Leaders Merchant Services Customer Reviews

I was in retail for 20yrs. Years later I started a service business. Wasn’t going to use leader but had inquired. Salesman called made some good promises. After using leaders I find out they are worst cc company I have ever used. After two weeks of my first charge I still haven’t seen my money. Had to jump through hoops to say they will pay. Never use Merchant leaders or any company associated with pay safe

I am so grateful to see this! I was a very new merchant and the first of only 2 of my first calls was a scammer.. Leaders risk management has my legitimate funds, a mere $170.00,( but I run a very small housekeeping business!) They are holding my money ..it’s been months and noone at the co replies to my emails. I am a poor and uneducated woman,just trying to earn an honest living. A friend mentioned I should get a provider bcz my business would grow if Iwas able to accept credit card payments. Reading these comments has helped me. If there are any known ,( for there’s NO WAY I COULD ever afford an attorney! )

But if you, or anybody reading these comments has knowledge of any options I have.. I just feel so used, played, and foolish.

Payrock was my credit card provider thru Retriever Merchant Services for the last 6 years, until last week whe they tried to steal $1,000.00 from my bank account without notice or explanation, luckily I was able to stop payment by paying $70 to my bank, when I called them to find out why they were withdrawing money without permission or explanation, they gave me the lame story that the $1,000.00 was a fine from Visa because my surcharge was over 3% but keep in mind that the credit card company set and implemented the 3.99% surcharge on my credit card machine and they receive that money everyday, I keep non of the money from the surcharge, it all goes to them, and I have no way of changing the % of the surcharge only they can. I think they received a fine from Visa and they tried to pass it on to me.

17% taken off my invoice and 351 on hidden fees. If it is possible for me to sue them I definetely am going too. Nothing but lies from the sales guy and I’m taking a huge loss. I’ve had 4 card company’s and this absolutely takes the cake. Run before they take your info and sign you up automatically.

Very Deceptive sales pitches. Zero Customer Service. Beware of this company. After I signed up noone is responding to my calls and no set up has been done. Total Fraud. Research before ever signing up with them. I have called 20 times to cancel but none

I have never been treated this bad from any business anywhere. I received an email that they were closing my account. The “notice” email was curt and to the point. At first, I thought it was a scam. I talked to customer service and a “specialist”. I was told there was a “problem” because I did not respond to an email. I still don’t know why they shut down my account.

Avoid this company like the plague. I asked them if they wanted to keep my as a customer, and I guess I would have to find another processer. They said “I guess, you will have to and click, they hung up the phone.”

Still don’t know exactly what happened.

I been dealing with the Leaders Merchant services for only 8 months since the first month they been charging me 3.6% according to our contract the charges must be no more than 1.5% they claim that all the credit card that I get in my motel consider as None Qualify cards even though they inform me from day one that the none qualify cards are Government credit card navy all branches and out side the U S credit card, I never get any of those card in at all most my customer are local, till now they refuse to pay me back the over charges total of $765.36 when I called their office they can not understand what that mean none qualify cards I file many complain hoping I get my money back soon, by the way I cancel my account with them.

Watch for the fake “best credit card processors” website — it pays to come up first and ranks Leaders as the best.

I fell for it. The salesman was sunshine and roses. The processing gadget never worked – how funny that they got several percent more from me because I had to key everything in. The salesman “just call me if you have any problems” never returned or answered calls. I wasted hours of my and my customers’ time trying to get the defective swipe thing to work. It never did. They sent me a new one — with no indication that they were going to charge me if I didn’t return the old one, no address where to send it either. The only way I found out was asking.

Leaders merchant services almost caused our business to shut down overnight. We provide products that most payment providers do not want to cover and through research found that we may get approved through a high risk payment provider. We came across leaders and applied, we went through the phone interview and filled out the application with the help of a representative all over the phone. We were completely honest and transparent as can be, they ran our information, checked into our business, combed our website, we went through a full underwriting process and eventually we were approved. The help they said for integration we would receive was non-existent. We hired a company online and their online shopping cart that was custom built never worked right, which is a whole separate issue, and we almost shut down because of that. After finding a platform that already had an integration for authorize.net, which is the gateway leaders connected us with, we were fine for over a year. Our business was bringing in around 1-3 thousand a day so between 30,000 to 90,000 a month. Then without warning payments would not go through. It took , several calls to customer service, chats, it took us two days to find the issue, without anyone notifying us our contract had been given to payroc or ipay or something, I am still unclear or they bought them out, I was never told anything I could understand. They did say one of the reasons was leaders lied about our products and called them something they are not so they could get us approved and when they did a secret shop on us they did not cover our products after all or was choosing to no longer accept payments for them. They LIED on our application, this whole hardship was because they LIED just to get us approved and get the commission. It is sickening out of nowhere they decided they no longer wanted to accept payments for our products and closed down our payment gateway, no warning, no excessive chargebacks, we were above par, no nothing. We were owed almost 6 thousand dollars because they were always 4-5 days behind on payments, we never got it. When called we were told they refunded two days worth of orders we had already shipped out to the customers without reason. However, the customers said they never received a refund and we were out close to 10,000 dollars. This has been just over a year ago and we still have not fully recovered from the damages. That is not to mention the deep mental strain, depression, hardships, and extreme stress this has caused me and my fiance. This is the single worst experience of our lives and almost cost us our home, family, and livelihood.

VERY POOR SERVICE GAMES GAMES AND MORE GAMES 59.99 FOR PCI FEES AND THEY LIE AND STEAL MONEY EVERY CHANCE THAT THEY GET GOING TO LAWYER UP

Whatever you do, stay away from Leaders Merchant Services. I found this article because I was looking for a new credit card processor and I can’t wait to switch to Helcim, Thank you!

We started using Leaders, The Merchant Services Company in May-2021. In those 2 years our account has been under “REVIEW” twice and credit card charges were blocked from being deposited into our bank account. The company that is in charge of the “REVIEW” is called PaySafe Group. The current “REVIEW” started on April 10, 2023 and is ongoing. We have not had any credit card charges deposited into our bank account since the “REVIEW” started. We did not know our account was under review until May 4th, 2023 which was 25 days after the review started. We learned about the “REVIEW” when we received an email from PaySafe Group requesting documentation, which we forwarded on May 5th, 2023. We was told on May 8th the review was complete and the money would be deposited into our account. On May 16th, 2023 We contacted PaySafe Group because the money was still not deposited into our bank account. I spoke to someone named Steve that worked at PaySafe Group (he refused to give me his last name) and was told that my account was still under review and our company would need to forward 3 months of bank statements. When I complained that our money had already been held up for 36 days Steve told me that our company was a liability to Leaders and that PaySafe could hold our funds for up to 6 months. During my conversation with Steve he was curt, rude and unprofessional.

The trend that I notice with PaySafe Group is they tell you the review will only take a couple of days and request documentation. When the couple of day has expired PaySafe Group will request more documentation. In this manner PaySafe Group drags the “REVIEW” process out making it take longer than expected. The process could take could take days, weeks or months. When you deal with PaySafe Group expect to be lied to by their employees. Any company dealing with PaySafe Group should expect to as treated as though you are guilty until proven innocent.

Hidden fees, poor customer service, raised rates every month.

I returned their card reader on January 29, 2022. Card reader cost $42.60. I was told by Drew Copeland, initial contact, that there was no monthly fee. After I closed the account they withdrew $31.25 which was an unauthorized withdrawal and my account was frozen and locked. Spent 2 hours resecuring my account. This company has caused me nothing but grief. Please stay away from them.

I was told there were no fees, no minimums, and that all I had to pay for was the card processor. I have been charged monthly fees, I was charged for a whole month of September (when I got approved for the account September 29 and didn’t even have a reader yet) on top of thinking there were no fees. I find out there’s monthly fees after, then a month later find out there’s a minimum I have to reach (which I can’t which is why I confirmed before signing up that there won’t be minimums). Also, I filed for a refund for the first month in October after finding out what happened, I never received the refund. Still having issues cancelling the account.

I was told there was No fees and No hidden charges, I must say that I have been paying both since I started the service a year ago. I was unfamiliar with what PCI compliant was and after I saw my charges were getting even higher for Leaders, I had reached out prior with very little to no response. Once I threatened to leave reviews then seems as if things became a lot clearer to me what I needed to do. I am very upset with this company. They offered to reimburse 3 months of theses “fees”, although that is unsatisfactory to me, I will be canceling my service after my reimbursement.

Leaders merchant service put a freeze on my money. And charging me all kind of hidden fees. I contact my lawyer and am going to file a class action lawsuit against them.

I also contact the BBB.

I am going to called my bank fraud department and MasterCard cooperate office.

I am going to file a report federal trade commission.

I am going to do a social media live tagging my senate Rep Chuck schemer

Yes, this company is awful. Ive been signed up for 2 months and still havent received my credit card payments. Cindy in customer service was one of the rudest people Ive ever dealt with. They completely refused to help and atually acted like they didnt care. There are mu h better cheaper options.

This company is the worst please to NOT do business here. I signed up and have NEVER used the service. They keep attempting to take funds from my account that is not there. I have closed the account and they are still attempting to take funds from me. This is ridiculous, I called and spoke to someone and they clearly see that I have never used thief service and that the account had been closed and their saying I have a balance of $171 for non use of service. They told me that I need to speak with their collection agency, this place is a scam. I wouldn’t advise no one to do business her go else where.

this is not i want to do business with , no one can’t help when i call they transfer one person to other they not nice on the phone . This how your company treats customer ????

I had the very unfortunate experience of working for this company. It was the shadiest, most unethical, abusive, HR nightmare, immoral, narcissistic, dishonest group of people I’ve ever experienced. They are crooks and are proud of it. The sh*t starts at the top with the mentally unstable brothers, their backstabbing sister, and criminal father who thinks he’s the Godfather or something. So disappointed to see they’re still in business. They shouldn’t be allowed to operate. Sounds like they’re still trying to pull off the “if you don’t mark the box, that means you want the service” bullsh*t. I argued with the father on this point and he manipulated the entire conversation trying to convince me if people are stupid and don’t read their contracts, it’s their fault for being charged hidden fees. Someone needs to investigate this circus and pull the plug on it.

I processed a credit card through their services and discovered 9 days later that it was not in my bank. I have repeatedly called their customer support and been handed off to various departments. Long story short I still don’t have my money even though I have their receipt and approval form. I will be filing complaints with the SEC and other agencies on September 10, 2021.

Horrible customer service and duplicitous practices. Despite multiple requests, I have never gotten a statement from them about how I’m being charged; they simply debit my bank account for twice the agreed upon rate and refuse to answer my emails. I will be filing a complaint with the BBB.

Dishonest, shady, unreal, never seen anything like it

The app and the device work as advertised. My problem with this company and the reason why I am cancelling the service is that it was my understanding per discussions with sales that there were no monthly fees besides the percentage they take from each transaction. Our business is a medical office and the payments we receive are small as they are mostly copays. The reason to have it mostly is to provide an additional service for our patients in terms of them being able to pay the copay at the office instead of receiving a bill in the mail.

To my surprise, after a couple months our bank statement showed two fees adding up to about 130 dollars on top of the percentage of the fees. I called the company and they said that these were “compliance fees” and we had to respond to a technical questionnaire in order to have them waived. I explained that we are too busy to spare staff that can respond to this questionnaire and that we collected a total of less than 200 hundred dollars in the month of April and the fees came up to over 120 on top of the percentage of the transactions. I also explained that I had specifically inquired about hidden fees in my conversation with sales. I am cancelling the service but I want people to know about this before they sign up. Thank you.

Worst Merchant account EVER! Ripped us off of $400.00- Do not use this company!!!

Absolutely the worst company. They will take your take your money and make you go through months of BS to get it back. Getting ready to report to the better business. Do not use this company!

Leaders in scam.

I’m submitting this review in the hope it will save others from the tangled web and slick methods of Leaders Merchants Provider. We had not accepted credit cards until March of 2020 when Coronavirus-19 began forcing people to rethink contact with others. They began requesting credit card pay methods. Our research led us to the TOP 10 MERCHANT PROVIDERS LIST, Which listed LEADERS MERCHANTS as No. 1. this list is bogus as there is no legit criteria used to ascertain this ranking. The “list” is put together by a foreign company named Natural Intelligence, LTD. They maintain numerous “BEST” lists on various subjects and receive payments from those on the list.

We contacted Leaders to explore their system and if it would fit our needs. Our contact was an ‘agent’ in California. He explained their role in credit card processing and quoted some attractive rates. He also requested company info (Name, taxID, corp info, email) and banking info (routing number, acct number) so he could check our ‘credit worthiness’, whether we were a ‘real’ business’, and if our bank account was functional. Being new to the process these seemed reasonable and we complied. We continued our search for the right merchant fit, looking at numerous other providers before choosing a provider that fit our needs. It was NOT Leaders. However, we began receiving emails from them to join an online training session. We DID NOT respond and received no training , equipment, or virtual terminal from them. Months went by before it caught our attention that small amounts were being taken each month from our account through the ACH system. They were different amounts each month charged by a company called PAYSAFE, located in London, United Kingdom. If you want some interesting reading on international hokus-pokus look it up on wikipedia. Our Bank put a stop payment on the account, but Leaders came back with a different account identifier and withdrew a larger sum. They have learned a lot of nebulous methods and will use them to their advantage. It turns out the California “agent” used the information he requested for a “credit check” to set up an account in our name so he could collect his fees and bonus. We received NOTHING from Leaders. NO account notification, NO hardware, NO terminal, NO training, NO manuals, NO statements , NO explanation, NO thanks for your business (HA-HA), but we have not given up. Sorry this is long, but hopefully it will help the next guy. Our biggest mistake was to give too much information to the narcissistic “agent” . Thanks for reading!