Alpha Card Services Review

Merchant Maverick's Rating: (3.5 out of 5)

Last Updated: April 21st, 2010.

Overview:
Alpha Card Services is almost a decade old, and was rated the Inc. 500's 99th fastest growing private company in 2007. I'm not saying all this to toot their horn, but to give you an idea of where they stand financially. In 2003 their revenue was just over $200K, and in 2007 it was $3.3 million.

I would expect for a 10 year old company with that type of growth to face some customer service challenges along the way, but I don't see many complaints or negative reviews to back up that claim. Given their age and size, I'd expect them to have negative reviews in the double digits, but lucky for us, that's not the case.

They have a few fully-disclosed testimonials listed on their site, and a decent BBB rating.

I don't like the contract term of 3-years, or the early-cancellation fee of $295+ (see comments below), but that's not too far outside the industry norm. I've only reviewed a handful of ISO/MSPs that don't bind you into some sort of contract.

The only "if" that I found with ACS is with one of their affiliates based out of Arizona. The affiliate operates under the domain www.alphacardaz.com, while the official ACS site is: www.alphacardservices.com.

Alpha Card Services gets a 3.5 out of 5 for now.

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Date Established:
2000.

Location:
Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania.

Domain Name(s):

• www.alphacardservices.com.
• www.alphacardservices.net.
• www.thealphaedge.com.
• www.alphacardaz.com.

Parent/Partner Company:
Alpha Card Services doesn't have a parent company.

Type:
Registered ISO/MSP.

Acquiring Bank(s) (Acquirer):
HSBC Bank.

Payment Processor(s):
Global Payments.

Payment Gateway(s):
They have their own payment gateway by the name "AlphaCard Gateway."

Trust Symbols:
The Alpha Card Services BBB profile has a "B-" rating as of this review, with 9 complaints filed against them in the last 36 months.

Negative Reviews:
You can find a handful of negative reviews on RipOffReport.

The only one that I found valuable was the complaint in regards to an Alpha Card Services affiliate based out of Arizona. The agent in reference operates under the domain name www.alphacardaz.com

Whether the author's claim is true or not, I would just be safe and sign-up directly through the main ACS site which is www.alphacardservices.com. That way you'll be bypassing the affiliate.

Common Complaints:
Since there were only a few complaints, I couldn't find anything in common between them.

Verifiable Testimonials/References:
There are several testimonials on the ACS site, but they're very hard to find. It seems like the new corporate site doesn't link to the testimonials page, but you can find them by doing this search on Google.

A few of the merchant's either don't have websites, or have since gone out of business because I had trouble tracking them down. The ones that I did track down, haven't responded to me yet. I'll let you know when they do.

Security/Privacy:
No on-site security features (i.e. McAfee, Security Metrics etc...).

Customer Service:
I've never had an account with ACS, so I don't really know how their post-approval customer service is. Please help us out if you've worked with Alpha before.

Contract Duration:
Contract length is 3-years.

Cancellation Fee:
A fee of $295 will be applied if you cancel early. But, you'll notice in the comments below, that that $295 can actually turn out to be much more (see below).

Interchange-Plus Pricing:
Interchange-plus pricing is offered by Alpha Card Services.

Seasonal Downtime:
Seasonal downtime is also offered.

Product/Service Offering:
Retail (Credit/Debit), Gift & Loyalty, e-Commerce, POS, Equipment & Supplies, eCheck.

Product/Service Specialty:
None in particular.

Don't forget to leave your review and rating in the comment section.