In the late 2000s, as a broke college student struggling to make ends meet, I was contacted by a merchant services company after uploading my resume to a job listings website. This company promised substantial commissions and ongoing residual income for simply persuading businesses to accept credit card payments. It seemed straightforward enough—after all, what business doesn’t need to process credit card payments? Following a phone interview with a persuasive “sales director,” I found myself embarking on what I believed would be an easy job that would significantly boost my bank account with reliable monthly income and large sales commissions. However, the lessons I learned would profoundly change my life in ways I could never have imagined.
After completing my sales training, I hit the ground running, eager to make sales. This broke college student was determined to improve his financial situation! My first attempt at a cold call, with no prior appointment, ended with a burly man in his 50s yelling at me to leave, claiming he had been “totally robbed” by someone like me before. As I hastily exited, puzzled and intimidated by his reaction, I couldn’t help but wonder what he meant. Throughout the day, I encountered similar hostility from other business owners, all expressing disdain for the industry I had been so excited to join that morning. Confused and curious, I decided to shift my approach from selling to listening.
I quickly uncovered that the merchant services sector was riddled with unethical practices, including hidden fees, deceptive marketing, fine-print traps, and much more. It dawned on me that I had nearly been tricked by a dubious company into selling overpriced services under contracts with long-term commitments, all without being fully aware of what I was promoting. Outraged, I resigned from that company but learned that there were indeed ethical credit card processing companies that treated their clients fairly. Over the next four years, I worked for one such company, assisting hundreds of businesses in securing cost-effective processing solutions. Yet, I also met many more who had been misled and trapped in onerous service agreements. Determined to help people steer clear of these unscrupulous providers, I launched this website in my spare time, dedicating myself to researching and sharing my findings on every merchant account provider I could investigate.
Gradually, more and more business owners began to discover my articles. As word spread, search engines started to rank my content highly, amplifying its reach. My efforts were making a difference! Eventually, the website garnered enough traffic to enable me to leave my job and focus on it full-time, a journey that has now spanned over a decade. This path has not been without its challenges; unscrupulous company owners have tried to intimidate and sue me into silence on several occasions. Yet, I have stood firm against each threat. Here I am, continuing to publish reviews and articles, hoping to safeguard others from the pitfalls of the credit card processing industry.
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Retail Operations
Would not trust Beanstream as far as I would throw them. First their sales people dont know what they talking about and you will get 5 different people giving you 5 different rate quotes as much as 2x the other person. Then when you go to their website and enter your social security number and bank account, their website goes down, wondering were is your personal and financial information gone to. Like others said and it happened to us, you go through 1000 pages of paperwork just to get turned down for no reason. They asked for every single piece of information you could image just short of your blood type. Had 35k of transactions perhaps more in 3 months worth of merchant statements and ZERO chargebacks and these SOBs still turned us down and wouldnt give us a reason. We asked for a fraction about 7k a month of processing volume because we were not going to trust this company. When we called to find out why, they gave us the run around, contacted the sales person another scumbag used car sales man Jay Haddow, he would not bother return calls or emails. Found out that their primary bank is Wells Fargo, another con artist company that got sued recently for fraud and put the blame on 20,000 employees, when they knew it was upper management that did all the illegal practices. The second I found out Wells Fargo was their bank, I started looking elsewhere. And guess what, despite BeanStreams BS, we got approved with their competitors the very next day, the same exact information to. So Jay, Beanstreams, Wells Fargo you know were you can stick it!
mark hughes
As a UK user the fraud protection side has no teeth.
The following are not checked as standard during the gateway transaction.
Address Verification (AVS) – Not working in the UK
Name not checked
Sex not checked
Country not checked
IP not crosschecked
In fact the only verification I can see is that the money is in the bank account of somebody somewhere.
It is difficult to imagine a less useful fraud prevention system.
The team are friendly, the backend is ok but you are at massive risk of UK fraud.
This may improve in 2015/16 but currently you need to stay well clear.