www.cardsave.net Reviews 152

I signed up with Cardsave in June and was told it would be £12.95 plus VAT per month. No mention of any other costs. The first payment was duly taken in July but then I received a statement from Streamline for two merchant accounts. I called Streamline and they said that the minimum monthly cost for each merchant account is £10 per month and they were set up on the instruction of Cardsave. I was not told about these extra costs, plus I only need one merchant account. I called Cardsave immediately and was told somebody would call me back. They didn't. I called again 2 days later and was first offered a 50% reduction on the Streamline costs or speak to an adviser and then, again, was told somebody would call me back. 2 days later and still waiting for a call back. I have now sent them a letter telling them to sort it out or cancel the agreement and have also instructed my bank not to pay any further Direct Debits until I say otherwise.

all is ok until you have a problem. our terminal went down on a Thursday and we got a replacement the following Tuesday. as a shop we were desperaye for a speedy solution, but no one in customer services shared our concerns and didn't seem to care. reading the reviews, it seems for cardsave to get better ratings they have to address the culture of customer services and get rid of these unpopular rolling contracts

Firstly a rant about my experience and then the review. Despite advising the sales person of my situation (I am currently using another Merchant Banking Company for my card machine) I felt completely mis-sold to by Card Save upon opening some of my invoices a few months into my contract and discovering more fees than originally agreed. When ringing to query the charges I was not given reasonable explanations and told that as I had 'left it too late' in opening my invoices to really do anything about this, a discussion with the phone operators manager had her coming back to say 'yes, my manager says the same thing'. Poor. Shouldn't the matter have been analysed in a little more depth? Yes, and it was eventually. The lovely sales person Mark called me personally, held his hands up to having made a mistake and said he'd get it sorted out.

Whilst the finance department's support was flakey, perhaps it's too much to expect them to know the intricities of the contractual agreements, regardless, both Mark and the cancellations department went above and beyond the call of duty in resolving the issue. In light of this I'd 5 star rate them if the actual technology was a little prettier and a bit more cutting edge / modern.

So the facilities, the online card payment system was reasonably easy to install which took a couple of weeks of hoop jumping to get everything set up. Implementing directly into your site is a smoother feel but will leave you open to large amounts of legal tape. A redirect to Cardsave's payment portal will save you this hassle but it looks pretty awful. No doubt there is some expectation to allow ancient browsers to use the portal but if paypal/sagepay can do it...

The Virtual Terminal which I have virtually no use for at all but was part of the package has a dreadful user interface and I found it very counter intuitive. I did find I needed it when I had to perform a partial refund and it took a lot of trial and error clicking and eventually a hunt through the help. Once you get the hang of it though it's not too bad.

Cryptic transaction CSV's are occassionally drip fed through to my email which is nice but I'm not entirely sure what they mean.

So in summary:-

Flexible Competitive Rates and Pricing
Decent Local Support
Excellent resolution policies and customer care
Dated but functional web portal
Confusing but functional Virtual Terminal

Overall: Would recommend

Not had a great experience, but I am currently awaiting a new terminal that will hopefully solve all the issues i have been having. I await the terminal and will update the review accordingly.

I too, was told I had a one year contract but not told that it was a rolling contract! I only found out a few months back when I got noticed a 'PCI Non-compliance' fee of 7.50 + vat. When I phoned Cardsave, I was told that I was sent a letter telling me about it. When I told them I didn't receive a letter, I was told hat they definitely sent one. They may have 'definitely sent one but it wasn't to my address. I was then told I could fill in a compliance form online but when I went online to do so, I was expected to accept another contract. This contract may have been only for the compliance, but having just found out that I'd been duped by Cardsave for not reading the terms and conditions carefully, I decided I would read these ones carefully before signing anything. To be honest, I didn't understand half of it and since there was only a few months remaining of my current SIX YEAR contract, I thought it cheaper to pay the non-compliance fee than to pay a solicitor to check it out for me. The girl from Cardsave had told me I wouldn't be signing into another contract but as the saying goes "once bitten..."

I've now only got a month and a half until my contract ends so it's time for me to send in my cancellation request. The service had generally been good over my half dozen or so years with Cardsave but this type of underhanded selling leaves a bitter taste and I would find it very hard to trust Cardsave again.

Now, can anyone recommend a good, honest card company?

James Kelly.

I seem to have had the same issue as others on here. This week I received a bill for £366 for cancellation of contract and membership fees.

I signed up for a pdq machine and online payments processing last may. I specifically asked the salesman about cancellation terms and was told that after 12 months, I could cancel on 30 days notice, no problem! Nothing about cancellation charges.

I was on the whole happy with the service but due to nature of business I needed an old fashioned swipe machine that didn't rely in a signal. So I decided to move and was offered better rates.

I wrote to cancel. I received a phonecall informing me of charges to which I objected to. I regret to say that the cardsave advisor seemed to find it funny...

I used to recommend card save, but I believe I have been mis sold the service with details deliberately omitted in order to make a sale. this is a disingenuous way of doing business. I run a small business and am just trying to make a go of things during this difficult economic time. £366 is a lot to us. We are in the process of speaking to the financial ombudsman and trading standards regarding mis selling.

Our new supplier had confirmed that they don't charge to cancel after 12 months and a quick look around will show that these fees are not the norm.

Would not recommend card save in future.

Clare quartermaine
20thcenturyfoxy.

Not long had my card save machine.

As a field based gas engineer this should be a brilliant asset for me and my business.

Last month went to take payment for a boiler repair and it wouldn't go through for lack of signal despite Swansea being fairly excellent for phone coverage! Had to take a cheque, then whilst on holiday had a phone call from the customer saying that despite having voided the transaction the money was eventually taking from their account!

Following that debacle I managed to take payment for other work carried out and then when it went into my bank account there was £100 missing which had been taking back from the mistakenly drawn charge from before I went away.

Since then I have struggled to use the machine as it won't seem to find signal!

Requested call back (which came quickly) as they phoned on a sales lead although I mentioned that it was for an existing customer requiring technical help!! Was told that the machine won't lock onto a signal unless it has full battery! Despite my phone working perfectly well on its sim with as little as 10% left!

Shocking all round performance and will be ring again tomorrow as machine would have been on charge over night.

I will ,give them one more chance to redeem themselves before contacting my solicitor as they are taking my money but it's them that I see that are in breach of contract.

I have been with Cardsave for 3 years after moving from HSBC, who were brilliant with no cancellation charges and no 12 month rolling contract after being visited by a Cardsave rep who convinced us they were cheaper than HSBC.
I have had a heart attack have now been told that I have heart failure. I now have an estimated life span between 1 and 3 years. I have passed retirement age and the lease on my premises ends in March 2014. I do very little business now and spoke to Cardsave in May 2103 regarding cancellation. They advised that as I was way past the initial 12 months just 30 days was needed. I will be going into hospital quite soon and tried to cancel by email in July 2013 as advised previously but I was told that I am on a rolling contract and as they had just renewed my contract I have to pay a full 12 months charges plus £150, but they may, just accept £150. It would appear that whenever you wish to cancel you will have to pay £150 regardless of what time scale is left on your contract, even prior to the 30 day period.
I was told to email cancellations with a dispute but we have made you an offer and so it is doubtful that will change other than we may insist on a full 12 months charges. Totally intransigent, and cold and unfeeling.
I will try to negotiate but fear that they don't care anyway.
Cardsave, Avoid there are better card companies out there.
From what I have read Cardsave will chase you beyond the grave for cancellation charges.
N. Roberts.
Bourne Print
UPDATE:
Following on from the above, I received a very friendly and helpful telephone call from Matthew at Cardsave. They have obviously taken on board my comments and reservations. They have sorted out the problem to my entire satisfaction and I am now happy to review my rating of Cardsave.
My advice to everyone is no matter what you are signing, read the small print as not every company will respond the way that Cardsave have.

I have used Cardsave for well over a year and found the service to be pretty much fine and reasonably easy to use. I have even recommended them to web design customers looking to set-up their own online/telephone payment system. I really wish I hadn't.

Having recently sold my business, I called CardSave to cancel with the standard 30 days notice to discover these OUTRAGEOUS CONTRACT TERMS.

Although I signed up for a year contract it is a ROLLING YEAR CONTRACT and I am mid-way through my second year. So even though I have been with CardSave for well over a year as contracted I have to PAY A FORTUNE TO CANCEL. Including all standard monthly charges for the rest of the year AND £150 + VAT Cancellation fee - so £375 JUST TO CANCEL THE SERVICE.

They send out absolutely no notification that your new yearly contract has begun - not even a email which costs nothing. They just AUTO-RENEW and tie you in for another year without saying a word.

I will be cancelling my direct debit and preparing my letter to the Financial Services Ombudsman. Will also give a call out to the people I recommended Cardsave to advise cancelling the service on first year end to avoid being hit to these high fees should they want to change their business.

UPDATE. Following further discussions with CardSave a reasonable agreement was reached which allowed for cancellation without payment of the full fees. I very much object to the way that the contracts auto-renew but will commend Cardsave on their customer handling in finding a suitable resolution.

We are a small Guest house in Bournemouth and tried to save a few pounds by switching to Cardsave. We have previously always taken payments over the POS terminal however we were told that it would be beneficial to take deposits online. The online system, though secure is clunky and time consuming. After requesting to take deposits through our terminal, as we have always done with other companies, we were informed that there would be a £50 charge - and £150 +vat to cancel the online account - plus the outstanding Months at £5 per Month. Total Rip-off and we would have been better off staying with our existing supplier.

+ +_+ + EDIT:- Cardsave have since been very helpful and resolved the problems at no extra charge. I have revised the rating accordingly and would have awarded them 5 stars if they had a normal contact number beginning with 01 - 0845 or 0800.

The company will charge you hidden fees and if you have any problems and you want to close your account you will pay a huge amount
Read the terms
Be aware don't is this is a ripping off system
announce with 3 months before over the phone send letter in sad that they have not receive it and put me to pay more then 400£ to cancel the service .

So be aware

This has to be one of the worst companys we have had to deal with .I cant see how they are still going and that no one has taken action against them.
BEWARE they will trap you into a rolling contract so you cant get out unless you pay £150 plus all the months fees .
When the rep came round he assured us it was a 12 month contract ,NOPE read the small print .
We went ahead with them and it took 7 weeks to get us up and running after call after call.
Our pdq machine they sent out had to be replaced 5 times due to not charging up ,They said it must be something we are doing wrong !!
It took them 9 months to collect the old PDQ machines !!!!
We have been hung up on numerous times by there streamline-cardsave staff,I cant keep track of whos who as you get pasted around here and there,
We are being chargedfined - £9 a month for not filling paperwork that we sent back to them 4 months ago and they are still taking the money .
The latest is that our PDQ machine works when it wants and after many many many calls they have finaly agreed to replace it and it will take 7 working days ~!!!!! I can send an itme to china in 4!
16 days to count today and still no PDQ machine .
Need we say more

After an initial meeting with a sales rep who seemed very nice (as they all do) I decided to sign up with CardSave. This was largely influenced by the rep insisting that I would be better off using CardSave as I only had to take out a 12 MONTH CONTRACT rather than the 36 months required by the other company I was considering. I ordered a terminal but when it eventually arrived I had nothing but problems with it. I contacted CardSave and was pretty much told to sort it out myself. I kept trying but eventually just asked for my contract to be switched to the online service. I was told that I would have to take out a new contract which I did as I just wanted it sorted and to get on with running my business.

As it turned out most of my customers wanted to pay cash so luckily I had little need to contact their diabolical customer services team, I didn't bother trying to cancel my contract early as I knew I would still have to pay so I kept it running.

Shortly before before my contract was due to expire I gave birth to my daughter and naturally became a little distracted! However, after several weeks, and nothing in the post to query whether I would like to renew my contract I called CardSave today just to confirm that I no longer required their services and would be cancelling my direct debit. I was completely shocked to be told that I was 3 DAYS too late to cancel and as such I am required to pay not only the fees for an entire years services that I do not want but also a cancellation fee of £150! To add insult to injury they extremely arrogant 'advisor' I was speaking to seemed to take great leasure in repatedly telling me that it was a rolling contract and that was what I had signed up for. I understand that in the extremely contradictory small print it makes reference to 'successive periods' (ie if you go 1 day over your initial period you are expected to pay for the next 12 months) but when your sales rep has categorically told you that you are only tied into the contract for 12 months (NOT that it's a 12 month ROLLING contract or a 12 month contract which will AUTO-RENEW) its not something I felt I needed to double check.

I think I could deal with having to pay the £150 as companies like CardSave will always look for ways to try to sting their customers but to expect me for an entire year (during which I will not even be earning any money as I am caring for my daughter full time) is disgusting. To penalise a small business owner for not cancelling a contract (which I had been deliberately mislead about in the first place) because I was giving birth says a lot about the level of customer service provided by CardSave. If you need further evidence you could always call their so-called customer service line and be spoken down to, talked over and generally made to feel as if CardSave have absolutely zero interest in any of your concerns and in fact think that they have got one over on you as they will continue to take your money for a poor service which you do not want or need!

We have had little problem. However I was offered a much much better deal with our Bank. On trying to cancel I firstly had 3 e-mails ignored, then on ringing up I am informed that we are in a rolling 12 month contract., and to cancel early we would have to pay the remain 2 quarters, plus a hefty cancellation fee. The only way to cancel with them is to write a letter 30 days before the contract expires (and rolls over again to another 12 months).
They never send a letter advising you that the contract is up for renewal, or a new contract.
*EDIT* Received a call from Cardsave and a great effort was made to resolve the issue. We are now sticking with Cardsave as they have offered us a good deal which means we won't be changing companies now. Thanks very much!

CardSave was fast to react and are currently dealing with the issue. Hopefully it will be resolved soon. In the meantime I am raising my rating for them.

Well DONE guys!

Staff are rude and unhelpful. The "REQUEST A CALLBACK" doesn't seem to result in a callback and you're told a different story by every person you speak to. I called a few months ago to find out whether they could match the prices i'd been given by Seymour Direct and they couldn't so I asked about cancellation. They guy said not a problem, email cancellations@cardsave.net with 30 days notice. Since then I spoke to someone else who confirmed the 30 day notice period and told me there would be a £150 cancellation fee. Spoke to someone else (very rude and talking over me) today and she's now told me i'm under contact (apparently it auto renews for me every Aug!) until the 14th of August and the fee is £144.
I'd expect better service from a supplier i'd just started working with, let alone one i've been with for 5 years. AVOID.... go to Seymour Direct
Cardsave... your staff wouldn't know "Outstanding Customer Service" if it slapped them in the face, i'd take that statement off your homepage and send them on a bit of training ASAP if I were you...

We had unsolicited call from a CardSave, after a brief chat we agreed to meet them as they seemed to offer very good rates. This is a good as it gets because as soon as we signed up with them, the service deteriorated and went from bad to none existent.

We are at a loss where to go from here apart from the fact that CardSave and Streamline has let us down badly. Despite repeated discussions with CardSave agent, their customer service we are no where near resolving our problems and out of pocket by £81 as result of their failure to provide decent service and honouring their contract with us. On top of that CardSave is demanding £600+ for breach of contract and the cost of the terminals despite the fact they have arranged collection of the unopened boxes of terminals from our store and we have proof of collection.

Below is history of our contact with CardSave and their local agent.

1. Initial contact was made on 14th September 2012
2. Meeting Setup on 19th of September 2012 – During the meeting it was made clear to the agent that we have 2 outlets and we wanted to move both outlets to a new credit card merchant suppliers. It was also made clear that both outlets need to be moved together and not separately
3. Application for both outlets were signed on 1st of October 2012
4. Application for first unit was approved at some point because terminals were delivered on the 16th of October 2012.
5. Contacted agent, on the 16th of October, via phone to find out about status of 2nd outlet application.
6. Received a request to send accounts for 2nd Outlet. Abridged set of accounts for 2009/10 and 2010/11 (latest available) e-mailed on 26th of October and full set on 31st of October.
7. On 1st of November received request from agent for 2011 / 12 accounts to be e-mailed. Informed agent that these are not a available till December 2012
8. On 14th of November received a communication from Agent; apologising for not being in touch due to the fact that he is trying to determine the status of the application for the 2nd outlet with Streamline and will come back to us as soon as possible. Responded on the same day via e-mail that we will continue to withhold the use of the machine at the 1st outlet until such time both applications are accepted. At the same time requested that rental fees / agreement to be adjusted until such time both outlets applications has been accepted.
9. Requested a status update on 21st of November with regards to my earlier e-mail – no response
10. Further request for status update on 4th of December made – Agent replied he is contacting head office to find our status and will come back to me.
11. Having still had no response by the 17th of December, sent a reminder to the Agent, and confirmed via e-mail that standing orders for Streamline and CardSave will be stopped and requested CardSave quarterly fees to be refunded.
12. A further reminder sent on 8th of January 2013 and having had absolutely no acknowledgement from Agent, emailed on 11th of January suggesting that we cut our losses and move away from each other. Received a response from Agent that he has escalated our correspondence to a higher level of management within CardSave to action the application.
13. Further reminders were sent on the 14th, 22nd, 28th of January. Finally received a response from agent that he has forwarded all my e-mails to his manager and has taken up the case directly with him.
14. Still no response, sent further reminders on the 19th of February, 14th of March 2013.
15. A formal e-mail cancelling service was sent on 18th of March.
16. On the 25th of March the credit card machines were collected still in their original packaging from the 1st Outlet.
17. In between the above there has been several oral communications with CardSave customer service concerning the machines, our ability to connect the machines, accounts re the reasons for the cancellation of the standing quarterly order, …etc. During all the above verbal communicated, we re-iterated the reason why the machine were not connected and the cancellation of the standing order is due to the fact that we are still waiting for the application of 2nd outlet to be approved.
18. Todate we are still waiting for a response from CardSave whether our application for 2nd outlet has been approved, declined or Streamline require any additional information.
19. The above together with relevant copies of e-mail exchanges were e-mailed to CardSave customer service (customer.services@cardsave .net)on the 29th of April. After a telephone conversation with a member of CardSave Customer service.
20. To-date, CardSave Customer service has failed to acknowledge the above e-mail.
21. Despite the fact that the machines were collected by CardSave (we have a proof of collection from their courier company) on the 25th March, CardSave is demanding payment for the machines, and other charges. Ignoring the fact they have failed to honour their part of the contract.

Just off the phone having spent another frustrating half hour with one of Cardsave's really unhelpful, worse than useless technical advisor's.
Recently switched to Cardsave from <external link removed> Send to save a few quid, possibly one of the worst business decisions I have ever made! I run a charter boat business and take payments on the go, so I require a mobile terminal, in the 4 years that I had the <external link removed> terminal (which worked off the vodafone network), I never had one connection issue, in the past month I have had nothing but connection issues with my new Ingenico iWL250 terminal from Cardsave, even though it works off the same GPRS signal that the <external link removed> terminal did, very successfully may I add. I usually take payments towards the end of my trip as I do not have mobile signal at the pier where we embark and disembark our passengers, so we are taking payments in the same place where we have done so without any problems in the last 4 years, yet the Cardsave terminal will not pick up a signal long enough for a successful payment. Vodafone is the strongest signal by far in our area, as such we firstly had the terminal on manual mode and selected Vodafone, but for some reason I have yet to put a payment through with a vodafone signal as it just wont keep a connection?? I and my crew have Vodafone as our phone provider and at the same time we are trying this with the terminal, we have full signal on our phones??
When I switch the terminal to Auto mode it picks up O2 as the strongest signal - O2 is a very poor provider in this part of the world so quite how it is registering that as the strongest signal is beyond me!? At this stage I generally ask any of the passengers if they are with O2 can they check if they have a reception, they never do have - yet this heap of junk says it is the best one! That is till you actually go to make a payment, and it loses signal again!
Another boat operator who runs the same trips as me, still uses his <external link removed> Terminal, so we can be side by side and he is having no problems whatsoever with his 4 year old terminal which runs off the same mobile signal, yet my 'all singing all dancing' brand new terminal just will not work!!
Cardsaves really helpful solution is to stop when I have a signal, thank you Cardsave for that really clever bit of technical advice, but it kind of defeats the purpose of 'payments on the move'!
I am gutted that I moved to cardsave, every time I speak to them we do a test transaction and it works, albeit this is sitting at home at my desk, where it has to be said that it does not always work, but of course, it would when you have their really useless unhelpful staff on the other end of a phone.
When we try various things with the supervisor swipe card, it shows up 'error 25', but apparently this does not mean there is something wrong with the machine, but afore mentioned staff are unable to tell me what it does mean!?
Every time I turn on the machine it prints out copies of the last transaction it made, customer and merchant copies, but apparently that is ok and nothing to worry about and doesnt mean it is broken, really!?
When you take out a terminal you are given a 'territory Sales manager' who will personally deal with any problems you have, I have been unable to contact mine in any way since he got his sale, will not reply to my voicemails, nor emails. Thanks <private data removed>, you have been fantastic.
I have been demanding a replacement terminal from Cardsave as there is clearly something wrong with this one, and going by the posts I have been reading here, I am not alone with this problem. Cardsave have said that they will send out another one, but once they receive my current one back they will test it, and if they dont find any problems, I will be charged £500 + vat!!!
Now given that we have already done some tests and they have said it works fine (at my desk), do I take the risk of them testing it in a city environment with full mobile signal from every provider there is!? Dont think so!
So it looks like all I can do is struggle on with an absolutely useless card terminal from a really really useless uncaring company, they have had their sale and their 3 year contract out of me, nothing else matters to them. The only thing I can do now is warn others off from falling for their patter, so if you are thinking of switching to Cardsave or joining them, do yourself a big big favour, and look elsewhere!

after being with cardsave for 2 years without any complaints, unfortunately I have just experienced their customer support. My mobile terminal was upgraded by cardsave on wednesday and as a result my terminal stopped working properly. I rang customer support thinking they would be helpful and sort the problem out...Wrong! The first person I spoke to, <private data removed> was completely useless and didn't have a clue, so hung up and rang a little later to speak to someone else. Unfortunately I didn't get his name, but he was equally as useless and couldn't grasp the simple concept of "my terminal won't connect to the vodafone network, which is the only one available to me where I live" Not hard is it? He at least contacted ingenico to find a solution but failed to ring me back when promised, big surprise! A third call to <private data removed> who was actually helpful and promised me a new terminal would arrive either on saturday or definitely Monday, I rang Sat morning to see which and was told "no sir it will arrive Tues! I was so tired of this now That i just accepted tues. A little later I realised that I actually had a meeting on tues and couldn't be there to accept it. I rang to arrange either a different delivery address where I would be or arrange another day. To my complete disbelief, this would be subject to a fee!! because they are obviously doing me a favor by replacing the terminal they broke in the first place! After the money this has cost me in time and lost earnings because of their upgrade, this is just unbelievable! The woman I spoke to had obviously heard all this before. I don't think cardsave will be my provider for much longer! contract ends in june. If you want good customer support, avoid cardsave. There will be a stern letter to their head office and this review will be going on every review site I can find.

thank you very much claire for sorting out our problem with cardsave all resolved now i am a very happy lady.