Merchant Warehouse Review
Merchant Maverick's Rating: (4.5 out of 5)
Last Updated: June 23rd, 2010.
Overview:
Merchant Warehouse (MW) is a merchant account provider based out of Boston, Massachusetts, and has been in business since 1998. They have a sister company by the name Capital Bankcard that offers the same services.
Rated ETA's (Electronic Transactions Association) 2009 ISO of the year, I wouldn't expect anything less than perfection from Merchant Warehouse. They barely missed the mark in my book, but nevertheless, they didn't disappoint.
Merchant Warehouse looks like it's been running a nice outfit for over a decade now. The sheer duration of MW's good customer service track record definitely earned them that ETA award.
They have a great BBB score, and look like they actively participate in providing rebuttal's to the online complaints I've seen about them.
I love that they have a blog on their site which provides a platform for education, user interaction and feedback. They're one of the few ISO/MSPs that really spends time and resources on educating merchants about the process and the industry.
You can find MW on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Merchant Warehouse gets a 4.5 out of 5.
To Visit The Merchant Warehouse Website Click Here
Date Established:
1998.
Location:
Boston, Massachusetts.
Domain Name(s):
- www.merchantwarehouse.com.
- www.merchantwaresolutions.com.
Parent/Partner Company:
Merchant Warehouse has a sister company by the name Capital Bankcard. Both companies are owned by the same entities.
Type:
Registered ISO/MSP.
Acquiring Bank(s) (Acquirer):
US Bank, HSBC Bank, National Association and Wells Fargo Bank.
Payment Processor(s):
First Data.
Payment Gateway(s):
Authorize.Net or First Data Global Gateway (formerly known as LinkPoint).
Do you need help setting up your payment gateway with your website? Click here.
Trust Symbols:
You can find the Merchant Warehouse BBB profile here. As of this post they have a "A+" rating with 52 complaints in the last 36 months.
Negative Reviews:
The two main sources of negative reviews that I could find were on RipOffReport and the BBB. You can also check the user review section below to see if there are any right here on MerchantMaverick.com.
A rep from Merchant Warehouse has been submitting rebuttals to the majority of those complaints, so it looks like they're staying on top of things.
Common Complaints:
It was difficult to come up with any commonalities between the complaints, but here are the ones that I think should be mentioned.
- Faulty terminals: A couple merchants complained about faulty or inoperable terminals. There's really no way to be sure who's at fault here. Sometimes terminals work, and sometimes it's the people working them that are at fault. It's a toss up.
- Withholding of funds: This can happen for a number of reasons. Chargebacks and/or suspicious charges can easily raise a red flag that will either get you suspended or shut down. Merchant Warehouse seems to contract out their transaction processing to First Data (FD), and since First Data is usually mentioned along with Merchant Warehouse in the complaints regarding withheld funds, it's safe to assume that First Data is the culprit here. If Merchant Warehouse is boarding merchants using the First Data platform, it's also possible that FD is underwriting those same accounts. If that's the case, then FD has the authority to shut down an account without authorization from Merchant Warehouse. The same goes for any acquiring banks that Merchant Warehouse is associated with. They have the last word. With that said, a good ISO/MSP will have their own risk department that monitors their merchants accounts to catch any security issues before they get out of hand. Because once that red flag goes up with First Data, it's shoot first, ask questions later.
Verifiable Testimonials/References:
There are just way too many for me to contact them all. Feel free to shoot them an email yourself.
I like the fact that the associated sales rep's full name is included in the testimonial along with the merchant's full name and company info. Nice touch.
Security/Privacy:
The Merchant Warehouse online application is secured by Verisign.
Customer Service:
Have you worked with Merchant Warehouse? Feel free to leave us your review. Don't forget to read the the user review and comment policy.
Contract Duration:
No contract duration. Be sure you verify this in your contract.
Cancellation Fee:
No cancellation fee. Be sure you verify this in your contract.
Interchange-Plus Pricing:
Interchange-plus is offered by Merchant Warehouse, but may depend on your processing volume. Most providers don't offer interchange-plus to merchants that process less than $10k/month. You may be able to negotiate your way into it though, so don't be shy. 
Seasonal Downtime:
Seasonal downtime is also offered by Merchant Warehouse.
Product/Service Offering:
Retail (Credit/Debit), Online/e-Commerce Payments, Mail Order/Telephone Order (MOTO), Wireless, Cash Advance, Gift & Loyalty, Point-Of-Sale (POS), Check Processing.
Product/Service Specialty:
None.
Don't forget to leave your review and rating in the comment section.
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November 19th, 2009 - 20:51
I Just signed with them. One of their reps [name removed] was really helpful over the phone and through email. I looked at lots of processors before hand; cdg merchant plus pay simple and others. I found merchant warehouse to have some of the lowest rates and fees. Your site was helpful in helping me narrow downthe field, thanks.
November 19th, 2009 - 22:30
Brian,
Glad to be of service. Please do come back here once you feel like you can give a decent review of their services. I know it’s tough to judge an ISO without letting the entire relationship take its course, but even a little bit of info will help out a ton.
Take care, and best of luck to you with Merchant Warehouse.
April 14th, 2010 - 08:00
I signed up in February 2010 under a promotional offer of first month free processing and a 2.19 processing rate. Every single thing the sales person promised me was NOT TRUE. My rep was [name removed]. They billed me double at at 4.18% rate despite my specific inquiry about credit cards that I would not be penalized because of a MC or Visa that offers points and which I have no way of knowing. I have never received my refund and no one has responded to my complaints after 3 weeks. This is the SLEAZIEST company. I am going back to my nice bank which they much maligned in order to get me to switch but at least I know what I’m getting and there are no sneaky switharoos.
June 3rd, 2010 - 13:22
This is an unfortunate situation as we had the merchant’s best interest in mind but clearly didn’t do a good enough job communicating how the special promotion works or how different cards get charged different rates.
We have a special offer through one of our partners which offers a free month processing. We had a hard decision to make… do we give the first month free or the first FULL month? We decided to make it the first FULL month so merchants can maximize their potential savings, especially if they signed up later in the month as this merchant did. In this case we clearly did not set proper expectations that the first FULL month would be free but, objectively, I think everyone would understand our intent was to maximize savings, not to deceive.
In regards to the downgrades, again, I fear this is a failing in communications on our part. All credit and debit cards have different bases costs to process based in VISA and Mastercard’s Interchange categories. We have no say in these rates and mostly simply pass them on. In this case we had no idea the merchant was going to be accepting a majority of her transactions on the most expensive cards, B2B. We most certainly could have done a better job explaining what “downgrades” are and why they cost more. That would have gone a long way to avoiding this issue but it wouldn’t have changed the fact that these cards are significantly more expensive to process.
At this point I do feel obliged to point out that these fees are all clearly outlined on the paperwork application we send to all merchants. They need to sign and approve the fees before we can submit their application. I realize it isn’t a good defense to simply say, ‘well, you signed the paperwork’ but it absolutely isn’t the case that we hid anything or tried to do a switcharoo.
When we learned the merchant was upset we did attempt to explain these unfortunate miscommunications and did both offer to lower her rates for business cards and provided a very generous refund, including the first month free service. We sincerely apologized and, hopefully, the merchant at least understands that we weren’t trying to be deceptive in any way.
Brian Waldman
VP Marketing & Strategy :: Merchant Warehouse
June 15th, 2010 - 09:27
Thx Brian, but I am not an idiot. I asked all of these questions very specifically UP Front and was told otherwise by your rep [name removed]. I purposely signed up on the month when the bulk of my transactions were to be processed as I wholesale and do most of my business twice a year. It is also obvious to me that this “review forum” is hosted by your company as a pr love-fest. I have had several of your “happy” customers contact me telling me they had similar experiences since then. Alas, after I cancelled my service and started writing reviews I suddenly started getting all the customer service I didn’t get before.
June 15th, 2010 - 11:25
Hi Lesley,
When I asked you to respond, I wasn’t expecting a response like this. Lol!
Just a couple things I wanted to address:
1. Please don’t use a sales rep’s name directly. I know it’s good for us to know who you dealt with, so we can be aware, but without any type of restriction, this site will end up becoming a personal flame war thread, and I don’t want that.
2. In response to your comment…
I promise you and my readers 100% that I am in no way partial to Merchant Warehouse, or any other company for that matter. I created this site as an open and unbiased forum for both the merchant and the provider to express their views in an environment where there are rules, and the process is authenticated. Make no mistake, I don’t play favorites with anyone.
Just because I allow the provider to submit a rebuttal does not mean that I’m on their side. I’m on neither side, but I do think it’s only fair that both of you get to say your piece. Merchant Maverick is just a platform.
May 12th, 2010 - 08:45
I signed up in March 2010. They sucked me in with a 2.09% rate… all of my transactions are actually at 4%. my rep was [name removed]. Many things he said are not true. They overcharged me $40 for authorize.net setup. I am looking for a new processor
June 4th, 2010 - 13:15
The great news is that this merchant has decided to stay with us and is currently a valued customer. The bad news is that we made a few mistakes setting up his account which caused this frustration.
The first was the overcharge for the authorize.net set-up. This was a simple mistake as there are two different ways to set-up these accounts (higher start-up cost and lower monthly cost or vice versa). As soon as we realized the mistake we proactively reimbursed the merchant and changed his billing to reflect the correct amount going forward.
The second was in the set-up of the account itself. This merchant, similar to the other reply posted to this website, ended up taking a highly unusual amount of rewards and business credit cards which have a higher cost. Again, once we realized this we reworked the account to lower the costs of taking those specific cards.
These sorts of mistakes, while clearly frustrating, are relatively easy to fix and I believe our staff did a good job working to make things right with the merchant and to ensure that he was properly set to move forward in the most cost effective way possible.
Brian Waldman
VP Marketing & Strategy :: Merchant Warehouse