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   Ben
   August 5th, 2010 - 18:31

   I was cold called by a rep for Prodigy and agreed to hear her pitch when she told me that they could save me 25%. We have a good size business, about 3.5 million in cc sales per year. I told the rep up front that if there were any garbage fees or hidden expenses there would be no deal. She claimed that there was none of that at Prodigy, it was just the processing fee plus $15/month service fee. Part of the pitch was their super-fast ethernet terminals that she claimed made them the standard for the industry. She said my current provider was treating me badly by having us on analog. She faxed my statement somewhere and a few hours later came back with some numbers. I’ll give them this, they did figure out what my processing fee is which is cost plus 20 basis points. She had a proposal to handle our account at cost plus 15 which would indeed be the 25% savings she promised. I started signing docs and near the middle she quietly slid in a Terminal Rental Agreement with almost no explanation. I stopped signing and told her that I did not rent terminals. This is when the high pressure stuff kicked in. She asked how many old, obsolete terminals I had in storage and I told her probably a dozen. She said I was throwing money away by not renting. I took a closer look at the rental agreement and she had it written up at $75 per terminal per month for four years! I told her only an idiot would pay $1800 per year for two terminals they didn’t even own!

   There was more high pressure jargon which really sounded rehearsed. When I told her thanks, but beat it she pointed at the $75/month and asked if she could cut that in half could we do business. By this point all my business owner alarms are going off. It is really shady to not just honestly let a client know what the best you can do is from the start. I told her the only figure I would accept would be $0. She called her higher-ups and after about half an hour she said they were willing to place the terminals for free to get my business. I asked if there were any other changes and she told me that I would have to buy my own paper and would be liable if the terminals were damaged. Once again I offered to buy the units but for some reason this company is dead set against that.

   Two days later I get the call that they want to do the install on a Wednesday. When I asked about the ethernet connections they told me that since the terminals were being set free they downgraded them to analog. I told them the deal was off, I had lost all trust in the company. This was followed by a call from their corp office in Texas where some exec tried to bully me into accepting things the way they were. He started to get downright insulting, questioning my business accumen and knowledge. [content removed, policy violation]

   Things ended with me requesting they give me at minimum fifty referrals that had been with the company at least a year. At this point it was the only way I could feel like this was a reputable outfit, maybe everyone I had dealt with was having bad days. I was told I’d have those the next day. That was over a week ago. Bottom line (and this is just my personal experience) this company makes its money by fleecing inexperienced businesses with these ridiculous terminal rentals. The high pressure jargon they use is the same tired stuff I’ve heard from outfits like this over many years. Stupid crap like “All the big guys rent” or “Don’t you know about the tax benefits of leasing?”. Lame. Why not just sell me the terminals and do the processing? Because that’s not how they make their real money.

   I often wonder what makes people want to work in this type of company. The money can’t be that good can it? What price do you put on your integrity? Sad. There are reputable ways to make it in this world.
   

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