Phone Swipe Merchant Services

★★★★★ I have been using this app since it was first introduced. It works as well as or better than comparable mobile processing apps and, if it is set up properly for your business, is generally less expensive than Square or GoPayments, et al. I have noticed that the complaints run into several very basic categories: 1, it doesn't work with a user's device. That is the case with all mobile apps -- it isn't a perfect world, not all devices work with all apps. That can be problematic, but the app works with more devices than it used to and tech support is generally quite good. 2, there is a $3.99 / month fee to keep the account active if it has not been used in 12 months. To avoid it, just make one charge per year -- pretty simple. And the company did send out announcements about this several times prior to starting the fee, so it should not have surprised anyone. 3, the fees are too high or there are hidden fees. This one appears rooted in the fact that there are TWO versions of Phone Swipe accounts: one "Pay As You Go" with fixed percentages and no monthly fees (similar to Square) and one with standard merchant account features, monthly fees and custom rates. The latter style of account costs more for small merchants but can save a lot for those processing high volumes each month. ($5k or less per month, stick to the Pay As You Go pricing.) Many people sign up for the standard merchant account by mistake, usually through user error, and this used to be a bigger problem. Frankly, for small ticket items (I sell mostly coffees), the Pay As You Go pricing cannot be beat. Next day funding is amazing and customer service has been top notch. Every now and again, I have encountered a glitch. The software and web portal are not perfect -- each update improves something and removes something it seems. Right now I cannot easily get a single spreadsheet that has both my deposits and my sales in the same, single list, and I would love to see a report that shows both the gross sale and net deposit for every transaction, but I can still figure out my effective rate / cost of processing with just a bit of simple math. Over the past few years, it has stayed very close to the 2.69% cost for swiped transactions, even with the occasional keyed entry at the higher rate (3.49% plus $0.19 for manual transactions). And no, there are NO other costs to me that I have seen. Very simple, very basic, very cheap. If I sold high ticket products and did high volume sales, I would switch to a standard merchant account complete with PCI requirements, monthly fees, all the standard pass-through expenses, and "lower rates" (preferably an Interchange-plus account), because it would be worth the cost of the fees to get the savings of the lower rates -- but not with the low sales volume and low ticket prices I am dealing with. My review is four stars -- five for the customer service and the low rates, three for the reporting features on the app (even though they have improved in some areas). Ultimately, I think the app will catch up and get this product a solid 5 stars.

★★☆☆☆ WARNING, DO NOT USE THIS APP. This app was a disaster and a total and complete scam and ripoff. If I could rate it at 0 I would. They suck your bank account dry after lying to you and telling you that you'll only be billed when you use the service, which by the way is useless because it never works. Then charge you enormous amounts of money monthly for a useless service and would not refund your hard earned money. Every time I called customer service I got a different explanation. They truly ate the worst service I've ever used and still battling to get my money back and to have them stop billing me... lodging a formal complaint with bbb. Buyer beware!

★★☆☆☆ Avoid this company. I kept getting hit with fees left and right. There are so many hidden fees I was not aware of. Non compliance fee, card fees, annual fees, monthly fees, maintenance fees. They charge me $40 something for I don't know what and $105 annual fee. I closed my account inmediately and will never do business with them ever again. They are not transparent at all. Don't do business with this company PLEASE.