Hello Everybody, I am really in need of some help from legal experts. My name is V Nadar and I am from India. I had a merchant account with a merchant company from UK and we both went into agreement that they will be our official payment processor. All went right for few months though there were some initial setbacks but I overcame that. It was a hidden fee as they call it statement fee that is weekly $50 which was never mentioned anywhere in the contracts or invoices. I had one site being processed in the beginning but later I added one more site to my merchant account and I informed them. They replied 3 days later and told me to remove few drugs that they feel were objectionable but by then I had integrated the site to my account just for testing purpose and it was working fine but there was a misunderstanding between my admin team and Shipping department as we had 3 orders for Sertraline which was shipped by our shipping department during that period before the admin department could actually remove the products completely that was mentioned by merchant provider to be removed from our site to be able to continue. THIS WAS THE ISSUE. Later a few days after.. I received an email from the merchant provider saying account has be blocked for shipping Sertraline as they spoke to Customers and they came to know about this. I AGREED and I gave them the order details and explained them what misunderstanding happened between our departments. I requested them that this will not be repeated etc.. I apologized and agreed for any penalties or charge back fees that they wanted to deduct from my account for all the 3 orders. I requested them to re-open my account and let me process again and I needed one chance to prove that it was not intentionally done. All that happened was they sent me shocking unimaginable email for settlement of my account which I thought might say how much they owe me but it was not the case. everything in that statement was fine like statement fees, chargeback fees and termination fees etc.. BUT ONE COLUMN THAT ALMOST GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK WAS THE COLUMN OF 'BANK FINE' WHICH SHOWS $25000K AS FINE BEING LEVID TO MY ACCOUNT AND THAT NOW I HAD AROUND $11000K IN MY ACCOUNT WHICH WAS SEIZED AND NOW I HAVE TO PAY $14000K TO THEM. I was shocked to see this. 1) I had not signed any contract with the bank. 2) No where in the contract they mentioned the amount of $25000k as fine amount if the merchant makes a mistake. 3) Sertraline is banned only in UK and that also for under 18. 4) No warnings and no second chance.. 5) No consideration for being transparent and accepting the mistake and I also agreed to enter in a deed for not repeating such thing. Please advise me how can I deal this.. I am in state of mess and need some help to fight them.
You need to talk to an attorney who is familiar with the UK laws that would cover your merchant account, and who can review the terms that you agreed to. A good attorney will be able to advise you what your best course of action is. It will cost you money, but less than the money you are losing. Also, I would not trust any advice you get from strangers on a message board who likely have no legal training. There is a lot of bad advice given on this board by people who have no clue what they are talking about. And the attorneys who post here can't give you any substantial advice because they don't have access to the contract you agreed to or other details of your case. After all that, I will give my unlawyerly bit of advice: do not threaten to sue or otherwise communicate with the company until you have consulted an attorney. Any communication you send can end up being used against you if you aren't very very careful. I also would not post the company's name or the name of your site or any other identifying details of your case until the matter is resolved, because, again, anything you say publicly can be used against you.
Agreed! That's the reason you will not see the domain or the merchant company name here.. But I searched a lot online but most of them either work for UK citizens only. I want someone who can take my case internationally as I am from India and company is from UK. Anyone please atleast give me a clue on how to hire a good attorney for my case. It will be of a great help for me.. please.