Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Ecommerce Hosting & Discussion : Don’t do business with onlinedatacorp.com (merchant services provider)

[bobsroom]

Give it time, Online Data Corp will stab you in the back.
If you are processing under $8000 a month, they
probably don't even know you exist! I was processing
about $40,000 per month. That's right! $40,000
per month! That is only a fraction of my income.
I own 3 online businesses & two Store Fronts.
If you are processing under $8000 per month, it would
not be worth it for those leaches to freeze 3 days sales.
At $8000 per month, they could only freeze about $800
on those clients. They would not focus on such a small amount.
I have over over 10,000 customers online & I get over
100 million per year. I am collectiing Legal funds to bury those freaks for once and for all! Pardon the cliche, but the messed with the wrong person this time. They will see!

[bobsroom]

Also, another thing Merchants do not know is if Online Data Corp feels you have violated the merchant agreement, they WILL put you on the Terminated Merchant File list and you will not be able to obtain a Merchant Account again! They did it to me & many others without even giving an explanation why they think I did. They tried to do this when I first started processing, and just out of the blue, they said they would not if I gave them a $5000 reserve. $5000 which I never did receive! Obviously, your business is at risk when you use this company to process. This also goes on your credit report as well! Not that I need credit. My condo is worth almost one million dollars. I have offshore processing. I always did. They did not hurt me, finacially, one bit. I did just invest about $100,000 in my other businesses, so there was a slight sting. The reason I am going to after them is because they I want to see them out of business for good! I read all the horror stories about them. I have the resources, so I am going to do it for thier other victims. Good Luck

[dmetzcher]

Originally posted by DaveNET
I would be mad too. My inclination is to sue them in small claims court. However, you'll need to prepare some type of evidence showing why they are in the wrong.

Technically, if they were to sue, online data corp would have to prove why they were able to charge them. But the argument is still the same. They should get the contract from online data corp first and see where they stand. They may be able to get a refund if they can point out that the contract does not give online data corp the right to charge them inthe event that they cancel after the (typical) three-year contract period.

It may be the that the typical contract with ODC states that they are liable to pay this cancellation fee, while the company that ODC bought out did not include this provision in their original contract. In that case, they might have been lumped in with ODC's current clients and a mistake was made. Maybe a mistake was not made. The fact is, many companies will break the law and simply hope you do nothing about it. Insurance companies are famous for this sort of behavior.

[msllc]

STAY AWAY FROM LEADERS MERCHANT SERVICES!!! (RIP OFF ARTISTS, FLOATERS, THEIVES!!!)
STAY AWAY FROM ONLINEDATACORP!!! (RIP OFF ARTISTS, FLOATERS, THEIVES!!!)

I just found this thread by doing a search on google. Well, it is now October 2005 and it looks like things have not changed for OnlineDataCorp. They are shady as hell!!!

We signed a no term limit contract with a company called Leaders Merchant Services a few weeks ago. When we received our credit card processor and paperwork in the mail, everything was under OnlineDataCorp's name. Strange, we didnt know who OnlineDataCorp were??? We thought we were with Leaders Merchant Services??? But in all actuality, Leaders Merchant Service is the front company for OnlineDataCorp.

Anyways, we processed our first credit card charge of $3,000 for a clients order of Dell Computers. 48 hours later, the funds were still NOT in our bank account. We called to find out why, and they said they will get back to us. Days pass...then, out of the blue, at 7PM as I'm about to leave the office, we get a call from someone from "Risk Management" asking for additional documents to verify the transaction.

I fax him invoices and an itemized order sheet on spot. He says he will push it through first thing in the morning. It never happens, and when we call the next day, they claim they never received the fax. So we fax it three mores times. Finally, days later, they tell us they received the information but need more information - a FedEx shipment invoice to confirm shipment of the items invoiced. So we fax that to them as well. More days pass, until finally, actually just last night at 5PM, I personally chase the "Risk Management" guy down with repeated phone calls.

He tells me they cannot release funds because the transaction is too high risk...????? What??? Didn't we already fill out a merchant services application and get approved? Didnt we even provide the requested documents to verify the transaction? Didnt we even have Our client call his credit card company and verify the charge placed on his credit card? Regardless, we were informed funds will be held for 30 to 90 business days before being released.

At first, we were under the impression we did something wrong and were at fault. Then I called my attorney. Without hearing too much, she immediately interrupted me and told me to close my bank account. They're "conartists" she told me and "they are floating the money". She told me to check my business account to see if there were any miscellaneous charges. I went online and sure enough, I found two miscellaneous charges on my account ($4.95 and $10) were posted from OnlineDataCorp. She said, "see, they have access to your bank account and can now charge away. They will continue to quietly do this in hidden small amounts because they can and it will be very difficult for you to get the money back."

Immediately we got worried and wanted containment of the problem. First thing we did was chase our client down last night at 10PM, get his credit card back, and swipe it through the processor for a refund. My attorney explained that companies like OnlineDataCorp can steal our money, but they'll never take on my client's credit card company. They have to give the money back and not hold it any longer. My client's money is safe and protected thank God!

Next thing we did was call our Citibank rep, which I did the first thing this morning. Immediately, he said the same thing my attorney did, "Sounds like Floaters. They float the money as long as they can until they have to give it back." I walked into my local Citibank branch today and closed the account immediately. We are opening a new Citibank business account, and, what the heck, will be signing with Citibank as our merchant service provider. We'll see how that goes. Stay tuned!

Well, tomorrow, once I get confirmation my client's credit card has been refunded, I will call Leaders Merchant Services and OnlineDataCorp and let them know that I work at the "Risk Management" department at my company and that we are canceling our contract as we deem them to be high risk!!! They can try to charge us a cancellation fee (which I know they will), but the account they have access to is already closed. Furthermore, any cancellation fees incurred will have to be handled by our customer service department (i.e. I will give them a bogus number to call). Hee hee!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, companies like Leaders Merchant Services/OnlineDataCorp will promise you the world and just end up delaying you repeatedly so they can hold your money longer. They do so by claiming they never received faxes, are not in the office today, by transferring your phone calls to various departments, by requesting partial information and then asking for further information later (i.e. You were supposed to send me...blah, blah, blah), and claiming they tried calling you back but could never reach you (i.e. They will get back to you at odd hours when you are most likely not at the office so they can just leave a message and delay things further.)

STAY AWAY FROM LEADERS MERCHANT SERVICES!!! (RIP OFF ARTISTS, FLOATERS, THEIVES!!!) STAY AWAY FROM ONLINEDATACORP!!! (RIP OFF ARTISTS, FLOATERS, THEIVES!!!)

If you are already stuck with them and don't have time to file complaints at the Attorney General's office and Better Business Bureua, I suggest you FIRST close your bank account and issue refunds BEFORE cancelling service with Leaders Merchant Services/OnlineDataCorp. That way you dont have to chase them for your clients money and incurr an immediate cancellation debit on your bank account. Put the ball in their court...They will have to chase you if they want their cancellation fee!!!

I hope this message gets out to anyone looking for a merchant service provider. I hope a simple keyword Google search pulls this up for prospective business owners to read. I hope these people are put out of business for good!!! Once again, STAY AWAY FROM LEADERS MERCHANT SERVICES!!! (RIP OFF ARTISTS,
FLOATERS, THEIVES!!!) STAY AWAY FROM ONLINEDATACORP!!! (RIP OFF ARTISTS, FLOATERS, THEIVES!!!)

[bobsroom]

you had better watch that they do not put you on the Terminated Merchant File list. They put me on that list, and now I can not get a merchant account. I had 100s of transactions per week and 4 chargebacks all year, yet they still put me on the TMF List. Now I found out that it was Chase bank, and I even obtained the phone number to have my name removed from the TMF. They never answer the phone. If I were you, I would file a complaint against everyone involved. Online Data Corp has had over 100 complaints files against them. You could imagine how many do not file complaints. I hear thier license to do business in Illinois has been revoked. This is why they use another name, I suppose. Soemthing has to be done about them. They still owe me thousands of dollars. I went through the same thing. Except my Bank reversed any charges in a heartbeat. All I had to do was fax a statement to my Bank if they debited my account. So they gave up on that. We can get together and file a lawsuit.

[temp09]

This is extremely long, but please read it through, it will save you a lot of trouble, or if you are already in trouble, it may help.

I applied with merchantplus, which gave me an authorize.net gateway and a merchant account through e-onlinedata/onlinedatacorp. At first it was great, the best one I had so far, funds were deposited into my account so quickly. After a little over 2 weeks, and about $15,000 in sales that I received, the funds stopped being transferred to my account, so I had to contact them myself, and they told me oh, your account is being audited, we need some more information. So I sent in the requested invoices from my suppliers that match my sales. They told me just continue my sales as normal, all the funds will be released after the audit. I had no reason to be worried, everything was going to check out, all information like annual sales, average ticket, products sold were very accurate.

I continue selling for a week and a half, it's into holiday shopping now, and I bring in nearly $20,000. Still no funds being released, so I call them yet again and the person I always talk to tells me he is not handling my case, so he can't help me, I get transfered, hung up on, ignored. The next day, $42,500 was withdrawn via ach from my checking account by online data corp in $500 amounts to ensure they get the most money possible I assume, which completely drained my account. It was initiated the previous day, so by the time I saw it, it was already complete.

Immediately I call e-onlinedata, I get the run around til everytime I was transferred I just called right back and told them not to put me on hold or transfer. Finally I said you stole $42,500 from me, why? I was told they decieded to close my account, because they don't think we would work together as well as they would like, and thats the only reason. He said they didn't steal any money, it was just being put into a reserve account, and I'll get it back in 180 days assuming no chargebacks have been made, its for their protection. I told him, I would understand a $35,000 reserve, because that's all I processed, but you never released $20,000, and only sent me $15,000. You stole and additional $27,500. We didn't STEAL any of your money, we are simply holding on to it! You will get it back in 180, its not like you'll never see it again! So now they have about $62,500 of my money in a reserve account...I only processed about $35,000.

I explained even if every single transaction was charged back, and after fees it would be no were close to the amount you have taken from me. I had no chargebacks or complaints either. After I was basically told to shut up and accept it, I told him okay I will be filing complaints and speaking with my lawyer about your illegal business practices. And he said, oh well I'm sure you had a much better outlook on this company when you first started, and I said of course! you didn't steal over $27,000 of mine when I first started.

So I goto my lawyer and provide him with any agreements, which happened to only be the one from merchantplus, that requires you to type your name to agree. Unfortunally for onlinedatacorp, they did not state that my electronic signature would be considered the same as a written signature. They never had my written signature. But also in the agreement there was nothing about allowing them to withdrawl money after it has been sent, or keep a reserve fund of money other than what hasn't been sent to me already. I contacted my bank and filled out fraudlent activity forms for every single $500 withdrawl, and they investigated and recovered my funds thankfully. So I am lucky that after all is over I ended up with a very small profit, it could've been much worse.

But it's not over...they still have $20,000 of mine in a reserve account, and they are pissed that I had the nerve to follow through and get my money back. It just happened that a friend of mine made a purchase through my site, and he was contacted by e-onlinedata, encouraging him to file a chargeback for the transaction with me, because "my business was closed and couldn't provide anymore guarentees and you only have 90 days to file". They assured him he would get his money back, and keep the product!! I deceided to do some more research and contacted approximately 1/3 of my customers randomly to see if they were happy with their purchase, and if they have been contacted by anyone else about their purchase. I was shocked to hear that over 50% of those people were contacted by e-onlinedata.

Of course some people are going to take advantage of this, and I receive 8 chargebacks in 1 week, each titled non receipt. I provide tracking numbers, signatures, emails confirming receipt. And that's were it is at right now.

Ive been in constant communication with my lawyer during this whole thing, and he is finding all sorts of shady things with this company. He is working on the false chargebacks requested by e-onlinedata. And trying to get the $20,000 left in reserve back to me. I really hope this is the biggest line they crossed and that visa/mastercard, chase manhattan, and any other bank will stop doing business with them to save all the others out there.

So, inconclusion, stay away from e-onlinedata/onlinedatacorp/ipayment. If it's too late for you, find your agreement and read it over again, it will probably save you a ton of money. Also, never give them any written signature, or sign anything online that will be converted to a real signature. And do not give them the right to sign documents on your behalf!!!

[temp09]

In addition, it sounds obvious, but most places that you apply for a merchant account will only forward your application to one of the main merchant account providers. Most of the time you will not notice that you will be getting a merchant account from onlinedatacorp rather than the name of the place you are applying from. So make sure you know who the provider is, look in fine print, agreements, etc....do searches. Just watch out because there are tons of "front companies" for onlinedatacorp.

[Bruin03]

Originally Posted by temp09

In addition, it sounds obvious, but most places that you apply for a merchant account will only forward your application to one of the main merchant account providers. Most of the time you will not notice that you will be getting a merchant account from onlinedatacorp rather than the name of the place you are applying from. So make sure you know who the provider is, look in fine print, agreements, etc....do searches. Just watch out because there are tons of "front companies" for onlinedatacorp.

Hmm...what other names does online datacorp use?
ARe they the same as ipayment?

[cdgcommerce]

Online Datacorp was purchased by iPayment, Inc. so yes, from that standpoint they are one and the same company. iPayment has acquired a number of different merchant processors over the years - some of them have transferred their operations to IPT and others still function independently with respect to certain aspects of their operations.

One helpful note to keep in mind is that per Visa & MasterCard rules, anyone who markets merchant services needs to clearly disclose the ISO/MSP that the account is being setup through. Usually there is a tag line present to the effect of "such-and-such is an agent for (ISO/MSP NAME) who is a registered ISO/MSP for (BANK, BANK ADDRESS)."

If in doubt, it also does not hurt to ask specifically what ISO/MSP and sponsoring bank is your account being set up with. And ask whether or not the company you are talking to is an agent or an actual registered ISO/MSP with Visa, MasterCard and a sponsoring bank.

[Corey Bryant]

Originally Posted by jondolar

I have had no problems with ODC. We even called them and negotiated a lower rate after we had been doing business with them for about 1 year. They did raise their chargeback charge from $25 to $35 without sending out a notice. We contacted them and they refunded us the $10 on the one chargeback that we had during that timeperiod.

I hope our luck holds, we are quite happy.

It just goes to show that the larger the company - the more chances that things will happen. Very happy that no problems with Online Data and you jondolar. Things happen and usually in this type of business it is not pretty when it does not go the merchant's way.

Originally Posted by bobsroom

Also, another thing Merchants do not know is if Online Data Corp feels you have violated the merchant agreement, they WILL put you on the Terminated Merchant File list and you will not be able to obtain a Merchant Account again!

It is possible to get a merchant account if you are on the TMF.

Be open and honest with the processor. They might want a rolling reserve for awhile but you can have a merchant account if you are on the TMF list. It might just take a little more time to get it.

[patrick24601]

I am looking for any recent good/bad experience anybody has had with e-onlinedata corp. Anything post mid 2004. From what I understand they had some issues before with a different company handling their front office.

And to clarify... I am NOT looking for information on Online Data Corp. That is a different company from what I understand.

[AcuNett]

That's quite disconcerting. Anyone use BluePay?

The same thing happened to me a couple months ago. Over $11k was frozen. However after being on the phone with their Risk department it was resolved and everything has been smooth. They're also very pleasant in doing risk analysis for any transcations I am concerned about.

[patrick24601]

That is who I use for my small transaction hosting business. Have not had any issues to date.

[ZeroDataHead]

We run a subscription based website and have several (3-6) chargebacks a month from people that are too lazy to terminate their accounts. No bid deal really we process $15,000 in low months to $54,000 in our high months.

OnlineDataCorp decided to take a $10,000 chargeback reserve to cover any potiental chargebacks - our average ticket is $49.95 that means they expect 200 chargebacks - highly unlikely with our current rate of 4-6 a month !!!

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING - these people at OnlineDataCorp (Kim & George are Supervisors) in the risk division lied and wouldn't return calls for 5 days - If this happens to you.

Call your bank you have 24 hours to have your banks Loss Mitigation department to recover / stop the funds transfer - OnlineDataCorp code the transaction so the funds cannot be returned to you after 24 hours

I have run 6 different companies with Merchant Providers and Online Data Corp are the WORST in the industry - liars, cheats, theives

STAY AWAY from them !!

[neonerd25]

Online data corp is backed by Ipayment. Ipayment specializes in offline merchants, and they dont tolerate a lot of risk, especial in Internet/MOTO accounts. The reserve is cover any major chargeback spree that may occor, and to keep them from just terminating your merchant account, which I know they will do in a heartbeat should you continue at the rate youre going. They dont like chargebacks, it sends up red flags in their lil business. Thats why the imposed the reserve on you in the first place.

If you need a high volume account, I would pick a different processor. If you are in a business that does chargebacks steadily, pick a processor thats not gonna penalize you bigtime for it.