Why Do I have Two Merchant ID's?

  • Thread starter DeCouncillor
  • Start date
D

DeCouncillor

Guest
I'm newish to the Online selling game, but I was wondering if it's normal to have two AIB Merchant ID's. I thought I only had one until I rang AIB to get an answer about a €30 charge that i thought was to be waived, but isn't.
I currently pay an average monthly fee of about €150 to AIB Merchant Services. The deal was that the minimum fee would be €30 a month, but if I went over this in credit card charges then the €30 would be waived.

I rang AIB MS, which seems to be in the UK now, and they said that I have two Merchant ID's, all of my transactions go through one and nothing has ever gone through the other.

The monthly statement is always three pages long, but I never realised that there were actually two different ID's in there, (I use a book keeper so normally don't see any statement).
So far AIB MS have taken out about €600 from my account for this charge.
I asked AIB MS why I have two Merchant ID's and was told that they would look back through the contract and get back to me in a week or so.

I never asked for two Merchant ID's, I can't find any mention of two ID'S in any of the email information they sent me before I signed up.

Does anybody have any ideas? This is my first day as a member of AskAboutMoney and I have high hopes.
 
Very best of luck to you with them. We had two merchant Id's - one for Euro and one for Sterling. Can you check back with your contracts and see if you asked to trade in both Euro and Sterling? or Euro & USD? If you had, they would have given you two merchant ID's and applied the minimum charges to both.

Their administration is appalling, and whilst they claimed to have sent letters to us to let us know that they were introducing the minimum fee, they could not produce a copy. They changed the address on our Euro merchant ID, but at the same time changed the account so that all correspondence went to the Sterling ID details, which they didn't change. We didn't have a minimum monthly amount when signing up. Since we didn't receive any letter (they seem to have been sending them to an address from yonks ago) I didn't have the opportunity to close the Sterling a/c (which we kept open just for one customer) and racked up a couple of hundred in charges before it became obvious what was happening with the debits from the Euro account.

If there was a decent alternative to AIB/First Data, I'd be on it like a shot. Unfortunately, they all seem to be as bad. You have to watch them like a hawk. The latest is a monthly PCI administration charge, also introduced with no prior information, and no option to continue with the alternative PCI compliance. They are on my "dislike big time" list.
 
Thanks for the pointers Diasy, much appreciated!

I have gone through my original application form and in the mulri-currency section I had ticked "Euro" and no other currency and in the Questionaire I specifically state again: Euro Only. so I think I am covered there.
I'm not charged any PCI administration and will refuse to do so if asked. All customer card details are redirected to and handled by Realex, so none of this customer financial information ever reaches my servers, no need for the full PCI compliance, only the short form to say I don't handle or store any customer card details.

Sorry to hear that you are having so many difficulties! I was going to move to Elavon, but AIB MS gave me even better terms, which kept me with them.
 
Check for the PCI administration on your statement - they moved at some point in the last 12 months to a new PCI adminstration company and if they haven't already been on to you looking for you to complete your compliance (short form or no!) they will be. Good luck! We were with them long before they became First Data and they used to be great. The last 3 or 4 years have been just one c*ck up after another!
 
There's no mention of a PCI charge on my statements. I did complete the short PCI Compliance form about six months ago. The AIB compliance form is actually copied from an American company, so it asks for details not relevant to the Irish market, like ZIP codes, state, etc.

I should have a reply from AIB by Monday or Tuesday about my duplicate Merchant ID. I have seen been told by a friend in finance that no matter what, because the ID has never been used, I was mis-sold a product and am entitled to a full refund.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top