Redwood Merchant Services reviews and complaints

This experience is true. Do not do business with Redwood Merchant Services or their parent company, Westamerica Bank. They denied the release of a $14, 775 transaction. They gave us the option of issuing the "refund" (note, we never received the transfer of the funds to our company account) or hold the $14, 775 for 6 months. You will not have this kind of problem with other merchant service companies. We provided mountains of proof, including pictures. Ultimately, we refunded the $14, 775 even thought the customer wrote a letter and we had already shipped the merchandise. Thankfully, our customer was sympathetic and paid us by another means, even after we shipped the item. We took all the risk. Redwood Merchant services is the WORST. They are like a brick wall. To add insult to injury, they did not refund the fees on the $14, 775. They have a small risk-management department, they scrutinize everything, they continue to rip off their clients, and would rather lose merchant customers than change their business approach.

Even after proving the legitimate transaction (unnecessary amount of 'proof' requested and supplied), RMS is still withholding the funds. This company is fraudulent and, apparently, is holding onto our funds just to make interest on it.
We'll be switching to another company as soon as this ordeal is finished.
BTW, Michael at RMS hasn't been very helpful and is rude and condescending.
(I am going to post this in as many places online as possible, to warn others.)

The complaint is most likely VERY real. because I have had similar problems. Even though I have had no charge-backs, money has been withheld from me twice for several months. This is a great loop hole for the credit card processing companies to make big money, by using other peoples money!

This is NOT a real complaint. This exact negative review has been posted on several other companies profiles, and it is clearly fraudulent. This was likely posted by someone who was hired by a competitor, or some other spammer. RMS is a reputable company, just check out their Yelp page. There are TONS of excellent reviews. I have had nothing but good experiences with Redwood Merchant Services. If you have a problem with the company, call them up directly. They are small enough that they will actually handle your complaint and try to make it right.

Yes, this is true, I didn't face this kind of problem with other card services.As I started with them, just after few months they said customer asked for charge back and they have given back -though the items are with customer, even they didn't ensure returning of the goods before returning money to customer and my loss was nearly $400.00.Now with in few days another charge back of $88.90-funy thing customer took remote control helicopter and claming for battery which I didn't sale & never came to me with problem.Due to special items, sales are final here, policy clearly shown in the store and written on credit card slip(done by them) as well signed by customer;I faxed the copy of that slip to them---lets see, what happen this time, if they act properly, I am going to write that too.

I would like to tell the world about this company's fraud and scams they play against their clients! After processing credit cards with Google Merchant services for about a year. I became increasingly nervous about not having the ability to contact Google Merchant services as they do not have a customer service phone number to call them in the event you had a problem or a question so I searched online for merchant processors hoping to get one that would have customer support to where some one like my company could call and have the support they needed. Also having a processing company help defend off scammers who purchase items or services from your business and then turn around and disbute the transaction thus getting away with your merchandise or services and getting their money back while you as the company pay big bucks out of your pocket. What I thought was a good company at the time was Redwood Merchant Services. They had the customer service at least during their business hours and I received a statement every month something I was not ocustom to with Google. They read my web site which has our policy's and terms and were fine with our rules and agreements to our customers. So after about 6 months of processing my customers credit cards and doing real well with how business and money was being processed, I checked our bank account and found that their was a charge back and a debit from that checking account. I called Redwood Merchant services and spoke to a Shari at risk management. She told me that a customer had submitted a charge back for $200.00. That the customer claimed that he never recieved a pickup for town car service and was disbuting the charges. I was dumbfounded by this and asked what that persons name was so I could check our files and find out what was going on. Shari told me that she could not give me the name of the person which now angered me. Your going to take money away from my company and accuse us of not performing the services this customer paid for but yet not give us any direction to help us locate that customers file and information? her reply was yes thats it. Lucky for us we only had one solid transaction for $200.00 and found the customers file. It turns out that this customer did ride with us and did go through with his services and was very happy with our service. But, it became very clear to me that this customer was trying to scam his way through a free service and not having to pay a dime out of his pocket and meanwhile my company was out the $200.00 fee, plus the $53.00 chargeback fees on top of which the driver did not get paid because the money was instantly refunded back to this scammer. Redwood Merchant Services did not allow us time to send them our proof which all vehicles in my fleet have audio and video survielence, plus the reservation form a customer would submit, and the initials the customer signed and agreed to on our rules and terms of services. They simply took our money with out notifying us and allowing us a little time to gather our documents to support the fact that this customer did in fact receive our services. Ok, I had that customer arrested for fraud and it was time to move on. 6 months later the same thing happens again but with a different customer. But now the bill is much higher. The customer called us for a town car service for a group of 4 passengers wanting to go on a wine tour. My dispatcher quoted him a price and directed him to our web site. He filled out the form, agreed to our terms with his initials and he was set. The driver the very next day showed up and the guy had 13 people instead of 4 and was requesting a limousine instead. The driver informed him that there were no limousines available and why did he not call 4 hours before the pickup as directed to do in the event of any changes and allow him to drive clear out to there pickup location? The customer said he forgot and told our driver and dispatcher that he wanted to now cancel because we did not have a limo for him. This customer did not follow our rules which is 4 hour prior notice to any changes to your reservation. And a 24 hour cancellation notice prior to the pickup date and time if you want a full refund. This customer claimed he didn't know he had to do that but yet our reservation form states that, our confirmation email states that, and our policy and terms of service page states that as well and yet he didn't no? GIVE ME A BREAK! After 30 days this customer puts in a charge back. We contacted Rewood Merchants over this and they said regardless we have to give him back his money. Redwood Merchant Services said that our rules and policy's are over ruled by theirs and that our policy's were voided and that we have to follow their rules even if the customer took a service with us and wanted his money back we have to give it to them. They also told me a year ago that to secure payments properly that we should get an inprint of the customers card with a signiture that way the customer can not get his money back but yet when we followed that rule we were told that they knew nothing about that rule that a customer can call and get their money back from us at any time and we are just out the money from that point. When we faught them on this they cancelled our account and proceeded to continue to charge our bank account on a charge back that had already been dealt with between me and the customer. They also knew that we switched over to a new Merchant service company so they placed us on MAT. witch is like checksystems but only on companys so that company can not get a merchant account with anyone else. We found that this company is a fraud. they will not protect your interests as a customer to their business. And they will rob you of your hard earned money and if you do not comply with what they want, They go to great lengths in proventing you the ability to use another processing bank. I can tell you that this is the way of the world now, and people wonder why businesses across the U.S. are closing their doors and filing bankruptcy. We do not have protection against the evil dimises of a customer who knows he or she can get away with stealling your products or services while keeping your money! Right or Wrong i will be filing a lawsuit against this company rather I win or lose I am going to make sure they understand that their are people in this world that are willing to fight for justice and truth. I am not that guy that Redwood can bully and punch around. Needless to say, We have a new merchant processor however, because we are on that MAT system, all of our transactions are being held hostage! Now we don't know when we will be getting the money on customers we have already serviced. Meanwhile the bills keep stacking up and we now have no way to pay them. If I were you, I would not consider doing any business with this processor period!

You got lucky! They closed your account.

In December I asked them to close my account. They told me they did, yet they continue to withdraw monthly fees from my business checking account every month.

I called and emailed them to stop doing this to many times to admit.

It is now August, 8 months later and they are still deducting monthly fees from my "closed account."

By the way Missy22022, what's your position at Redwood Merchant Services? I ask because there is no way a customer would have posted a comment like that bringing up federal regulations.

This person has posted this identical complaint on other sites. They are a really good company and they have to comply with M/C and Visa regulations as well as federal regulations. They are subject to audit and have to protect themselves and consumers against merchants who are willing commit fraud and drive the cost of goods up.

The only thing I can say is that it was probably smart of the bank to hold this person's money for 90 days to be sure that there is no fraud. They are willing to put in the names of employees who are just doing their jobs but they are not willing to put their own name in.