supposed to provide to. After a for 2 months asking and waiting for this info, we notice they added another £50 p/month making a total charge of £70 p/month. We had enough and called them to cancel. They requested 30 days notice in writing which we did. They did not respond to our email or terminate the terminal until we rang them 2 months later complaining. They blamed us for using the terminal.... When we received our statement, they had charged us various monies including £200 Early Termination.... £30 for something else.... We swallowed these charges as we don't mind the price so long as we dont have to deal with them again.

BUT there is a STING! or should I say a SCAM? FIrst Data trading as Payment Sense purpottedly do not own the terminal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We weren't told this and we certainly did not sign up for the terminal with anyone else. The terminal is owned by First Data Global? Services and the payment processing is by First Data Merchant Services both part of and of the same address as the actual company: FIRST DATA. The Sting is that First Data Global? Services is now demanding £1400+ for early termination of the terminal.

We are not going to pay it but they have deducted most of these charges from our transactions. Be Warned!

[JakeRoberts]

I'd like to apologise for the negative experience you have had with PaymentSense.

PaymentSense currently has 30,000+ merchants live and transacting across the UK. We've been saving the UK's SME's money ever since we began our mission just over 3 years ago. Unfortunately, there is clearly some instances of merchants not getting what they want or what they expected and its thanks to your reviews that we can better ourselves and constantly keep improving until we are the undisputed number one provider for UK merchant services.

We look at each merchants business as individuals as thats exactly what they are, we don't pigeon-hole business and tailor our services for your individual needs and this is addressed to everyone that represents the organisation.

I would highly advise visiting our website and contacting us directly to get the best service and be provided with an individual quotation with all the terms and conditions explained to you at your pace so our prospective merchants get the low-down on the deal and are not misled in any way.

[Duncan Rounding]

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