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If you’re an established business, with a long experience of dealing with complex financial products, then First Data merchants services could be of use. If you’re a young company, there are likely more straightforward options available to you as our research into First Data revealed a lot of dissatisfied customers, many of whom complain about unexpected fees and lack of support from the payment partner.
First Data was established in 1971 and serves over 6 million merchants worldwide, making it one of the largest processors on the market. The business handles 2,800 transactions per second and over $2.2 trillion in card transactions each year. In July 2019 it was acquired by Fiserv.
This transaction volume is so high, in fact, that First Data’s SpendTrend Report is used as a key metric for US retail spending – regularly mined for insights shared on national news channels.
But does this volume translate to good business for merchants like you? Sure, as one as the world’s biggest processors, First Data has a wide product range. However, online reviewers report that fees and contract terms do vary, and can end up higher than alternative options.
To get the full picture about First Data, read on…
First Data Merchant Solutions offers a huge range of services aimed at small businesses, multinationals and financial institutions. The merchant-focused product range consist of:
These POS are well-reviewed and work for retailers and restaurants, but are expensive and require an additional service charge, on top of your merchant fees. We’d recommend carefully comparing POS systems before choosing Clover from First Data.
Like most payment processors, First Data does not disclose fees on any sales pages of the website. The reason for this is simple: it’s intended to channel you towards a sales representative and you’ll be offered a different pricing structure depending upon your business type, sales volume and processing needs.
We can get negotiate discounted rates on your behalf from them and other processors which can often result in significant savings.
But dig a little deeper in their website, and you can find some further information about the sorts of fees you can expect to pay – and there’s quite a lot of them!
Reviewing their UK Merchant Agreement reveals a wide range of additional charges, including:
Whilst First Data gets brownie points for publishing these fees somewhere on their site, many of them do seem excessive and, potentially, designed to make a little extra money from inexperienced merchants.
Never publish dirty HTML code and double check your content before publishing articles on the web!
First Data’s website has a lot of information about the services available, including downloadable summary PDFs for many products. However, this doesn’t help overcome the lack of straight-up processing and transaction fees – when you’re shopping around for a payment partner, you want to know how much it’ll cost you, before reading too much on each product available.
To get a clear answer, you’ll need to contact the company to negotiate your merchant service agreement. We’d discourage inexperienced merchants from doing this, as fee structures can be complicated.
But, if you do decide to proceed, get a quote in writing and review the contract carefully – many small merchants are vocal in their customer reviews about unclear fees in the contract.
First Data’s client support portal is impressive, with a wide range of information and FAQs available. However, all this information is contained in PDF documents, making it difficult and burdensome to navigate.
If you need to speak with support, then email and phone lines are available – working hours are not published online, though.
Problem is: online reviews are very critical of their customer support, saying replies are delayed and hold periods are long.
Our research into First Data revealed a lot of dissatisfied customers, many of whom complain about unexpected fees and lack of support from the payment partner.
First Data has a strong Trustpilot rating of 4/5. On Google, however, the score isn’t quite so high with an average rating of 31/5 from 120 reviews. Many of the positive and negative reviews relate to one of the following topics:
In particular, the separate leasing arm, First Data Global Leasing has very critical reviews. Customers noted misleading terms, high fees and very long contract terms.
If you are an experienced merchant, First Data offers a comprehensive range of products with competitive fees – just watch out for that long list of extra charges and fees!
However, new merchants should find a friendlier – and perhaps more supportive – provider to help them get started. With poor customer service reviews, difficult to understand contracts and unclear pricing, First Data may require more time to get your head around than it deserves.
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Merchant Savvy is a division of VUBO Ltd (Company Number 09017066).
Address: Spaces, 9 Greyfriars Rd, Reading, RG1 1NU.
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2 Comments
No customer support -
Terrible experience. My card machine stopped working for no reason. It has been 5 days now that my bar is operating without a PDQ machine. I have been spending at least one hour a day trying to speak to someone. Every time after passing through loads of security questions and being on hold, I’m promised to get a phone call the same day to give me an update on the issue and of course this has not happened. I left a review on Trustpilot and received an instant public response that asked me to email them. I did and I still have not received a response. The issue is still outstanding, I am on the phone again to yet another manager who is not giving me any clear answers as to how and when this issue will get resolved.
Honestly, the experience has been terrible. Specially during this difficult time and just after re opening, the amount of stress First Data has put us through is shocking.
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Please be aware
Please I am warning stay away from this company not only have they taken over £800 from my account due to their errors they are not giving me the refund I am entitled to, after seeking legal action and trying to take this down the legal route they are just ignoring all my emails for requesting my information in hope I go away, Please avoid them do your research this is the worst company I have done business. If you google them you will see they are trying to change their name I guess as they have stolen monies from companies as there are other people who have written the same kind of review as me, please do your homework
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