Heartland Payment Systems Customer Reviews

Heartland in whole is a Piece of $h!t. There are so many fees this year that is being tacted on. They promised not to raise the prices or add any other fees last year. The orginal CEO left left year and it tanked their employees too. More than half was canned. A new CEO is a joke with how he’s running it. They’re not as great as they were. “How can I make your day better?” It’s a laugh hearing that now. Trying to even say it answer the phone i want to tell the company off. They’re hipictrical to their own employees too. They preach of mental wellness but where TF is it, we have to lie to the merchants left and right. FyI if you close a batch it’s 25 cents fee. If you do 14 batches a day it does wave that fee. Please keep that in mind to save you money. It’s ridiculous of what they’re doing. Now they’re doing a technical fee and geez price gagging it feels like to poor merchants that are trying to run a business. Seems like they’re trying to loose their “poor” merchants and make way for the big boy earners that can afford it. Just look out for it please and read your contract very closely. When even doing this. Make sure you have a lawyer since it’s going down hill so bad.

After shifting from Heartland to their parent company Global, I was charged a termination fee….I was with them for 12 years. I resolved the issue,they told me they would note that my account just shifted and I was indeed still with the company and assured me it was taken care of. 4 months later I get a notice that the amount is in collections. It destroyed my amazing credit. They better pick the ball back up and deal with it properly this time

Stay very away from these dishonest thieves. They have lied to us multiple times about refunding bogus, excessive charges. They refused to investigate a chargeback I disputed. They are inferior in every way. I cannot say enough bad things about this absolutely horrendous dump of a company. I’d crawl through glass to spit in their face if I knew which one would be affected the most by it. I hate every single last detail about this wretched cesspool.

I felt this company took advantage of businesses. For us, they charged for a service that was not ever used. Turned out to be thousands of dollars. After trying to give them an opportunity to prove themselves, they failed. This company lost tens of thousands of dollars from my company only to keep a few thousands. I went with another company I found through Costco and we are saving thousands.

Interesting. A person by the name of James Dennis called me today from Heartland. He wanted to discuss my review instead of lessening the ill feelings they have left, he provoked and increased it. Combative and argumentative. He spoke in a demeaning way of Elavon, my new and current provider. They charge so much less and do not independently charge fees they don’t have to. James also threw his own company under the bus by saying they were recently sold and are changing their name. Sad. I’m so glad I am not with them anymore.

All of those negative complaints are TRUE. The worst company, total Bait and Switch company. Constantly increasing fees without notice, monthly, annual, and other Bull S… fees just to make money off of you. They say they inform you of the fees a head of time in your monthly statements, I have never received a statement or email with that information. I agree with one of the other review that they charged me the same $250.00 fee for updating there technical system. Stay far away from this company or you’ll learn a terrible lesson about corporation scam.

I’m one of the many heartland payment system customers that have been scammed for a $250.00 update to there technical system without notice. Including the increased monthly fees that they seem to charge every few months without any notice, I guess they’re hoping you don’t see these extra charges. Everyone whom has an account with Heartland should get together and file a class action law suite against them. If any one decides to file something email me to be put on the list. Total scam company and would not recommend this company to anyone. They’re rated as a 0.

Don’t fall for their low rates!!!

Heartland had been increasing our credit card processing fees for three years without notifying us via email or letter. As a small business owner, we have been paying almost 6% processing fees which is a lot. Finally we switched in November 2024 and to our final surprise, we received our last bill from heartland with the whopping $254 for infrastructure upgrade fee. Why do we have to pay for their upgrade? This is a total scam! We appealed to them and got an email saying our request has been denied because the charge was a few days earlier from our termination.

DO NOT ever sign up for Heartland Payment Systems unless you want your monthly fees increased by triple digits every few months, bait and switch, or get this, they now charged me with a $250.00 fee for updating there technical system, have you ever heard of such a ridiculous scam, just imagine you telling your customers that you are updating your technical system and want each of them to pay for that, you’d have no customers, just like I ended my service with them. Plus they charge you a fee that they don’t tell you about when you sign up which went from $100.00 each January to $250.00 starting in 2025 for just being a customer. I recommend something like Swipe, No Set Up or Monthly fees. Hear is one of the client managers that you can harass for your complaints, and doesn’t return your phone calls when you have a complaint, she will just ignore your calls but knows how to approve all the unexpected fees you’re going to receive. Lorrie Jagielo, 1.888.798.3133, ext. 40602, lorrie.jagielo@heartland.us

Heartland Payment systems has ripped off

countless customers with a monthly charge

called a “ Customer Intelligence Suite”.

The charge is about $55 per month. They started doing this around March 2020, when

the complexities of running a business during

the Covid 2019 nightmare began…. Heartland deceptively mentioned this fee just once, it was tucked away in the small print of each already confusing monthly statement. I also was a victim of Heartland…..when customers complain, they offer unfair refund amounts,

the norm seems to be about a 3 month total.

It is disturbing to read the online complaints

sent to BBB by ripped of customers. We trusted Heartland, by they decided to try

to make big profits when the business environment in the country was uncertain at best.

If you don’t watch every statement they will pull any fee you can think of out of the sky and stick it to you. If your contract runs out and you don’t see it, your fees will go through the roof until you see it. Oops, your tuff you was not watching and you get the shaft, and don’t think you have a refund coming. It gone never to return, been with them for 9 years and still treated like a new kid on the block, so see you later I will go where someone can do business.

We had signed a 3-year contract with an early termination fee of 295.00 Their system went down and for over a week we had no correspondence from them, and they left their voice mailbox full. We then decided to end their service and go with Shift4. They charged our account 53.50 for the next 2 months and with no answers why- they finally said if we terminated our contract, they would charge us 500.00 even though we had a contract that stated 295.00 My advice is to RUN RUN RUN!

This company is the worst “employer”. The United States Department Labor really needs to investigate them. They are a multilevel marketing company, exploiting employees contact list. They continue misrepresent their NMI metrics, using change of ownership as new revenue. They portray a company of honesty integrity, fairness and transparency. On paper they get away it with being an “employer” but they treat you like a contractor. Once you are hired, they use their employee contract and “reserve the right” to take deals away from you, despite your time travel and expense without reimbursement. They are fleecing unsuspecting employees, have their favorites, the protect and favor those who continue to breach their own ethics policy, where you are prohibited from monetary deals with their heartland owned partners. They have set up a very competitive infrastructure where certain colleagues are cheating other colleagues or stealing deals or boxing out an colleague because they are paying money to heartland partners to hoard the opportunities. One of the most critical components of this job for sales people is pricing. Their pricing training is conducted in JUST UNDER ONE HOUR sessions, conveniently labeled to WEBINARS so they don’t have to pay for training, They also omit what they don’t want sales people to know, which affects relationships sales people have with the merchant. If you question their policies or situations where you were wronged they fire you. Their turnover is rampant, by design. If you don’t achieve their unrealistic sales goals or become “vested” they keep 100% all of your deals, your money and fire you. Nobody can afford to fight the bohemeth who has masterfully created a one way employment agreement, stripping employees of their right to jury trial and mandating arbitration and to follow New Jersey rule of law. Stay away from this company and do not buy into the recruitment message, they lie.

Heartland has been an absolute nightmare to work with. They have only provided me with extra hidden fees during every pay period, Inconsistent communication from reps to customer services. I have never had a worse experience with a business than them. I am continuing to fight regarding excessive and hidden fees as well as minimal effort in trying to retain my business when unhappy. Company has continued to bill me for fees after discontinuing with them for over a month. STAY FAR AWAY and choose any other company.

Terrible company to work with. They are holding my money hostage. Stay away!

Absolute nightmare. I am not paperless so I go by the paper statement mailed to me. I called to find out why me fees were so high. I found out I had been charged $54.95 a month for an intelligence suite since April 2022 which is online. When I contacted Heartland they said it was on the back of my Feb 22 statement. I did locate it. It is on the bottom of the page in fine print and you need to opt out if you don’t want to be charged. Why not have you opt in if you want it. I am sure there are many businesses that are unaware of being charged for this service. My last statement had the fees higher than the sale. I cancelled and was told I now have to pay a cancellation fee.

I will help you make a simple quick decision on using this company- RUN as fast as you can this company will steal your money and use every excuse possible on hidden fees. Save yourself the headaches and DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY- looks as HEARTLAND needs another class lawsuit!!

This is a horrible company. Do not do business with them. They systematically debited over $11,000 of our money last week and will not get back to me about what authorization they had to do this or how it will get back in my account. The person who did this has notes in their computer advising all agents to refer me to her even though I have asked to speak to a manager in their Risk department multiple times.

HEARTLAND is the worst! Loads of hidden fees. Zero work on your behalf for chargebacks. 7 days from date of letter to closed for a chargeback. The accountholder that filed it with AMEX has LOADS of lawsuits. Never even bothered to email or call our office to let us know. Said we need to ask for ID’s for online transactions if we want to be safe!!! OMG just dumped their crappy system. Literally the worst. I have a restaurant and work at a law firm, moved to Costco processing and its great. WAAAY less expensive too.

Do not use this company. They have not released my funds in almost two weeks and instead of trying to solve them problem I have been told I need to do a bank change which is a ridiculous process. Laura Sanchez and the rest of the department are nothing more than thieves. I had about one good month with them before they started holding my money and will not release it. Maybe after the lawsuit they will hire more experienced and professional staff.

HEARTLAND JUST JACKED UP MY FEES IN DECEMBER BY 67% AND I GUESS I MISSED A FINE PRINT DETAIL SAYING THEY COULD?

Wow, you really drank the coolaid. Heartland has been garbage for years now. A merchant shouldn’t have to ask to have specific fees waived, they shouldn’t be there in the first place. There are plenty of other companies that are also W-2 And don’t buy into the pretend narrative that Heartland is a “direct processor” because that means absolutely nothing, it’s pure marketing. I worked at Heartland for years and now with a different iso and have always been able to demolish Heartlands pricing which generally is horrific. Also no, when your pricing skyrockets, which it will, they will not lower it as high pricing is their business model thanks to global. They can’t keep sales reps to save their lives nor can they keep managers, it’s a constant revolving door of crazy micromanaging and unrealistic expectations.

HATE Heartland! Just switched to STAX Payments. Was threatened that if I wanted a refund on the junk fees like PCI non compliance fees of $125 a month, which we were not notified via email nor notified on the heartland dashboard that they needed anything outside the annual compliance and the quarterly self assessment questionnaire which means they purposely held this information in order to keep charging the highest pci non compliance fee in the Industry!! Average monthly fee is $30! They charge $125. I was told to get a credit of those charges, I’d need to sign another 1 year contract but if I broke my contract one month earlier of the annual period, then not only would I not get the credit if the PCI compliance fees but I’d be charged $395 for breaking the contract prematurely!! It’s BS. Avoid this company!! Moving to Stax where there is no contract, it’s month to month, no hidden fees and is 2.1% verses the 3.4% that heartland is charging in addition to the emv assessment fee, service & regulatory mandate fee, transaction & discount fee for each of the credit card companies PLUS a monthly service fee which was higher than quoted (bait and switch in the contract). On average we have been paying $850-$1000 monthly between rates & fees. F*ing hate slimy companies like this. Avoid like the plague!! Especially the dude Cory.

Beware, the Heartland Payment Services business model is to screw over customers with surprise “gotcha” fees and preposterous, completely indefensible price increases until you move to a new provider. Unless you want to be on the edge of your seat every day wondering whether Heartland has surreptitiously doubled your processing fees to 6%, I would stay away. I had been using them for years through a relationship with my bank, with credit card processing fees totalling around 3% of transactions, which everyone knows is a typical rate because the largest providers all widely advertise rates of around 3%. I was completely happy with that arrangement. One day this year, the business relationship between Heartland and my bank changed, they were no longer going to be marketing partners, but I was still a credit card processing customer of Heartland. Heartland immediately begins ratcheting up my fees and rates so that I was paying double, 6% on credit card transactions. Customer service was a waste of time. Obviously I changed providers and am now paying $0.10 + 2.5%.

This company is a joke. They are nothing but a bunch of liars. I asked right from the front if heartland pos system was all one business. They told us yes then I find out Joe owns the pos system and software, and heartland owns the other part of the buisness and a bank owns the credit card processing. This company is full of liars. I told them I wanted one company to own everything but the credit card processing. They promised there company was this way. I have a problem with the pos system owner Joe which is a total jerk. I call Curt and talk with him and he states Joe owns the software and he has nothing to do with the pos part of there buisness. If you want a company to lie to you this is the perfect choice. If you want a company to tell you the equipment you need instead of what you want, this is the company for you. Thank God I wasn’t stupid enough to let them switch my payroll company. If I would have known I would be working with 4 different companies I would have went with someone else.I would tell everyone to find a different pos company. If you want to be threatened , talked to like a idiot and taken advantage of this is the company you want. else. The equipment they sell you is over priced. Customers Beware!!!!

We have been with Heartland for 3 years. We switched to another POS system because we were using a modified version of the restaurant software and they continued charging us for 6 months AND then slapped with us a $120 cancellation fee because we didn’t dot every i and cross every t in the ink colored that they specified. This is a very unforgiving business practice. Beware! Stay away from Heartland if you are looking for customer service. There are much better POS systems available that are supported with non greedy merchant consumer support.

Not happy with Heartland merchant dispute process. We filed the paper work July 3 for a July 4 deadline ( notice was received July 2). July 6 the say they sent an email asking for more documents ( we never received it). The case is now closed because we did not file everything they needed in time. If they would read the copy of text messages from our buyer they would of understood it was clear the buyer has the items and it was not true that he never bought the items for $412. ( video cameras to prove it) Heartland has a lazzy dispute office, my first lost in 38 years of doing business with cards. They will take my monthly confusing fees but do not work for their merchants. UMPA is much better merchant, I just cant use them on this on line platform.

On another note I was receiving emails from another company name -not Heartland to do my yearly PCI. I thought it was a scam because it did not have any information about Heartland. Find out months later after being charged a high monthly hidden fee it was a sub- contracted company from heartland and that yes i should of responded. For a company that wants high security they just don’t get my reservation about their emails and my security against email scammers that we receive everyday.

Have been with Heartland for almost 10 yrs and we decide to leave the company and they slap us with a $295 termination fee. Then today they take out another $500. They said they were taking back the credit they gave us because we left. They are a petty company who doesn’t care about their clients.

16 Years with Heartland, sold our business, then we get a $295 “early” termination fee that they will not refund. We sold the business, we are not just switching processors. And, we had been with them for 16 years!!! – Very very poor. Yes, we had the same issues others have had that all of the sudden your rates almost double, then you get the $52 per month customer tracking fee, the PCI fee, or whatever they called it as well as other fees. Some got refunded, some didn’t. They always say something like: we notified you on line 135 of page 14 in the “4 point microscopic font” print of your contract, that you don’t have a copy of since it was done 16 years ago. I’m sure there was no early term fee in my contact from 16 years ago, but they probably jammed it in there on one of their 3-year automatic renewals. They are not the fair and honest Heartland that they were years ago.

3 years ago they were charging us $444 now I find out today they have been charging us $999 a month it went up 50% I can’t find anyone to help me out I am going to get a hold of the CEO and find out what in the world is going on working off people is not a game is our people who are working hard for their money and they are raping us of our fees.

We keep going through processing machines that don’t work and they tell us they are aware of the problem, yet nothing seems to get resolved and we have to pay for new machines each time. The machines tend to freeze periodically, the latest issue is the paper slip says approved, yet the next day it isn’t included in the batch, “oh we are aware of that problem, you need to rerun it the next day”, who has time to check each slip…. then when we try to do a return, it won’t allow it to process. Can’t wait to be rid of them.

Just cancelled three business accounts with Heartland Payments (aka Heartless Pirates) they are so appallingly unethical it is unbelievable. I was with them for decades. Used to be good but now they just rip their customers off with PCI fees $125.00 a month on two of the accounts because even though all the accounts are in the same brick and mortar and are tied together at Heartland they are not tied together for compliancy. How convenient! Then there is the marketing scam, $54 dollars a month for something no one ever signed up for they just tacked it on to every ones account and you had to physically call and stop it to get rid of it. And the $33.50 monthly fee for running your cards. Plus their 2% of every card transaction and hundreds of dollars for each machine. Run screaming from the room.

Your business needs a A headache? Heartland is the perfect match for you!!

The salesman makes no money unless he charges high fees. find someone else.

New fees pop up out of nowhere… OOOPS was a mistake…. “we will refund you” ya ya refund never arrives… You sure you don’t see the refund in your account? UH?

Want to spend you valuable time on the phone with your credit card processor? then use heartland

My fees increased over 50% all at once beginning Jan 1st 2021. I’m sure that in the statements (which I like most only look at the bottom line=monthly charges) there was some notification. However, one would expect that as loyal customer for several years, someone might reach out me personally to let me know this was happening. Fee went from .75% to 1.35% overnight.

Additionally, I have also been getting charged a monthly marketing fee of $54 since Aug 2020. I have never spoken to anyone regarding marketing, nor have I ever signed up for any marketing with Heartland. Of course when I called regarding the shocking increase in my bill, I was told that they would refund the marketing fees (over $400), and that they would reduce my fees to .85%. What about all of the small businesses who have not noticed your unscrupulous practices? Of course Heartland is going to continue what is in effect stealing from them.

Both of the above are terrible business practices and I would never recommend Heartland. The last few years have difficult for everyone. To have a company you’ve used for several years increase your fees (by over 50%!!) and have them billing you for services you didn’t sign up for is just terrible and throwing salt on the wounds of small business owners. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND USING HEARTLAND

I recently discovered that Heartland was taking a month fee of $54. out of my checking account on top of the “reg, credit card” fees. This has been for the last 5 months. The company decided to “GIVE” for free to all their users a month’s use of their newest venture to help you build your business with marketing help. After the month is up, if you do not physically terminate it, they automatically take that fee from you as though you consented to the program. There was no question as to how we liked it, did we wish to continue, etc. Admittedly, the notice was in the monthly billing pages…but who reads all that normally? I would go online to my bank’s site at the first of every month to see how much my credit card fees were and deduct that from my checkbook. The written statement from Heartland always came after they had already taken the money out, so I never bothered to read all the pages. I have enough pages to read at work in our dental office. I never asked to try it, I never consented to participate, I never authorized them to withdraw that fee every month as I was unaware of it to begin with. My Fault?? How can a company just decide to give you something and then start charging you because they can…they have all your banking information. Who would think to market your business through your credit card machine company? That’s what my web pages are for, not my visa machine. I have personally signed up for things online to try for a month for free and then if not cancelled, it will continue. BUT, I KNOW that because I signed up to try it. Imagine if every company decided to give clients some new program for free for a month just out of the blue nowhere, and then continue to charge them after that because they did not cancel something they never signed up for? Outrageous! Sneaky! Now, after I lodged a complaint, I received an email that after review, they have decided to credit me back the 5 months. My office has been sold and closed, the account with them closed and the machine off. What am I supposed to do with a $250+ credit?? I asked for that money to be redeposited into my checking account. Will see what happens. Guess I have learned to read everything from every company I ever deal with, regardless of the size of the print or how many pages there are to read just in case they decide to sign me up for something new and wonderful….and then charge me for it.

Worst company to work for unethical

David,

It is very clear you are a student of heartland. I spent 4 years with the company as a blue Diamond rep and watched this company change over and over. Phillip is right, the contract is not in favor of the client. The rate lock is a joke as well. It tells clients that after 3 years they can expect a rate increase. I had to deal with a lot of clients who’s rates increased after terms were up and the pricing team said sorry it is what it is. The iso is what you are coached to sell against, and any other of the big 5 you speak of. You mentioned Costco as a bad thing but if you look at the statements from elevon you would see most accounts were at 40-50 basis points and not overly priced. It was up to you the professional to sell the customer another solution to make more money like payroll so you could undercut the competitor rate. I could go on and on about this but factually, Heartland is becoming what they sold against years ago.

Again another example of the brainwashing of heartland rates and fees.

$125 a month is among if not the highest in the industry. It’s a insane monthly fee that they profit greatly on and they snuck into page 2. We as reps know that people do not look at their statements and after all the heartland warm and fuzzy that you sold them on, why would they? It was a dishonest practice and still is. Same goes with the 54.95 marketing fee they auto attached without customers saying yes to. But hey it’s ok because they could opt out if they looked at their statement the month they mentioned it.

Bottom line is that a merchant should be able to trust their processor. As processors attach new fees and junk the trust goes away.

Heartland will always pin everything on the client and make sure heartland gets paid above all.

Have been charged over 3000 four non compliance of which I knew nothing about.

The is price gauging on the PIC Compliance. $800, that is a pier profit and Heartland knows it but they will not admit it. you as a sales rep know it too because you are commissioned base only. Do the right thing if you know what that is.

Done with Heartland Payment Systems

ya this company is a joke what ripp offs. look at your bills close they are charging for stuff that they can’t even explain. found out that I have been being charged for a noncompliant fee when I was indeed in compliance. over 1500.00 before I found out now trying to get the money back is like having teeth pulled. there are several add-on charges that they can’t even explain. this is fraud. o and

blake petreson outside salesperson is a liar and a thief. went underground now that the company is doing so much elegal conduct. try to call and talk with a rep, good luck getting anywhere with that

Heartland now charges $33.50 a month. TSYS and Heartland merged under Global. They are not small merchant friendly and their program for merchants that do less than 50,000. a year in processing is 2.9% and 35 cents. They also pay the $33.50 on top of that. You will want to shop them if you are given a quote as their rates are usually much higher than the competition. The “plus” part of the Interchange plus is usually .70% and higher as their sales people are 100% commission and have to charge a higher fee to make any money. Use caution