Ipayment froze $3300 - my first transaction!

[SickandTired067]

Anyone else have experience with using Ipayment? I processed about 3300 in sales through them almost 2 weeks ago, and when I noticed the funds were not transferred, I contacted them today and was told my funds were "on hold" as I exceeded my per transaction limit. WTF???

Please share your experiences. I soooo hope this is not another paypal fraud situation!

[yaw1800]

i've never even heard of them...

Did you ask them what was your transaction limit and what you can do to lift it???

[mallshop]

Originally Posted by bambifox

Anyone else have experience with using Ipayment? I processed about 3300 in sales through them almost 2 weeks ago, and when I noticed the funds were not transferred, I contacted them today and was told my funds were "on hold" as I exceeded my per transaction limit. WTF???

Please share your experiences. I soooo hope this is not another paypal fraud situation!

Yes that happend to me with other merchant accounts. You see many auctions sites,merchant accounts and sort type of accounts have established a security risk. This means they will limit many accounts only to receive a certain amount of sales weekly,monthly or whatever standard they have. This will vary by the type account you may have. Also you may contact them and ask what else you can do you increase your amount you can receive. Also ask what is the limits for your account. They may request more info from you. Such as average monthly sales, inventory proof and whatelse....

[SickandTired067]

Originally Posted by mallshop

Yes that happend to me with other merchant accounts. You see many auctions sites,merchant accounts and sort type of accounts have established a security risk. This means they will limit many accounts only to receive a certain amount of sales weekly,monthly or whatever standard they have. This will vary by the type account you may have. Also you may contact them and ask what else you can do you increase your amount you can receive. Also ask what is the limits for your account. They may request more info from you. Such as average monthly sales, inventory proof and whatelse....

Well, I'm going to speak with their security risk dept tomorrow. Will let you all know the outcome.

Question: When they limited your account, did they release the funds to you or did they hold it for 6 months? What can I do to get them to release my funds? I'm going crazy, first Amazon is holding my $$$, then Paypal, now my merchant account? Serious WTF???? Thanks.

[SickandTired067]

*UPDATE* Well I spoke to the "risk department" there and the guy asked me to send him invoices...I not only sent the invoices which were paid using auctioncheckout, but I sent the site links in which the deals were negotiated and closed, so if they don't give me my money (which has climbed to $4740), I wil know they are a scam like paypal and go postal!!!

Oh yeah..and for anyone interested....Paypal has so generously (ya right) released 3K of the 15K they are holding of my money, they still have not issued refunds to the few customers who cancelled their orders after receiving that bogus email from ebay after they shut down my listings. They are re-reviewing my account for reinstatement after a nice email I wrote and sent to almost 15 different depts within paypal. He said the review will be completed on January 20, 2008. I need to put together some info for him, but if I am successful at trying to regain my money back, my paypal account and subsequent ebay account, I will start a thread with a "blow by blow" account in the hopes it may help someone who shares my story. kthxbye

[SickandTired067]

and yet ANOTHER *UPDATE*

Spoke to iPayment "Risk" dept guy...he now asks me to send him my last 3 business account statements and the tracking numbers for all the orders. I did so. When I asked him if he could release my funds now, he said:

"Well, what will probably happen is we will release maybe half the funds to your account and hold the rest in a "reserve" account for 90 days."

Can you believe this sh*t? Now I have 3 companies holding my money...I'm making tons of sales and GOING BROKE? I've also heard that if you try to cancel your account, they will BLACKLIST you and you'll never be able to get a merchant account again.

I've got to find a decent honest merchant processing company and get another merchant account. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[imthatguy]

to get your money released tell them you will complain everywhere online and file reports with with the Banking regulation, BBB and the ic3. they will release it fast!

And show results, dont just talk the walk

[doughboykilla]

Its getting perry sad when you cant even trust payment processers any more. Every GD Co. see's you makeing a little bit of money and they go ape s**t and yell fuard and drag out the dead horse and beat it. And while your faxing them there bulls**t and they just give you run arounds there collecting intrest off yours funds in there bank.

[philly387]

Originally Posted by doughboykilla

Its getting perry sad when you cant even trust payment processers any more. Every GD Co. see's you makeing a little bit of money and they go ape s**t and yell fuard and drag out the dead horse and beat it. And while your faxing them there bulls**t and they just give you run arounds there collecting intrest off yours funds in there bank.

Must be their way of getting "bailout" money not from the government!

[SickandTired067]

*UPDATE* I got a call yesterday from the "Risk" dept guy who informs me that due to how honest, open and forthright I was in our last coversation, he has released $3200 of the $4700 they were holding. He reduced my reserve amount to $1500 and advised me that all further transactions should be $300 or below per transaction and that the reserve funds will be released in 90 days. He told me that this is because I am a new merchant. He also advised me that after 3 months, I can apply for a transaction limit increase.

While not happy about not getting all my money, I have decided not to "jump around", but to find another merchant account that will allow for my wholesale sales and have two accounts, 1 for backup so that my livelihood is not tied up into ONE companies' hand!

On another note...paypal has also released $3K of my over $15K they are holding and are re-reviewing my account on the 20th of Jan. I will give you all an update on that one soon.

Lastly, even Amazon buckled down and reduced their hold on 1/2 my money they are holding from 90 days to 45 days...so woot, I guess..right. But I have decided to keep pushing ahead and not let these types hold me back!

Be nice...be sweet...be polite...be funny (who hates it when you make them smile..eh?)...I think is your best bet when dealing with these types!:D

[GreenBean]

Sorry about your hassles. Must ask this question, with IPayment, did you give them a business plan? As every new user has certain restrictions when using any merchant account, had you discussed this with anyone? Having that sort of cash flow comes under review by their systems quickly. Surely you told them about your expectations of being a great customer & using their services
Now I would think you have the problem of changing merchant accounts & repeating the same troubles?

[imthatguy]

Sickand tired,

any merchant would do the exact same thing. they are protecting there business. They dont know you from a grain of rice.

For yo to pull in 3k in your first transaction would be very suspicious to any merchant. yo have to start slow and gain trust with them or even have 3 merchant accounts to split up sales

[Jonas]

Ipayment sees your first transaction at $3300 and so would be worried. If you take that amount via credit card through your merchant account, you should be worried, too. Even if you have videotape of the buyer making the purchase and receiving the goods, you have to keep $3300 in your account as if they do a chargeback and don't have funds to cover it, you'll get a surprise NSF fee or maybe more and your merchant account will do collections on you.

[therrol]

Like the last two people have said, these merchants are just protecting their own. The amount of fraud that goes on is absolutely rediculous. I know lots of people think that paypal is just some horrible company out to get everybody, but i'm certain that if it wasn't for the rediculous amount of fraud going on that they would be a lot less hassle.

[surcerouche]

I opened a webstore through Bizland. Applied for a merchant account with ipayment and got it. All was great until I became successful. I had customers galore. All was gravy. Then....

They froze my account. I called. They wanted invoices, tracking numbers, etc. I sent everything they asked for in.
Then I get an email telling me my account was closed.

I called and they told me that I had customers who credit cards were declined.
Not once, but numerous times.

I explained to the risk person, that IIIIII didn't charge the cards, it was some random customer doing it. She didn't care.

She told me I could speak to her supervisor. All I got was an answering machine.

I am beyond frustrated. I did nothing wrong. All I did was set up a store, sell items, deliver items, but because some crazy customers go to my site with no money and keep getting declined. I am not out of business.

WOW!
Ebay/Paypal/and now legitimate merchant accounts.
OMG! It is driving me insane!
Sorry. I had to vent. I guess it might be better to go back to the BAY??

[jeffweico]

I have never used this processor, so I cannot speak about them in particular.

However, merchant accounts have become much more restrictive over the past couple of years. Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, things go south and they are the ones left holding the bag, so to speak. So they are very watchful.

Credit card theft is running rampant on the internet. So, if your merchant account processor sees unusual activity, they may be thinking that you are using their merchant account to proess stolen cards. It sucks for those of us who are honest, but they DO have a legitimate problem.

When starting with a processor, they like to see smaller transactions. Like the post above mentioned, $300 or less. A $3,300 initial transaction could be a red flag. Also, reserves are common. Sometimes they are 5%, sometimes 50%, it all depends on how risky they believe you to be. And everyone has a limit. New accounts may be limited to $5,000 per month. Over time, they will increase it for you. The weird thing in your case, is they usually explain all of this upfront, not after the fact.

You CAN close an account and avoid the blacklist. Yes, it exists, but it is generally limited to merchants who have committed fraud or left a merchant account processor with a negative balance. Chargebacks can happen for six months after the sale. In the meantime, you can close your merchant account, but are still responsible for any chargebacks. And internet merchants are the ones who lose out in the event of fraud. That is just the way the system is set up. So, even if you did nothing wrong, you could still be liable for a chargeback if the card later turns out to have been stolen.

I would look for a better provider. And I would ask upfront about limits, reserves, average transaction amounts, fees, etc. They will tell you. If not, find one that will. Of course, they all reserve the right to change the terms if the nature of your account changes. For erxample, you estimate your average transaction as $100 and the first few charges are $500+. You have to be careful when estimting these amounts, and that can be difficult if you have little experience in such matters, especially if you carry merchandise that varies widely in price.

[GreenBean]

The better method might be to consider more than one means of getting payment.

All eggs in one basket etc etc.

each payment processor has rules and each client(you) gets different treatment.

Diverse your methods.

[chknlollypop101]

Well...b4 pulling ur trigger...think about it--> thats A HUGE amount in such a short time...go slow and easy...

If u were a merchant account provider--> how wud u feel handling such a transactions in such a short span...

[samsneed]

Here is my letter i wrote to the executive of iPayments regarding my recent ordeal with the company:

Hello, I am writing this brief letter to you hopefully giving you some insight on my dealings with your company. I understand you are a big company and I am only one small merchant, but your company has left me disappointed in the short time dealing with you guys. I know as a company every unhappy customer has a “STORY” in which they feel they were wrong, but my only intentions of this email is to inform you and not to try and convince you to side with me.

The issues started when a customer contacted me about their payment being declined. The customer purchased items from my website which uses Authorize.net to process transactions which they received an error message stating my merchant account has been closed. I had no idea about this and immediately contacted your company to see what the problem was as I have not done anything wrong. I was given the contact information for a guy name William as he was the one working on my account. It took two days for me to get a return call after I emailed a list of iPayment staff members regarding the lack of communication that I have been receiving. After receiving a call from William regarding my account, he promptly stated my account has been closed and that I need to find a new processor. I was in shock and asked him why it was closed and he stated it was due excessive declines which warranted my account being closed. I did not argue with him and I was sort of relieved that my account was closed after reading a host of negative reviews online over the last couple of days while frantically trying to research reasons for my account being terminated.

As a new merchant, there was not any information I received regarding the do’s and don’ts of processing. When we receive the approval for the merchant account, I received an email from Authorize.net to start processing. As I stated to William, my customers visited my website, made purchases and entered their own information at checkout. With the use of authorize.net I sit back and wait for an email from them regarding translations and batches so what could I have personally done to have stop the customer from re-entering information at a declined transactions. In my own my personal experience as a buyer and credit card user, I have received declines from online purchases I was trying to make from other merchants, due to an typographical error on inputting address, zips and AVS codes, in which I re-entered the correct information and was successful. I was told by William that I should have monitored my merchant account better not to have declines, but I am confused on how this could have been achieved if the two translations and the closure of my account happen within a 24 hour period?

The part that bothers me the most about the whole ordeal is that, there is no grey area in the conclusion that my account warranted being closed and funds being held. Even after I was told my account was terminated, I offered to give him customers contact information on both buyers so he could validate that it was they whom entered their information and received declines and then re-entered again, but he didn’t want to hear it. Mind you all items have shipped out and I had to contact USPS to intercept shipments to be return to me in which I paid for out of my pocket as I have not received one deposit or batch from your company. All I ask of Mr. William was that my customer be refunded back in a timely manner as I did not want to inconvenience them anymore.

I also asked Mr. William was i bound by any contract regarding my account and he stated that I was set free. I ask him will I be banned or placed on TMF list and he asked me how do I know about the TMF list. This statement also bothered me as this was the only question he asked me during the entire conversation, as if this was secret information of the MATCH /TMF list. He then proceeded to tell me NO, that I would not be placed on any list that would prevent me from any attempts to find a new processor.

I understand you guys are a big company and merchant come and go, but this was an experience that cost me a lot of wasted time, customers, a weeks’ worth of business while I find another processor, and money. I am only writing this to inform of some tweaks that could possibly be made to this model because I would had for any honest business person like myself to have to go through this.

[heyprodj]

FYI - I 'ALMOST' got screwed by ipayment!!!!! They are horrible!

[AllAboutStealth]

Funny thing is i too spoke to a Williams today.... they have my account under review and its only the 2nd day i noticed some idiot got declined over 10x which is why this review was probably triggered.

[bansheezone]

Ipayment will eventually give you trouble so where down the road, but if everything checks out and you beg enough for your money it will be released. First Data was better then this company if that tell's you anything.