E-Commerce Exchange Review

Merchant Maverick's Rating: (3 out of 5)

Last Updated: April 12th, 2010.

Overview:
This review is definitely one of my longer ones, but if you've considered working with these guys, I urge you to read through the whole thing. I promise you it will be time well spent.

According to their site, E-Commerce Exchange (ECX) has been around since 1989. They're a well established company based out of New York, with an office in California. ECX is a wholly owned subsidiary of iPayment, Inc.. I have not reviewed iPayment yet, but will do so soon.

With that said, I think that ECX would be a much better merchant account provider if they focused solely on merchant accounts, and stopped marketing this whole, "turn-key home business" deal. I provide more detail about the turn-key offer down in my "Common Complaints" section, so be sure to read that too, but in a nutshell, here's what it's all about:

You pay ECX Stores to set you up with something that has far less value than what you pay for. Then, after you've signed the contract, you realize that the "turn-key" website you just bought isn't the automated money machine you were hoping it would be, so you get pissed off and write up a complaint on RipOffReport. Please don't be one of those people. Sad thing is, I can't even blame them. We live in a world where we allow others to take advantage of us by selling us pipe dreams.

Personally, I'd rather not setup a merchant account with a company that's going to try and sell me on an offer like ECX Stores. I'd rather do business with a company that focuses on being the best at what I need the most...credit card processing services. Add to that, great customer service, competitive prices, and above all, ethical behavior, and you have yourself a winner. Trust me, there are plenty out there.

E-Commerce Exchange gets a 3 out of 5.

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Date Established:
1989.

Location:
Smithtown, New York.

Domain Name(s):

• www.ecxweb.com.
• www.ecxstores.net.

Parent/Partner Company:
E-Commerce Exchange is the fictious business name of a corporation by the name TDS Enterprises, Inc.. iPayment, Inc. purchased ECX, so they are officially a subsidiary of iPayment now. E-Commerce Exchange has apparently also partnered with Applied Merchant Systems. Are you confused yet?

Type:
Registered ISO/MSP.

Acquiring Bank(s) (Acquirer):
Wells Fargo Bank.

Payment Processor(s):
ECX is able to use multiple payment processors to handle the transaction side of things.

Payment Gateway(s):
Authorize.Net, Pay-Me-Now.com, WonderPay and QuickCommerce.

Trust Symbols:
The E-Commerce Exchange BBB profile has an "A" rating as of this review, with 11 complaints in the last 36 months.

They have a Dun & Bradstreet profile here.

Negative Reviews:
I hope you have some time on your hands, because you have about 50 RipOffReport complaints (as of this review) to read through. There's also a thread here on Scam.com, and probably some other sites as well, but the ROR complaints are probably the best source of info.

If you do take the time to read through all of the complaints, you'll probably come to the same conclusion that I did. Read below to see what that conclusion is.

Common Complaints:
The majority of complaints fall under two areas.

1. ECX Stores and their partnership with the National Wholesale Company.
2. Terminal leases with either Axin Financial or A-1 Leasing.

Let's start with the first one...

1. ECX Stores and their partnership with the National Wholesale Company.
ECX Stores in an add-on service that E-Commerce Exchange offers its merchants. If you visit the ECX Stores domain (www.ecxstores.net), you'll see that it's all about "Owning Your Own Online Superstore," and making money selling wholesale products through your own custom website. ECX provides you with the website, hosting, domain and merchant account, and teams up with the National Wholesale Company for their products.

On the surface it sounds like a great opportunity, but do yourself a favor an read through all of the complaints before you hand over your cash. Everything comes with a price.

To top it all off, the testimonials that are on that ECX Stores domain, are actually copied from another company's website: Sunrise Wholesale Merchandise (www.sunrisewholesalemerchandise.com). I have no idea what relation Sunrise has to ECX, so either they're working together on the side, or ECX just did a copy and paste.

Moving on...

2. Terminal leases with either Axin Financial or A-1 Leasing.
It's common knowledge amongst sales reps that they can make big money on terminal leases. Not little money...BIG MONEY. Why? Because terminal leases usually carry a 4-year contract. So, even if your business goes under, you still have to uphold your contract. Be sure you understand the implications of your lease before you sign the dotted line.

Verifiable Testimonials/References:
There are a few testimonials on the ECX site, but they're all pretty old. I tried to contact a few of them, but it was difficult for me to track those people down. Reason being, the testimonials are so old, most of those past merchants website's are dead.

Security/Privacy:
The ECX application is actually through Applied Merchant Systems, so the same security applies here. McAfee and TRUSTe.

Customer Service:
Have you worked with E-Commerce Exchange? Feel free to leave us your review.

Contract Duration:
1-year.

Cancellation Fee:
$195 cancellation fee if you cancel your contract before the year is up.

Interchange-Plus Pricing:
Interchange-plus is offered by ECX, but you do have to be an established merchant that processes no less than 10K per month.

Seasonal Downtime:
Seasonal downtime is also offered by ECX.

Product/Service Offering:
Retail (Credit/Debit), Internet (e-Commerce), Mail Order/Telephone Order (MOTO), Mobile/Wireless, Check Processing, Point-Of-Sale (POS), Shopping Cart, Web Hosting, Domains, Online Stores.

Product/Service Specialty:
Small to mid-sized eCommerce merchants.

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