Innovative Merchant Solutions Review

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

Last Updated: May 7th, 2010.

Overview:
Innovative Merchant Solutions (IMS) is an Intuit, Inc. company and has been in business since 1999. If you don't know who Intuit is, they are the folks that created the software Quickbooks. IMS was purchased by Intuit in 2003 probably because they noticed how lucrative the merchant account industry is and wanted to expand into it.

Most of the good information in this review will be found in the individual sub-sections below, but I'll try and give you a quick rundown.

I think that IMS has too many complaints (493 BBB complaints and 120 RipOffReport complaints) relative to how big they are as a processor. One thing that I've mentioned throughout my reviews is that we should always compare the number of complaints a processor has in relation to how big they are as a company. It's obvious that the bigger the company, the more complaints you can expect to find against them. However, in this case, I've looked at some other processors with the same merchant base and annual volume, yet those other companies don't have as many complaints as IMS. Why is that?

Putting the complaints aside, there are a few things that I do like about IMS. I think they have a pretty decent "Support" section on their site, where they have a bunch of helpful/educational information for us merchants. I like that they have some good testimonials on their site, and that a few of them actually responded to me and told me that they're satisfied with IMS. I also think that for those of you that do use Quickbooks, you can probably assume that IMS is the most efficient way to merge the two.

One thing to note is that IMS has a large network of independent sales agents and sub-ISO/MSPs, so it's possible that you end up getting signed on to IMS through one of those affiliates which makes having the right sales rep a very important part of your experience with the IMS brand. Get the wrong sales rep, and you may end up being another merchant adding to their high number of complaints.

I'm gonna try and find some reputable, reliable reps within IMS that I can trust to hook you up with, so you don't end up like some of those other poor folks. Shoot me an email, and I'll let you know if I can help you out. And, don't forget to look at my merchant account comparison chart. There are plenty of other highly-rated providers that you can choose from.

IMS gets a 3 out of 5.

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Date Established:
1999.

Location:
Woodland Hills, California.

Domain Name(s):

• www.innovativemerchant.com.
• www.innovativemerchantsolutions.com.
• www.imsmerchant.com.

Parent/Partner Company:
Innovative Merchant Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Intuit. They also own/owned their own bank called Innovative Bank in Oakland, California, but it failed, and was bought out by another institution called Center Bank.

They recently acquired ECHO (Electronic Clearing House, Inc.) which is a credit card processor in operation since 1986.

Last but not least, they have quite a large network of independent sales agents and sub-ISO/MSPs that operate under the IMS brand.

Type:
Registered ISO/MSP.

Acquiring Bank(s) (Acquirer):
Westamerica Bank, First Regional Bank, JP Morgan Chase Bank and possibly Innovative Bank.

Payment Processor(s):
IMS processes its own transactions.

Payment Gateway(s):
Self-branded Innovative Gateway. They can also set you up with Authorize.Net.

Do you need help setting up your payment gateway with your website? Click here.

Trust Symbols:
The Innovative Merchant Solutions BBB profile has an "A-" rating as of this review, with 493 complaints in the last 36-months.

They are also part of the BBB TrustLink program, so be sure to read the reviews over there too.

Negative Reviews:
I could name all the different sites where you'll be able to find negative reviews about IMS, but RipOffReport (ROR) seems to be the one with the fullest and most diverse list of complaints, so I'll just point you there.

You will find 120 reports on ROR as of this review. Feel free to read through them all, or you can just read my "Common Complaints" section below to get a summary.

One thing I do want to mention is that you shouldn't let the shear number of complaints be the only factor in stopping you from doing business with them. 120 complaints is a huge number, but you also have to understand that IMS is a huge company. The reason why I gave them a low score wasn't simply because they had a high complaint count. I gave them a low score because compared to other credit card processors of equal size, they have a high complaint count. There has to be an apples-to-apples comparison here.

I also want to mention that there is a rep from IMS that actively tries to submit a rebuttal to the negative reports on ROR, and I've even seen some of those complaints get resolved like this one here.

With that said, let's move on to common complaints...

Common Complaints:
Here they are...

• Withheld funds: This was by far the biggest issue that I noticed with IMS. There were quite a few merchants that complained about their funds being held for 9-months or more. It's difficult to determine who's to blame when it comes to held funds because the cause could come from either side (merchant or processor). However, one possible cause can be from either having an uneducated or unethical sales rep. Some reps will do anything to get your account, even if it means lowering your risk profile as a merchant, so when the acquiring bank tries to assess the risk on your business profile, they end up accepting you under conditions that they think are factual, but may be misrepresented by your rep. The best way to avoid this problem is to always make sure that your rep is truthful in the amount that they list as your "expected monthly processing volume" and "average ticket" size. If you say that you're only going to process $10k per month, but by the second month you're processing $80k, the bank is gonna take notice, and possibly hold your funds.
• Bad post-approval customer service: There were many complaints about bad customer service, and rude reps. For a company that prides itself on service, I would think that they'd get less of those types of comments.
• Deceptive marketing or sales practices: I would take both of these complaints with a grain of salt, but they are very much worth a read. Check them out here and here.

Verifiable Testimonials/References:
You'll be able to find some verifiable testimonials on the IMS site, but some of them seem outdated. I received two responses out of all the ones that I contacted. Both merchants have been processing with IMS for years, and both were very happy with their service.

Security/Privacy:
The online digital application is secured, but I'm not sure who the SSL certificate is through (i.e. Verisign, McAfee etc...).

Customer Service:
I have never worked directly with IMS, so I don't know how their customer service is, but if you read through some of the complaints, you'll notice a pattern of people talking about bad customer service.

Have you worked with Innovative Merchant Solutions before? Feel free to leave us your review.

Contract Duration:
3-years. You can find the IMS merchant agreement both online in HTML form, or you can download the PDF version here.

Cancellation Fee:
$295.

Interchange-Plus Pricing:
Interchange-plus is offered by Innovative Merchant Solutions, but only for larger, more established merchants, with higher processing volumes. Oh, and you have to know what it is, and actually ask for it in order to get it.

Seasonal Downtime:
Seasonal downtime is offered, but again, it will be provided on a case by case basis.

Product/Service Offering:
Retail (Credit/Debit), Internet (e-Commerce), Wireless, Mail Order/Telephone Order (MOTO), Gift & Loyalty.

Product/Service Specialty:
No specialty, but since IMS is owned by Intuit, their biggest advantage is that they easily integrate with the Quickbooks software suite.

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