And how long have you worked for this company? I shut down my business in August 2012 and received a call telling me that I was overcharging on my credit card processing - the girl calling me couldn't even get her script right - and when I asked who was calling me and what business were they calling, they HUNG UP! I called them back - customer first merchant services; 805-637-7243 and asked to speak to a supervisor, who hung up on me again!

THIS IS A SCAM. LOOK AT ALL THE POSTS BY "DIFFERENT" PEOPLE THAT ALL SAY THE SAME THING.

Not only are these people dishonest, they're stupid.

And how long have you worked for this company? I shut down my business in August 2012 and received a call telling me that I was overcharging on my credit card processing - the girl calling me couldn't even get her script right - and when I asked who was calling me and what business were they calling, they HUNG UP! I called them back - customer first merchant services; 805-637-7243 and asked to speak to a supervisor, who hung up on me again!

THIS IS A SCAM.

This is a total scam outfit. I'm in the merchant services industry. One of my merchants received a call, told TSR Steven that I manage their electronic payments. Steven must have thought they meant as an employee of the company because he called me and started right in.

I let Steven talk awhile. Everything he said was a lie. Without having ever seen a statement or having any idea what sort of rates the merchant is paying m company he's going on about; we are running most of our cards as corporate cards, his rates are much lower than what we pay now, our corporate card rate is higher than what it should be, we weren't taking advantage of debit discounts- keep in mind, there is no way he could know any of this.

I asked Steven a technical question that anyone in the merchant services business should know the answer to and he fell all to pieces. He started stringing together industry words and phrases that don't go together and make no sense- I got the impression he was reading off a list of terms.

This is where it really gets good. I told him we weren't interested and not to call anymore, and hung up the phone. Steven called me right back, a little angry that i didn't understand the favor he was trying to do for me. This is where I told him that I was a six year veteran of the payment card industry and managed over $70 million in payments annually. Told him not to call me or my merchant any more, and hung up the phone.

It immediately rings again. I answer, and there is Steven again, this time calling to let me know "My wife sucks his di** every night."

That's Customer First Merchant Services.

I made the mistake of emailing my statements.  Apparently, it is Pivotal Payments.  Sales guy shows up with an offer.  I told him I was busy and hadn't eaten lunch and told him to go away.  If he comes here again I am calling the cops.

Well I did the same.  They are not with any monitoring service at all.  They SEND OUT your data to someone who will pressure you into a different merchant agreement (kept calling, even showed up to my business).  Last month, I entered into an agreement with tons of hidden costs and a contract I can not get out of.  This is clearly a CLEVER SCAM to get your statement and then send you an offer that looks appealing but is riddled with expensive fees.  Talk about unethical.  Avoid these people like the plague!

I do credit card processing and one of my merchants was contacted by this same scam.  Tip to you businesses out there.  Your processor would never call asking for your statements because they have them!  Other posts here said they said Durbin law was to make sure small and medium businesses didn't pay the "corporate" rates.  Guess what, the big guys like Wal-Mart and Target pay lower rates.  There were also posts that said they got on the phone and helped you save money with your current processor for no fee.  Obviously these are fake posts.  Do you, as a business owner, work for free?  Guess what, nobody works for free.  There is nobody hired by the government to contact small businesses, etc.  They are using the Durbin amendment which is in the news to sound official.  There was also something about accounts being red flagged and you had to fax your statements as soon as possible to remove the flag.  It is a scare tactic.  Do not deal with these people.  Contact your processor or another legitimate source and avoid these guys like the plague!

I was told the name of the company was Customer First Merchant Support. I asked the 1st time what company he was with & he replied "Merchant Services", I asked a  2nd time what the name of his company was & again he told me "Merchant Services", finally I said "The name of your company is Merchant Services? I find that a little hard to believe because "Merchant Services" is not a company name but a service, so I will ask you one more time before hanging up what is the name of your company". Finally I get a reply of "Customer First Merchant Support". That's when I hung up.

I find it interesting that you have better things to do but yet you still just wasted your time on here. That is very humorous to me. I would like to fill you in on something, if your a business owner your not a very good one, I have done a lot of research on "Cust First Merchant Support" & have come to find out that they are costing you more money than saving you money. They are a scam. You might want to do your homework :)

I got this same letter Faxed to me too, after speaking to a woman from this company named Nancy Brooks. After going back and forth the past hour, wondering whether this was a scam or a disguised sales call. I just looked up the company on the BBB website. They're not listed!!!

These folks were obviously reading from a script and could not answer questions or kept repeating the same answer indicating that they really didn't know the answer to my question.  Beware, it smelled like a scam.

are you stupid if its against law then y do have the companies in the first place if two guys own a company and thier friends wont the share stuff or give each other stuff its the same concept in the business world grow up

thank heavens someone wants to take action. Please ask me for any information that you need. I worked there and was also scammed by the company. When your hired they make it seem like your doing something legal. Its not untilyour on the phones until you figure out what really its about. After being on the phones for a little we got to understand that they acctualy switch d business owner without their knowledge.

This company may or may not be a "scam".

What they are doing when they contact you is using such things as the Durbin Ammendment to sound official and gain your trust to send over your merchant statement. In some cases, it could be true that your merchant fees are high and they could offer you lower rates through their service. On the other hand, it's possible they may charge you more.

The merchant service industry is extremely competitive and companies are always looking for ways to gain your business. I personally don't agree with their particular tactics as I think they can confuse business owners and seem a bit deceitful.

The best thing you can do as a business owner, in my opinion, is to spend a little time getting informed on how credit card processing fees actually work. If you feel you may be overpaying, contact your current processor and ask them for a rate review. Most companies want to keep your business, so they are willing to lower your fees in some way.

Hope this helps!

These people called our business today at 1256 hours.  Caller ID said "Unavailable."  Being pretty confident it was a scam or spam call, I was leery when I answered.  As others reported, some guy told me he was calling from Merchant Services (how vague can you get??) and he claimed he was calling because we had been overcharged on particular recent months.  I engaged him in a brief conversation, asking questions, probing.  He was quite hesitant, as if his script didn't allow for wary consumers asking questions.  Then he said he was an "independent company" that worked in conjunction with...  That's all I needed to hear.  I told him, "Oh, so you're trying to sell me some kind of s*%#."  He insisted he wasn't.  I told him not to call again and hung up.  This had the scent of scam or a borderline business all over it.  First he tried to imply he was part of our credit card processing and he pretended to know how much I was paying.  It was only when I kept telling him, "If we're being overcharged then why don't you just refund us," is when he finally admitted he was with an "independent company."

Thanks for the advice!  It must be similar to the phone slamming scam.

these people are a scam for sure if you want to be sure it is call number 0115016601008. Ask for efrain cal coo of universal bpo. They are located at new town barraks belize city belize central america. I wish someone reading this comment can pass the information to the relevant authorities. This call center is working for a processing company privotol aka am payments. Once they have your statement they switch you without you knowing until u recieve your contract. Bbb wont even work wit them. The owners just bought out the call center and rapidly is closing the location in the US.

Got a call from 1-800-926-6714 guy was middle eastern from his accent. Also asked for Merchant Statement etc. I politely refused and informed him I wanted to check out his company. I know that it is impossible to get rates down to 1.5% alarm 1, Send me your statement alarm 2. There are only actually like 2 Companies that process cards everyone else feeds off them. Believe it or not these 2 companies are in the same building. Out of the blue someone wants to help me, has not happened in over 20 years everyone wants something from me and thats money. I would mark this up as a Scam.

Just spoke with my account manager.  These guys are a scam.  Do NOT fax anything to them.  Just look at their website: http://www.customerfirstmerchantservices.com/.

We were called today in Oklahoma. The caller left a message with one of my employees regarding "overcharging from processor fees". When I returned the call, and asked for the extension the first caller left with the message, I was told "he wasn't in the office today" by the person i was talking with. This individual then used my phone number, which popped up on their caller ID, to "pull up my account" and said my account had been "red-flagged" for "overcharges" for "March, April and May".

My business does not accept credit cards. Never has. And we have had our current phone number since 2005.

What we are going to do is to document this call and turn the information over to the Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma. If more people would do this, then legitimate companies could operate, and scam companies could be shutdown.

I don't know which this is, but given the false pretenses used to access the decision-makers in my company, I'd say this company is using fraud to attempt to market their services. If there are no ethics concerning solicitation, then my assumption is that there are no ethics in the company at all.

I am concerned that they would speak directly to an unknown employee of my company, with the representation of "bank overcharges" for my company. This false statement and misinformation might be misinterpreted by an employee as financial stress within my company.

Well u all know that this company has been a fraud from the get go, well let me proudly announce to all who dont know, the criminal activity that these people namely Efrain Cal been doing to all its employees, dont try to get sick for a day much less a week, cause guess what......YOU are NOT getting paid for that, yea thats right, they have not been paying social security benefits for its employees since the beginning of the year....i had to find this out myself, i spoke to some 1 there at the SSB and there are doing major investigations on this company, as a matter of fact, their has been a SUMMONS that Efrain Cal receive, but refuses it due to the nature he says that Troy Star does not exist, guys u will see this for yourself, where are the money going ask yourself, yet they are taking it out, ever wonder why they havent been giving giving pay slips, well BINGO,....this company is not only fraud but taking advantage of its employees, Efrain Cal unfortunately is not familiar with Labor Laws and being mention Federal laws of not paying social security benefits....further inverstigation will pursue for this company which lead him to loose his carrier and shet down the business.....

so, my company is a government contract manufacturer and we do not have a company credit card or take credit as payment- only bank ACH and paper checks...why am i getting all these phone calls? when i tell them we do not have a credit processing service, they say "oh" and hang up. seems like they're just fishing through manta or some such registry and trying all businesses hoping to hook one.

I got a called from first merchant service and are asking me a lot of questions and then they say they will help me out to get the money I was being overcharged for prior months. Then I went on the internet to check the information they gave me and I saw this site. Thank you for waning us. Here is the  number they call from:
1800-926-6714.

Admin Edit: "It's a SUSPECT message!"
_________________________________

Lies wont get you no where in life.

Please allow me to explain that lately there have been several posts in regards to this number and this business ,now it was mention that i was bitter ,or made to think that i was just being vindictive, i assure everyone that nothing can be further from the truth .
I am a hardworking person that needed a job and once i realized what was going on i quickly moved on,it is truly sad how people are being taken advantage of all in the name of profit, but please ask yourselves who is to blame.
These companies seek us out to do this ,they purposely solicit companies like the one i used to work for ,simply to take advantage of your own people as we speak now they have a representative from your country here in Belize training on new ways to con people , they also had a visit from Alex a lead person in the Pivotal organization come to Belize an took the 'Top Sales People' out to dinner ,so you see he came to reward those who con his own people everyday .
Is that right ???? I think not,
He promised so much he even closed down the call center in the states so he can grown the one here in Belize .
This is not right yet we get the title of crooks and everything else.
So i ask to look at this company that is so quick to take not only jobs from yuor people but also rob your hardworking citizens out of their hard earned money.

Becuase, you are a different acquirer you do not just "fix" the rate on another processing platform...you are a scam so QUIT IT

Stop lying Graham Ramclam is a supervisor not operations manager ,The operations manger is Godswell Flores and the Chief Operations Officer is Efrain Cal {aka Attorney At Law}
Go sit down somewhere.

I am an owener of a recient business and as of right now we do not accept credit cards unless its through our website. With that being said I don't trust someone who tells me that my business is being over charged for something with an item we do not have and right after me saying that something about it the phone goes dead quiet.

Say hello to the rest of Mumbai for us won't you?

Back to the boiler room now!

Admin Edit: "It's a SUSPECT message!"
_________________________________


I am a experience proof of that. Thank you Customer First Merchant Support.

Godswell save it, am giving u my name making easier for u to trace, guess what i got news for you, company is going down for an illegal activity u are doing to evry1, yea so go ahead report me to d feds, u guys going to jail......