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