Ensight Merchant Services
10 June 2009I own a very small business as a clay artist in the Chicago area. I have run my business for about 9 years now, have had a couple different merchant accounts throughout the years, in November of 2007, I found Ensight Merchant Services. During the first few discussions with a sales associate (whom I hesitantly will not name here), Ensight was friendly, very affordable and seemed to be a class act.
Fast forward to December 2008, with a turn in the economy, the arts market suffering, I decided I did not require the merchant services account any longer as most of my transactions are with wholesalers where I did not need credit card processing. I contacted Ensight, was told they would fax me a cancellation form and all they required was a signature. I never received the fax. Called again, never received the fax. Finally sent my own fax authorizing the cancellation. Called to make sure they received it and I was assured everything would be taken care of to close my merchant account.
Now, a couple months go by, I have another place of employment, I have not closed my business or my business accounts as I have a website and other items that I still have auto-withdrawal banking for. I pay little attention to this checking account (shame on me) as the items are minimal in dollar amount.
Month after month I was still being charged for my merchant account and for credit card processing services. When I called Ensight in May, they directed me to Merchant Warehouse who told me they could not close the account without authorization from Ensight, told me to call Ensight. I called Ensight, I played coy, I played nice, then I had to turn up the defense since they dropped the ball back in December. After many back and forth phone calls, one of the representatives at Merchant Warehouse finally expedited the issue to a manager who forced the closing of the account and finally reimbursed me for the 6 months of charges.
Now it’s June 2009, I see I am still be charged for another amount that I found is seperate from the Merchant account, but for the credit card processing. I called Ensight, spoke with a gentleman who said he’d get back to me, 3 days go by, I call again, they can’t help me, they aren’t the ones charging me for teh c.c. processing, they just set me up with Authorize.net Gateway Billing, but they don’t provide the service, it’s a third party vendor. Now why was this information not disclosed to me during the first conversations I had with Ensight when I chose to do business with them. If they set me up with some services, I believe they should cancel all the services they proportedly provide or set me up with. When I asked for the number for Authorize.net, as I had never spoken with them before, believing in the past 2 years that I had been dealing with Ensight, the number I was given was to a phone sex talkline. Which needless to say didn’t help me at all and just pissed me off even more.
My point of this blog is two-fold, to inform small business owners of the risks of not knowing who is providing what services to you when engaging in business with other service providers. Why are these service providers not held liable for disclosing up front in a sales conversation with a prospective customer, the services they do and don’t provide and the extent to which they will assist you when you have difficulties? My other point and constant bone of contention is what in the world has happened to customer service and business relations? My issue did not even require that absurd of a solutions so as to give me the run around while fraudulently charging me for services I cancelled and no longer use and then to maliciuously give me a number to a sex talkline! I’m furious! Why can’t people just help people when they ask for it? If you work with customers, if you sell a product or service, you have a duty to perform to an ethial standard. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but maybe just maybe, this organization should have a scarlet letter placed on thier front door.
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