As a fractional CFO and business financial advisor to owners of small businesses, I can only encourage clients to run -- not walk -- away from using Quick Books Merchant Services. The customer service is so bad, it should be criminal. And the nightmare experience my client is currently having with Quick Books Merchant services makes one wonder if they are running a scam. (Our next step is likely checking in with various consumer fraud authorities.)
Short version of long story: A client's customer made a payment of a little less than $5,000 via Quick Books. QB notified client that they would not remit the payment, as Merchant Account application was denied. (Client never made an application; they simply set up a QB account.) No reason was given and no process provided for appealing denial or finding out how to rectify. Client requested that the $5,000 be refunded to its customer. QB said, "No can do." When asked why, they said "no can tell you."
Client personnel have been made 6 or 7 calls to QB Merchant services. Each call was the same. Rep provided a case number. Rep told client case was being escalated, and we would receive a call or email with 24 hours. In no case was a call or email ever received. Rep sends links to articles that are of no use. In each case. When the next of the 6 or 7 calls were made, the new rep could not find the case number or any notes from prior call. They provided a new case number, and the above-described process repeated.
This has now been going on for about 75 days. In client's customer's eyes, we have their money. We do not. Quick Books does. But they will not return it, tell us why, or let us talk to anyone who can do anything about it. You might be wondering why we have waited so long to call FTC or state AG consumer fraud hotline. We are too.
Client finally got me involved, and I had call with Harley, at Merchant Services Customer Service. He promised I would get a call to have refund authorized with in 24-48 hours. Even sent a confirming email of that. Never happened, and on my next call, they have no record of the case number he gave me, or any notes of the call. Next rep I spoke with promised to have Daryl, her supervisor, call me. She also confirmed by email. That too, never happened.
At this point, we are in complete limbo, with QB sitting on our customer's money going on three months.
We do not expect a response here. We likely need to go the consumer fraud or hire a lawyer route. But we do want to warn the community to think twice about using QB Merchant services. It may work well until it does not. Then there is no fixing it, and it will cost you time and money. .
