Electronic Merchant Systems

Please read this completely if you care about “the little guy” in corporate America.

Avoid EMS at all cost! Their contracts are written to benefit only them. They do not care about the customers. They do not care about the little people. They refuse to accept responsibility for deceptive sales practices by their own representatives and choose to not be sympathetic to legitimate customer complaints.

They are a very huge corporate giant and many banks and institutions not only use their services but recommend them to others...especially small business owners. No matter how good their pitch may sound, Don't Do It!!! You will be signing your life away and will end up paying for it in blood...yours to be precise.

Do NOT rely on the word of your sales rep. Undoubtedly, the Agreement that you sign will say something different. But you will not see where it says anything different because their "fine print" is so fine that it literally makes my eyes cross trying to read it. There are all kinds of clauses buried in the multiple full pages of "fine print" that override anything you thought you were agreeing to on the front of the Agreement. I don’t necessarily think that the reps are intentionally trying to deceive…I don’t think they can read the fine print either and probably some of them don’t even know all of the fees and penalties and waiver of rights that are contained therein.

We were never shown or told about anything on the reverse of the Agreement. There are even signature lines provided at the bottom of the fine print side that were never signed or initialed by us. When I brought this to the attention of EMS Corporate they said that those lines were for use with facsimile transmission only. All the fine print that allows for blood letting is not disclosed to the consumer in a means or fashion that a person of reasonable ability or intelligence can identify. It is not on the face of the Agreement that is in a readable and legible font. It is minutely tiny in grayscale font in large, lengthy paragraphs.

A 12 month agreement is not really for 12 months. You have to notify them in writing at least 90 days prior to the end of your 12 months or face a $300 cancellation fee. Then, apparently, the actual "cancellation" does not happen for some period of time after they take withdraw your fee. We have been charged $71.25 additional more than 10 days after EMS withdrew the $300 cancellation fee.

You will not be able to reason with them. The harder you try the worse it becomes. I’m sure there must be some wonderful people who work for the company, but their reputation will become marred by association. Your bank probably won't be able to help you. You will be the one who will have to pay to change your bank account that you have given EMS the right to access. You will be the one to pay for new checks. You will be the one to pay the overdraft fees because of a "surprise" EMS ACH withdrawal. The pain will FAR outweigh any rate savings there might be (or at least initially looked enticing to you).

When my husband first spoke to EMS corporate, he was told, "well...there are companies that charge cancellation fees of thousands of dollars..." Is this supposed to make us feel better about ONLY getting ripped off for $300 or $400? Translated into the vernacular..."Hey...it could be worse..." Is this an understanding position for a company to take with a customer who has a legitimate complaint?

AND, If you are a small business with little or sporadic use of your processing system (credit card transactions), you will be charged close to $30 per month as a "minimum monthly fee".

There probably will not be any help from the BBB or your state's AG's office either. EMS is Goliath and you, the lowly consumer, are David. You are left holding the bag...now empty...plus all the extra bank fees from the overdraft situations that unexpected EMS withdrawals have now caused. The "five little stones" that you "threw" trying to reason with an unreasonable giant just pinged off the armor and feel to the ground. The mocking laughter still rings in your ears. You are alone in your battle with the giant.

This type of legal abuse of consumers should be stopped. Contracts should be written so that ANY clause that affects the terms and penalties or waiving of rights should be itemized independently and signed or initialed separately. In the interest of full disclosure to consumers, companies should be forced to end the verbose mumbo jumbo and deceitful, but legal, practices that they engage in to become wealthy at the expense of the consumer.

And EMS is just one of MANY companies that engage in these types of practices. Enough is Enough! If you are outraged by this type of financial "rape" of consumers by big companies, start a grass roots movement to state and federal government legislators to hold big companies accountable to consumers and make them stop perpetuating these practices in our country. Keep trying until you can bend the ear of someone who not only cares, but who has the power to try and do something about it.

Please copy and paste this information and send it to everyone you know who is fed up about being ripped off by big companies.

Please Note: EMS or Electronic Merchant Systems also does business under other names. Please use Google as a search tool to investigate them further.