Comments on: Deceptive fees for a merchant account – Heartland wins

By: Merchant man

Merchant man — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:25:30 +0000

It’s nice to see people in our industry and merchants themselves calling situation for what it truly is…. misleading and dishonest. I’ve never a known a company to be so full of themselves as Heartland is and more brainwashed people in my life except for Heartland Reps. There ought to be a club called the “he-man Heartland haters club”. I don’t think you could handle all the people who would sign up…. industry and merchants alike. I could give you dozens of former reps and dozens of unhappy and merchants from lies and lies and lies. Beware and be-warned.

By: Kaya Singer

Kaya Singer — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:21:23 +0000

I googled for help and ended up on this blog. I am a very small business and need to get a merchant account for the first time. I am anxious about it and don’t know who or how to choose. I want someone honest, with 24/t tech support in English, low fees, and nothing hidden. I am a very uninformed entrepreneur. I don’t trust the people I talk to who are reps for a certain company because of course they are biased and want to make a sale. Does anyone here have a suggestion for what I should do. I need online and local and something that has a shopping cart that interfaces with Aweber. Thanks for any help.

By: charles

charles — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:13:56 +0000

Heartland reps in my area are running around telling merchants that they will not have to pay an early termination fee to their existing processor if they switch to Heartland. I notified the Heartland Execs of what their field sales reps were doing which is totally false and totally dishonest and their response to me was for me to throw out their number and never call them again. When the merchants received their final statements, they were really upset as the early termination fee was fully assessed against them. Heartland is not an honest company.

By: giulio

giulio — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:50:30 +0000

I just signed up with Heartland because i was dissatisfied with my current provider (Avant Garde Marketing) and i was promise a good deal on debit cards 0.35 per charge plus a network fee of max 10c each transaction. That would have been better than the fix 0.65 per transaction with the old provider. I just received the statement and yes the 35c are correct but the network fee is around 1% OF THE TRANSATION FOR AN AVERAGE OF 60c per ticket. I’m so mad…

By: Robb Lejuwaan

Robb Lejuwaan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:09:02 +0000

That makes sense to me, thanks for clarifying.

I think in general Heartland is a decent company but the bar or who they hire does not seem to be too high. Therefore, they sometimes have real inconstancy between their corporate voice/message and how their reps do business.

By: jestep

jestep — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:32:29 +0000

Robb,

I completely understand what you are saying. The main problem with this situation was not that Heartland was quoting a passthrough rate. There’s no debate that passthrough will beat the majority of 3 tier, ERR or other rate structure accounts. The problem was that the merchant legitimately thought he was getting .4% for his processing.

This may or may not have been a problem with the specific rep and the merchant may just have heard what he wanted to, but nowhere on the proposal did it actually state that this was in addition to interchange, or there were any additional charges.

I think I probably could have chose my own wording more carefully here, but based only on the information on the proposal, I still stand by what I said in this post.

By: Robb Lejuwaan

Robb Lejuwaan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:59:52 +0000

I have always been impressed with your blog. I really think it is the best merchant account blog out there.

Having said that, I think you are really off on this post. It sounds like Heartland quoted them an “interchange plus” rate which will end up saving the merchant considerable money. Most merchant accounts come with a very low “qualified rate” but really hit the merchant hard on the “mid-qual” and “non-qual” fees. Heartland may have had a higher “base” or “qualified” rate than your guy, but when it came to rewards, corporate and business cards there rate was probably much lower than yours.

I say this because when I review a merchant account with rate tiers 95% of the time I can save that merchant considerable money by proving them a “straight pass through” or “interchange plus” price model.

So you have forced me to side with Heartland on this one. However, please keep up the great content on your blog; you are doing a great job.

By: Jams Johnson

Jams Johnson — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:31:33 +0000

My son has a small detail biz and he showed me his Hartland statement and asked me if he could get better rates.

The statement showed:

1.64% = $.10
.09% + $.10
$5.00 statement fee

I told him to keep this deal because it was just above cost.

A few months later he comes to me with another statement from heartland
and it has a quarterly billing fee of $40.00 added to it.

He called heartland and they told him it’s their profit !

By: Earl Jamison

Earl Jamison — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:00:50 +0000

I used to own a little steak house down in Kansas City. I used to do all my processing with Heartland, that company screwed me over with that exact same thing. I can’t even believe those bastards, ran me out of business and money, my credit is screwed, and my business is closed. I am greatfull you are letting people know not only about Heartland, but about everything to look for when you find a merhcant account. Thank you Earl

By: PSI

PSI — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:45:15 +0000

I have competed with heartland for years and I can say one thing, when it comes to effective rate, try to compete. They are always close to the lowest and hardest to compete with. They may use a little smoke and mirrors, but who doesn’t in this industry? Truth is they do a great job with pricing structure for the merchants benifit. Don’t give them a hard time for trying to charge a merchant a different way than the rest of the 3 tier agents out there!