AVOID innovative merchant solutions NIGHTMARE

[neunet]

this is an alert, the story of my IMS nightmare...

 

if you have read the negative feedback from other members here on Innovative Merchant Solutions (an Intuit company), you would do well to heed the warning implicit in their experience and now with mine. i disregarded the other oscommerce member warnings about the terrible IMS service and was lured in by the "no obligation" trial service. please don't duplicate my mistake.

 

first, they duplicate my merchant account (including the account for AMEX). this is the result of one of QBMS' SENIOR acocunt managers NOT KNOWING WHAT TYPE OF ACCOUNT I NEEDED, EVEN AFTER I EXPLICITLY TOLD HIM IT NEEDED TO WORK WITH OSCOMMERCE. i even pointed him to his own company's webiste

 

http://www.innovativemerchant.com/support/...cumentation.php

 

and said see that oscommerce module at your site? i need the account you set up for me to work with that. the only reason i found they duplicated my accounts was when i still received charges from them 2 months AFTER I CLOSED THE ACCOUNT.

 

this past september i had to call them about the charges and after several calls, i finally got someone who took responsibility and refunded the erroneous charges and said the closure was a done deal.

 

JUST THIS PAST WEEK i check my account and what do you know? that's right! IMS charges! i tried to call their number at their website and the result of that i post below, which is actually most of an email i just sent them. THEIR REPRESENTATIVES ARE INCOMPETENT AND RUDE; I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR MERCHANT SERVICES, unless you want to risk going through the nightmare i've gone through.

 

this was sent to: '[email protected]', '[email protected]', '[email protected]'

 

i will post their reply... i wish i could post a recording of the conversations - you wouldn't believe it (i was completely shocked)!

 

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Please forward this to the appropriate person who can take the necessary actions.

 

this morning, after reviewing a personal account that was registered with IMS for merchant services (which was to have been closed), I found that my former IMS account was still not closed after making several requests to close it this past summer and again this past September. The last request in September resulted in a refund of the charges billed in error and I assumed the closure was handled properly. Obviously that was not the case as I found a transaction with the description string

 

?XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX?

 

had posted 11/14/2006. The fact that some party is automatically taking money from my account without my authorization is what concerned me.

 

Because http://www.innovativemerchant.com/company/contact.php has no email address, I called the 800 397 0707 phone # instead? and had to make several subsequent calls as described below.

 

First Call: I was rudely hung up on after not responding within the 2 seconds the representative allowed for response ? I was putting on my headset which took a little longer ? the IMS representative made an insulting comment which I will not repeat for ethical reasons, apparently assuming no one was listening and that made it alright to represent IMS in such an offensive manner.

 

Next Call: I asked for the name of the representative after I recognized the voice as the same from the first call. After rudely declining their name, I asked for the supervisor and was insulted several times (again, I will not repeat for ethical reasons) and was told by the IMS representative that I should check into a mental hospital. I hung up after it occurred to me they had no interest in their supervisor being informed of the mishandling of someone inquiring for service (to say ?mishandling? is to be completely euphemistic).

 

Next Call: I asked and someone identified themselves as John. In the background I heard someone say ?just put him on hold?. I hung up after recognizing that voice as the last IMS representative. I called again in attempt at speaking with the supervisor in charge of this nonsense.

 

Next Call: I asked and someone identified themselves as Jose. They said they would transfer me to their supervisor and when transferred, I received the person who I originally spoke with, who first identified themselves as ?Cornelius Smith?. After it was obvious Cornelius was lying about his name (the tone of his voice was such that it was apparent this was all a joke to him) and admitted he was lying about it, he asked for my merchant account number.

 

After such appalling, rude treatment and not forwarding my call to the appropriate manager, how could this IMS representative seriously expect me to hand over my account information? If an IMS representative is so rude and even admits to lying, how am I expected to entrust something as important as account information to them? I was completely shocked that an IMS representative could handle a support request in such an unprofessional, emotionally damaging way? especially when the call in question is with respect to what is potentially negligent fraud on behalf of an Intuit company in the first case.

 

I was determined to get this problem rectified so I called QBMS Customer Support at (800) 558-9558. I was eventually transferred to someone who identified themselves as Andy. I did not trust Andy after he defended ?Cornelius? offensive treatment? and in fact blamed the offensive action on myself. In fact, Andy went so far as to threatening to inform the authorities of my calls ? saying they were harassing. He apparently didn?t seem to understand that all the calls were made in attempt at getting in touch with an accountable IMS representative and not some extremely offensive, emotionally upsetting representative. Since I had called Intuit?s QBMS (apart from IMS) and they transferred me to Andy, I assumed Andy could be held accountable for his actions if he mishandled my account (which should not exist 4 months after ?closure? in the first place). I gave Andy my IMS Merchant account number, listed below, and he said he would forward the request to the appropriate party. After being threatened by him again for some unintelligible reason, I simply hung up on him.

 

In summary, the reason I called in the first place is because an Intuit company, IMS, is taking money from my account without my authorization and without any contractual authority to do so. This matter was claimed by IMS representatives this past September to have been closed, with the closure of the account and a refund for the charges made in error by IMS. Upon attempting to rectify the cause of the UNAUTHORIZED charges by IMS with the above IMS representatives, I was offensively treated to the point of being emotionally overwhelmed. A large, ?reputable? company steals from me, then when I ask about it, their representatives are patently offensive about the matter.

 

Now I fully understand why all the comments about IMS by the oscommerce and zen cart community forum members (of which there are over 100,000 members collectively) had not a single positive comment about IMS or its employees? they were all negative. Regardless, I demand that IMS rectify the problem immediately and that the offending employees are duly reprimanded and that they submit a sincere apology for their emotionally damaging, offensive behavior. If not, I will pursue this to the fullest extent allowed by law.

 

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Edited November 22, 2006 by neunet

[neunet]

possible motivation for an off the record policy to duplicate merchant accounts and say oooooops! we didn't know:

 

if you have millions of accounts, many of which get cycled or closed quickly due to poor service, you can still make $100million/year if you have just 1million accounts that cycle through (according to IMS they have millions of accounts). now consider how many merchants won't pipe up or even notice the errors. now consider the earned interest on the disputed amounts.

 

et viola! shocking that such a policy might exist... even if it doesn't, would you really want to do business with a company that doesn't know what kind of account to open for a customer?

 

i'd be very interested to know of any other merchants that have had similar experiences.

Edited November 22, 2006 by neunet