Today I am going to write about Leader’s Merchant Services,  this is a company that does credit card processing for merchants.

Leaders tends to do business in a way that most would consider shady to say the least. When signing up for services through Leader’s be sure to check your contract carefully as they will document things incorrectly to make sure your company is accepted. I have 4 copies of the contract where they kept putting incorrect and false information in to make sure the application was accepted by the underwriter.

Secondly, the customer service from Leader’s has got to be the worst I have ever experienced. After cancelling my contract with them over 4 months ago, suddenly a $250 charge showed up on my credit card. When I called in to inquire as to what it was, I was told it was an early termination fee. Well first of all, I fulfilled my contract with them of 12 months, cancelled in writing and documented to them the fact that they breached the original contract when they sold out to Wells Fargo. When I questioned them about the charge I was told to hire an attorney and was hung up on. I called back 4 times because each time I was transferred, sat on hold for a very long time and then disconnected, finally I just called my credit card company and filed a chargeback against them.

My last warning is this. When I signed up for their service I was quoted a rate of 2.09% and this is what was put on the contract. This seemed like a very good rate so I signed up with them, after the very first month I was charged an average of 5.5%. This went on for a few months, so I called in to inquire as to why they were overcharging me. They admitted the mistake and credited me some of the fees. This continued to happen even after this, they never did get it right. So I warn you, they will say anything to get you to sign up, but when it comes to delivering what they say, watch out because everything I have experienced with Leaders proves that they are very shady, why else would they lock you into a contract? I tell you why, because if they were really as great as they portray themselves to be, you wouldn’t want to leave them and they wouldn’t have to lock you into a minimum term.

If you want a great processor that is straight forward with the best overall processing fees, you should choose to use Paypal’s Merchant services, so far everything has been great with them and I would recommend them to anyone doing online business.

Just for fun I wanted to see if anyone else has been ripped off by Leaders Merchant Services and just a simple Google search showed me that sure enough I wasn’t alone. Take a look at some other experiences people have had with these con artist thieves. Hopefully enough people will get fed up with their shady business tactics and put them out of business.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=2788965

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/343/RipOff0343114.htm

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/128/RipOff0128064.htm

Today I wanted to write about some of the things I see going on today in the US economy and give you some pointers on ways to make your hard earned money stretch as far as possible.

Obviously gas prices are a budget killer right now. Most of us are cutting back on our daily trips, or mapping our commute, or carpooling, or even using public transportation to try to stretch that dollar. These are all great ideas, but when it comes to shopping there are other things you can do to save money without even leaving your home.

We all want to get the best deal when we are shopping online and there are a few things you can do immediately to save money.

Compare prices, there are many sites out there that let you compare prices against online retailers, the problem with these sites is that they overcharge the retailers for the advertising, so the retailers have to jack up their prices on the product to cover the cost of advertising. So, what I recommend is using sites like Google shopping: http://www.google.com/prdhp?hl=en&tab=wf Google offers this service for free to retailers, so you will find that there are a lot more retailers using it and you will have a better chance of finding the best price.

You can also save by purchasing more than 1 item at a time from a single retailer. Most online retailers will package as many products as possible into a single shipping box, so the more you buy the cheaper it is for you. You need to be careful here, since some retailers like to take advantage of you as much as possible and will charge you full shipping rates regardless of how many boxes they have to use to ship.

Finally, the last thing I recommend is joining saver programs offered by some retailers. For instance at MoGiZ.com you can buy a Membership which gives you a lot of member benefits as well as lets you save an additional 10% off all your purchases. You can find more details about MoGiZ.com memberships by clicking here: http://www.mogiz.com/Pages/UserMembershipInfo.aspx

Remember, driving to your local store to shop costs the average American an average of $13.40 with today’s gas prices, so you really can save a lot by being smart and shopping online.

I am going to switch the focus of this blog to help advertisers understand the different options out there for advertising and the PROs and CONs of those options.
I am going to start with PPC advertising.

If you are looking for a way to get quick traffic PPC advertising is definately a way to get it, unfortunately you are also going to pay for it. At MoGiZ.com we spent over $40,000 in PPC advertising to just one company last year and our conversion rates were just about enough to break even. It was very frustrating to know that all of our profits went to these other companies and just about the time I thought we were getting ahead, they raised their rates for the “busy season”.

As you probably know, Electronics is one of the most competitive product lines online and the pay per click companies know it, that is why you will find that you will pay the highest price to advertise these items. The average PPC price for an electronic item is approximately 70 cents per click during the non busy season (January – September) Oh and don’t forget about the sign up fee which usually averages around $250 unless you want to join Pricegrabber where you will pay $1000.

I am going to continue to share the thing I have learned about online marketing and advertising, so I can hopefully help your company keep some of the profits eaten up by these companies.

Companies are taking advantage of the discounted rates and signing up to sell their products on mogiz.com

We are getting a great mix of items and excited to have the new sellers joining the mogiz.com seller program.

We are planning on continuing the discounted product listing rates through the rest of may, so if you are considering joining, now would be a great time to do so.

Joining the seller program is as simple as signing up for a free account and purchasing a seller pack. You can have your items listed in just a few minutes.

For more information visit http://www.mogiz.com/Pages/SellersMembershipInfo.aspx or email support@mogiz.com