If you’re reading this, STAY AWAY!!

Easily the worst mistake I could’ve done as a merchant was sign up with PayGate. I signed up on a Wednesday, customer service was exceptional and the process seamless. Documents were handed in and everything was approved. By Friday on the same week I had signed my contract and PayGate ID, payments were enabled and I started receiving payments through PayGate. I took the PayGate Plus option as they had indicated it would result in my funds being released within 48 hours and processing was the fastest, although the card fees were high, I agreed as I assumed it would come with top notch service. Exactly 3 days after I’ve started trading, I noticed there was an error on my account and I wasn’t able to process payouts (I couldn’t actually withdraw or access my funds). I contacted PayGate and they informed me it was due to Onboarding reasons and I had to encode 5 required images into my store site, these images were of card logos and their own company logos, weird considering that’s essentially brand advertising for their own company but nevertheless I comp****. I was also requested to tweak my terms and conditions to suit their own, they provided a template. Everything was completed yet I still couldn’t access my payout function. Communication began stifling down and I was now on the chase for their customer service team. Mind you when I signed up, the service was excellent. I notified PayGate of my concerns regarding customer service and the payout issue and deactivated the payment gateway service from my store because they were still accepting payments from customers and taking fees yet I could not actually withdraw or use the payout function. Immediately after this was done, I was told payout had been activated. Assuming they are an honest company I reactivated the payment gateway service and they continued to accept more payments and take fees from each payment. On Tuesday, 12 hours after being informed that the payout was activated, I was told that they had decided to cancel the account and would keep all payments for a 6 months period as a security clause. This is not only ********* but it is downright **********. They allowed my customers to make payments knowing that they never had any intentions of releasing the funds due to me. When the payment gateway service was deactivated, they contacted me to reactivate it so that they could continue receiving payments and thus keep taking fees. If you’re a merchant, especially as a start up make sure you have an excellent lawyer if you’re going to use PayGate services. The service is absolutely horrible, all they care about is money.