Credit Card Processing Company Fraud

[CaptJohn]

I have recently had a sizeable amount of money put on hold by my former credit card processing company. My business is in Texas and this large company is located in California and other states. They are claiming they can hold my funds for 270 days or longer. Where do I go to get help with this? They have basically told me they can hold my funds for as long as they want and I can't do anything about it. I have cancelled my account with them and moved to another company but I want to get my money back and I want to know what my legal rights are here. I feel like they just decided to steal from me and are using their size to boast their arrogance. My states name is Texas.

 

[Antigone*]

I have recently had a sizeable amount of money put on hold by my former credit card processing company. My business is in Texas and this large company is located in California and other states. They are claiming they can hold my funds for 270 days or longer. Where do I go to get help with this? They have basically told me they can hold my funds for as long as they want and I can't do anything about it. I have cancelled my account with them and moved to another company but I want to get my money back and I want to know what my legal rights are here. I feel like they just decided to steal from me and are using their size to boast their arrogance. My states name is Texas.

They are within their legal rights to hold those funds. Without more information, I can only take an intelligent guess at what has happened. Your merchant processor shut your down and has a hold on those funds until chargebacks can no longer be processed against you. Any chargebacks received during that time will be applied against your held funds. You will evenutally get back the balance of the account once SOL for chargebacks has passed.

You might want to check the merchant agreement you signed. Somewhere in the contract you will see that you agreed to this.

 

[CaptJohn]

Credit Card Processor

You are right about the verbiage and I had that pointed out to me. I was also told by my new processing company that they hardly ever saw that used. I had a series of charge backs, all from the same customer, that were related to a credit card fraud that was pulled on my company in early December. My old processing company didn't catch it, I did. All of the charge backs were in a weeks time and from the same customer. My processing company started holding my funds in early January and didn't bother to tell me. After the total got to be close to $8000.00 I contacted them and found out what had happened. I have since moved my business but I keep pursuing them. All of my clients since January have let them know the charges were valid but still they persist in holding the funds. If I'm to pursue this legally what legal specialist should I be looking for? They may be within their rights but that doesn't make it right.

 

[Antigone*]

You are right about the verbiage and I had that pointed out to me. I was also told by my new processing company that they hardly ever saw that used. I had a series of charge backs, all from the same customer, that were related to a credit card fraud that was pulled on my company in early December. My old processing company didn't catch it, I did. All of the charge backs were in a weeks time and from the same customer. My processing company started holding my funds in early January and didn't bother to tell me. After the total got to be close to $8000.00 I contacted them and found out what had happened. I have since moved my business but I keep pursuing them. All of my clients since January have let them know the charges were valid but still they persist in holding the funds. If I'm to pursue this legally what legal specialist should I be looking for? They may be within their rights but that doesn't make it right.

Ok... whatever floats your boat. Good luck to you.

I've got a client with over 400k being held for at least the next 180 days. Happens all the time.

Please take all the precautions you can when it comes to verifying your clients. If you have too many chargebacks, Visa/MC could decide you are far too risky...I've seen that happen too!

 

[Zigner]

You are right about the verbiage and I had that pointed out to me. I was also told by my new processing company that they hardly ever saw that used. I had a series of charge backs, all from the same customer, that were related to a credit card fraud that was pulled on my company in early December. My old processing company didn't catch it, I did. All of the charge backs were in a weeks time and from the same customer. My processing company started holding my funds in early January and didn't bother to tell me. After the total got to be close to $8000.00 I contacted them and found out what had happened. I have since moved my business but I keep pursuing them. All of my clients since January have let them know the charges were valid but still they persist in holding the funds. If I'm to pursue this legally what legal specialist should I be looking for? They may be within their rights but that doesn't make it right.

From a legal standpoint, yes, it does.

 

[CaptJohn]

Thanks for your help.