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Nochex Merchant Services Review
- Fees 99/10
- Contract 1010/10
- Sales & Transparency 88/10
- Support 66/10
Summary
Overall
8.3/108.3/10
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)
Nochex Merchant Services Review
Nochex claims to make online payment processing easier than ever for business owners. That’s the kind of fighting talk that puts Nochex in the same ring as PayPal, Skrill and other online specialists. And the UK-based firm comes with some interesting features that pack some extra punch.
First of all, Nochex largely prioritises small businesses, which are still underrepresented in the payment industry. More specifically, Nochex is targeting smaller businesses that operate almost entirely online, which means brick and mortar business owners might want to look elsewhere.
If you’re still reading, though, and on the hunt for a comprehensive online payment solution then this is certainly one to look at.
Products & Services
Nochex offers two types of online merchant accounts and there isn’t a huge amount of difference between the two.
1. Merchant Account
- Merchant account: Processes payments from all your online sales in a single solution.
- Payment gateway: A smooth payment process for your customers to help you maximise sales.
- Custom payment pages: So your payment pages look and feel like the rest of your website.
- Wide support: Accept payments from all the major credit and debit cards.
- Pay-as-you-go: So you only pay for the transactions customers fully complete.
- Speedy setup: A quick and easy online setup will have you accepting online payments in no time,
- Fraud protection: Free protection tools to help keep you and your customers safe from fraudsters.
- UK support: Free customer support based in the UK.
- International payments: So you can accept payments in multiple currencies and convert them to pound sterling at the point of sale or hold them in their original currency.
2. UK Trader Account
Nochex also has a UK trader account on offer, which brings most of the above features into a similar bundle – except these accounts are tailored specifically to startups, micro, small and medium sized businesses that operate in the UK only. In terms of the features themselves, the only real difference is there’s a £100 transaction limit, which is far too low in our minds.
Additional features
- Virtual terminal: So you can accept card payments over the phone and by mail.
- Multi-seller payments: Ideal for online marketplaces if you rely on other merchants selling products through your platform.
- Auto-sweep payments: Mean you don’t have to withdraw funds into your bank account manually – you can set them up to be automatic.
- Recurring payments: And you can set up regular payments to be taken from customer accounts automatically as well.
- Penny auctions: A payment specifically designed for penny auctions, where customers pay to place bids on discounted items.
The important thing at this stage is to understand you won’t get any POS software, card terminals or anything else needed to accept payments in-store. Nochex is purely an online payment processor and that’s where it ends.
Fees
Nochex is up there with the most transparent firms when it comes to pricing and you’ll get a good idea of what’s in store by looking at the fees and pricing page. The numbers that really count are these:
- You pay £50 for a one-time setup fee
- 2.9% plus 20p per transaction – Transaction fees removed from their website
Those transaction fees will decrease if you process enough payments, but you’ll need to speak to their team for more details on that. The other big news on Nochex fees is a list of things you don’t pay for with their merchant accounts:
- No monthly fees
- No annual fees
- No management fees
- No reporting fees
- No fraud detection fees
- No fraud protection fees
- No transaction settlement fees
That’s a pretty good list, for sure, but there isn’t anything particular unique on there for an online-only payment provider. All in all, the fees keep Nochex on the competitive side of things, although you will find some cheaper prices out there.
Contract Length
Another typical feature of these online payment firms is they don’t tie you down to any contracts – and Nochex is no different. This means you don’t have to worry about early termination fees, because there’s no long term commitment and you’re not leasing any card terminal or equipment.
The only downside, of course, is if you need to process in-store card payments. Nochex can’t help you out on that front, but that’s precisely why it can stick with the contract-free structure. If you need those card machines then you’ll have to find another provider – either to cover your offline payment needs or the full package and forget Nochex altogether.
Sales & Advertising Transparency
There’s another thing online payment processing firms tend to have in common and that’s transparent sales and advertising models. Nochex also ticks this box and we’re always happy to say this means no pushy sales reps or false promising to get you signing up.
Customer Service and Technical Support
While it’s been hard to criticise Nochex so far, we’re not quite so impressed by what we hear about its customer service. In fact, this is by far the biggest complaint we come across and many customers have said it can be difficult to even get hold of the firm’s support team.
We should make it clear that the many of complaints you’ll see online about Nochex come from buyers, not merchants. This is normal for the online-only firms, but something you’ll want to keep in mind when you’re comparing them.
Positive Reviews and Testimonials
There are plenty of happy Nochex customers worth talking about too. A healthy number of them take the time out to leave positive reviews – and not every firm in this industry can say that.
“I’ve used them for 6 years, been very good. Merchant account has no set up fee, but 50 deposit until you close down the account, to defend against charge backs. The checkout process unlike paypal is fully customisable and other than being nochex website will look very similar to your own.” – WebTrust, UK Business Forums post.
There are even customers who praise the Nochex customer service team, so it can’t all be bad news:
“If I have had to contact Nochex at any time they have also been fairly efficient at dealing with my problem. Having said that its only been about 3 times in 5 years I’ve contacted them and two of them were my own fault!!” – raineshoe, UK Business Forums post.
The customer in that same review also says you can increase the £100 transaction limit on the UK merchant accounts and even add countries at your request. That would make the UK accounts for smaller businesses a far more attractive prospect. And you could even put that support team to the test by calling up and asking about transaction limits if they’re a concern.
Negative Reviews and Complaints
We’ve already mentioned the complaints about customer support and they make up the majority of issues we hear about. There are some other complaints from merchants that lose the firm brownie points though – namely accounts being closed for no reason and funds being withheld.
“After 4 days we noticed we couldn’t withdraw and then the trouble started.
They actively try to deceive and then closed our account for no reason with over 1000 pound in the account. We couldn’t withdraw and couldn’t refund the customers.
They said they would release our funds in 60 days.” – overworkeduk, UK Business Forums post.
There are a few complaints like this, but we should point out this is a pretty common issue with online payment firms and Nochex is by no means the worst offender. The tough task of keeping payments secure and preventing fraud makes withholding funds a necessary precaution. The only problem is this means innocent merchants sometimes get caught in the crossfire.
Final Verdict
Nochex is an interesting option for any business that largely operates online – and a genuine rival to PayPal. It largely lives up to its promise of making the online payment process simple, despite some concerns about the speed of its customer support. Then again, the same complaints and many others are pretty common with PayPal too – not to mention other online payment firms.
Where Nochex can’t compete with PayPal is the number of consumers using its platform to pay for products. PayPal is the undisputed king in that regard, but time could see that change if Nochex keeps growing.