I have been processing with Authorize.net for 5 years.  Overall, they have not done a bad job.  However, they have now made an error that may very well cost me my business.  They will even admit the error they made, but will not fix it because they are following their "policies".

I have (had) two Authorize.net with ECheck.net accounts with this company.  One, I have been using for the past year.  The second one was an older one that I used with a previous merchant provider that I have not been with for quite some time.

In December, I chose to switch to a new merchant provider.  I called Authorize and asked them if I could switch my gateway to a new provider and which of my two Authorize.net accounts I should switch.   I was told that I was the full owner of both accounts and changing providers on either of them would be fine, so I might as well continue processing on the one that I had been using up to this time.

The switch occurred without incident in mid December and all seemed ok.   On January 1, I ran my primary billing run for the month and all went well.  The billing run on the first of the month constitutes roughly 55% of all of my monthly electronic billing.  My ECheck transactions (Which accounts for 80% of that days transactions) went into the standard 7 day hold that Authorize puts on such transactions.

On January 3, I again went to run a transaction and found myself locked out.   I checked with Authorize and they informed me that the account had been closed.  After having an extensive discussion with several customer service representatives and a supervisor (Alan), I was told that the bank I had been previously using was among a list of merchant providers who had the power to close gateway accounts that they set up, even though they did not directly own them.   They freely admitted that the original Customer Service person had told me to do the wrong thing.

I called to ask about the funds that were currently in their 7 day hold period and was told that, because the account was closed, the funds would be locked for 90 days! 

I spoke with two people in the Risk Managment department, which oversees these holds, as well as the customer service people again.  Everyone will admit that it was their fault, but they completely refuse to budge on their policy of holding my money.  They did say that I could submit a request for review after 30 days and they MIGHT consider releasing the money then.

In the past I would have given this company a resonably good review.  However, considering that they may very well have destroyed my company and refuse to fix their own mistakes:  I advise everyone to think carefully before dealing with them.

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