www.cardsave.net Reviews 152

This company is the worst i have EVER dealt with! The slimy lying reptile of a salesman told me that the contract could be cancelled with 30 days notice after a year. THIS IS A LIE! £381 they want for me to terminate my contract!!! I wrote a letter to them before to cancel but GUESS WHAT, they claim they did not receive it!!! Needless to say my solicitors will be contacted. But i don't feel like this is enough, this company needs to be investigated and i will definitely pursue this course against them

We have been customers of Cardsave for approx 4 years and the card machine has been satisfactory. However if you try to cancel the account with Cardsave be prepared for on going costs.

I was under the impression that the cancellation fee of £120 was only applicable if the account was cancelled in the first year and I was not made aware of the 12 months recurring anniversary & that the account will have to be paid however much notice you give to close your account.

I was also charged the £86.22 quarterly charge even though the account was closed (This was refunded by our bank)

Please consider your options if considering using this company

Edited: after this review they have contacted me and solved the problem. The guy on the phone was very helpful.
My problem was apparently the sales person who misrepresented the terms, other than that a good service.

Do not sign up for Card Save. They keep charging me £25 for an account I do not want and they won't stop it or give me my money back. For four months in a row they get Streamline to charge me £25. It's like their in cahoots, and no one takes responsibility. I want a MOTO account (Virtual Terminal) and do not need the Internet account. But, someone somewhere ticked this box on my agreement and they will not take it off no matter how many times I complain (I've never used this merchant account)

Unsurprisingly, they did the same thing in 2012 when I had a sole trader account, but that time they did take off the internet account when I complained first time around.

My only option is to contact the ombudsman.

I still have an on going problem with this company even after conformation email (see below) from them ending my contact which was blatantly miss sold to me. They still took the sum of £23.94 from my account. Next step is to go to ombudsmen for their treatment of me.
Copy of email they sent to me on the 7th May 2014

Dear Mrs Jennifer Turner
RE: Account Code: ETIQU001
Following the cancellation of your agreement with Cardsave we will terminate your agreement on 05 June 2014.
Cancellation of your agreement incurs a cancellation charge which under the terms and conditions of your current agreement is £0.00. However, has agreed today you have agreed to pay one further months membership of £23.94 (including VAT) which will be taken on or around the 19th May 2014 by direct debit.
Clarification of the above can be found under clause 7 ending this Agreement on the Cardsave Terms and Conditions of Membership on the reverse of your Membership Agreement
We have instructed our Accounts Department. Finally, we would like to thank you for your past custom, and if we can be of any further assistance to you in future please do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours Sincerely

Cancellations Department

Important Legal Notice
Cardsave trading as Modacs Limited registered address 10 Parkway Offices, Acorn Business Park, Moss Road, Grimsby, N.E.Lincs, DN32 0LW registered in England no. 2896295.
This communication, and the information it contains is intended for the addressee(s) named above and for no other persons or organisation, and may be confidential and/or legally privileged and/or protected in law. Unless the contrary is clear from its context, this communication does not create or modify any contract. Access to this communication by anyone other than the addressee is unauthorised. Unauthorised use, copying or disclosure of all or part of this communication is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately by return e-mail and destroy all copies of this communication.This communication may contain personal data. If so, you are required to observe the provisions of any relevant data protection legislation in any processing of such data. Although this company has taken reasonable steps to ensure that this communication and any attachments are free from computer virus, you are advised to take your own steps to ensure that they are actually virus free. Communications may be monitored.

We are a charity and signed up with cardsave 2 years ago. We no longer need the service and they are insisting on charging us for terminating our contract even though we have an open and unresolved complaint with them. I can't get through to speak to anyone on the phone.
Our charity cannot afford to have money taken from our account in this way - it is a disgrace

This is actually the worst company i have dealt with professionally. They do whatever they can to get you in but the customer service is a shambles. I agreed terms to only pay per transaction when i signed up for the service. however i recieved a bill recently with a minimum charge supplement. I received no prior warning that the terms and conditions were changed. when i rang customer services all they had to say for themselves was that i would have to pay and no care and consideration was taken. I have spoken to several lawyers who assure me they have no right to do what they have done.

I'd like to begin by warning people not to believe a word they are told by the cardsave company rep... Also just to say this is the 1st review i've ever written in my life... That's how corrupt this company is, so please keep away from them and spread the word like i will be doing.
I have found out the hard way that they can come and promise you whatever they like, but once they have your signature and direct debit details, you will find the money will be drawn from your account with one person blaming the other until before you know it you're 4 months into your contract and your concerns won't be dealt with by the rep anymore, as he knows you've realised their true colours and becomes rude and dismissive, in my case hanging up the phone on me. As a small business, this situation is very damaging and i'm shocked to discover that they can get away with this...!

Over the past 3 years, I have experienced numerous amount of problems with this terminal for which I have lost a considerable amount of money. I am a small business and cannot afford to lose any money.
The majority of times: I have had no signal. The machine fails to pick up a signal and has to be constantly recharged. This delays the client payment for at least 10 minutes.The terminal often got stuck for the entire day on the same transaction. It wastes paper and I am now on my last roll of paper. It automatically powered off for no apparent reason and then comes on again 24 hours later.
For months, I have suffered with the terminal, until lately, when the problems have become worse and are now on a daily basis. I have turned down client appointments due to being on the telephone to Cardsave, have lost hundreds of pounds due to clients being unable to purchase retail items or paying by the card machine. I have had clients not returning with cash from the cash point, due to the machine not working.
It is totally pointless to contact the Technical team as the same instructions are requested by your staff, i.e, remove the sim, do an end of day banking; none of which work. I am now on the third terminal which does not work.
This situation have left me with no other option but to terminate my contract with Cardsave.The Retention team told me that I have to pay over £300 for this. I am a sole trader and have lost over £300 due to your card machine not working. It has also made me behind with other bills, as I am not being able to work efficiently.
Not to mention the stress it has caused and loss of time. I am so upset with this service but no-one seems to care. I have just had enough.

I am realizing that I have made the worst decision to go with Cardsave. I should have accepted marginally higher fees of some other merchant instead of keeping the costs to minimum. Note to self: Minimum is never good!

I started the application on 6th April for a merchant account that could accept USD, GBP & EUR payments. The agent met me and very politely filled out the entire application form asking us questions as we go along. At the end he gets the application signed off from us and assures us that the application will get processed within 5-6 business days as he could put it on priority.

Days went by and we received our test login details in 16 days after continuous follow-up. Nevertheless the test account was up and running which had all the currencies enabled. Looking a little optimistic, we were told that we'll get our live account details soon. The situation turns to pathetic after this.

When we received our live account details, it showed only GBP as the currency. When we tried phoning up the customer services they said it's because only GBP was written in the application. Frantically searching the application we realize that this was infact the case. I immediately called up the agent and told him that only GBP is enabled when in reality we asked for multi-currency support. He accepted that it was his fault and would contact the support team immediately. He comes back after 3 days and says there will be a charge of 50£ to get this enabled. Reluctantly I agreed to that charge even when it was the agent's fault, but he said I'll have to raise the request myself. When I called up the customer services they said they couldn't do anything as the payment gateway hasn't enabled the multi-currency support and I will have to speak to them. The payment gateway said the merchant provider hasn't asked for multi-currency support and they can only act if the merchant provider tells them to. The agent said he couldn't do anything and it was out of his hand and that cardsave doesn't provide any account which can handle USD!!

I am now in a fix requiring a multi-currency support and have ended up with GBP only account which is good for nothing as 90% of my revenue is from USD payments.

It's almost a month now and I still don't have any idea how to get this resolved and who to contact!

PS: While evaluating different merchant providers, Cardsave agent told me that there won't be any yearly committment from my side and I would be free to leave whenever I want. I now see that the contract shows a minimum contract period of 12 months which I know will haunt me when I decide to leave, which could be very soon!

PPS: Apparently the agent has problems with his phone only when I need to speak to him. After the submission of application, there hasn't been a single case where my phone call was answered in 1 go. I had to wait for hours, message atleast 10 times, email multiple times and beg for a callback/reply.

I would NOT choose cardsave in a million years now! PATHETIC!

I have received 'interesting' letter by post just now and defiantly will seek legal advise and more likely look for other who is been treated same way as I am. This can not be right and it is so wrong on so many levels.

1) when i called to cancel, i was told that i can not do that over the phone , FORGOT TO MENTION
if you decide you want to leave you have to give them a months notice, this will also cost you £100 as a jester of good will, so basically if you want to cancel after 11 months you will get ripped off no matter how you cancel your agreement. SERIOUSLY !!??
2) sent the letter by post
3) called back to make sure it is received, the answer was NO
4) today received the letter that cardsave received the cancellation
soooooooooooooooooooooooo .... did you receive the letter or NO???? (appears that they did)


CS rely on busy business customers not giving 1-months notice prior to their renewal date. Even then, they move the goalposts about renewal dates. In our case, we believe the contract commences when the service is activated and commenced. CardSave believes the agreement is when ever they decide!

Even if i did not use the terminal as much , it was not great asset to my busines, i still understood the contract is contract and I have to pay the charges untill the end of the contract. BUT NO LONGER, AS I DO NOT NEED THIS TERMINAL I think enough if cardsave has already made the money on me, but no, it is not enough for them yet !!!

Guys, have you seen your feedback???? GOSH I WAS SO WRONG , BIGGEST MISTAKE TAKING THIS ON
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OR YOU JUST TRYING TO FIND AWAY AROUND TO TRICK ME ONTO NEW CONTRACT AND HOPING THAT ME WITH MY FUNNY ACCENT WONT COMPLAIN ???


looking at reviews so many clients are disgusted !!!
As of now I am getting my solicitors so that can continue to deal with the issue for me.

Before signing up with Cardsave, I raised concerns over the poor reviews on customer service. The Territory Sales Manager assured me that things had improved and that he would personally deal with any query. When our first charge was applied ahead of the due date and the negotiated 'first month free' discount was not included, I e-mailed him. He responded by saying he would instruct accounts to process the refund and look into the timing of the direct debit.

In the past month, I've sent e-mails to him checking whether this has been done and not received a single response. His mobile goes straight to answerphone saying he's out of office but back on 2nd April (2 weeks ago!).

I raised the issues with Customer Services who stated that the credit has not been applied and refuse to do anything as it must come from our contact - which is a bit difficult since he's not answering his e-mails or telephone. I stated I have an e-mail from him confirming the refund but they refuse to accept this. I asked for his manager's contact details but they refused to supply this.

Ridiculous.

I should have known when a rep came to see us that it was too good to be true...

Yes, the rates were drastically cheaper than our current provider.
No, we wouldn't have to pay extra to be PCI DSS compliant.
Yes, the 'worldpay' service would automatically work with our web-shop.
No, there were no additional fees for CNP/KEYED transactions.
That's right, no monthly minimum fees.

In the end none of this was true and I gladly paid the extortionate fees to exit the agreement early.

I personally believe it is down to a terrible sales team of pushy liars. Considering they let us out of the online agreement due to it not being compatible with our web-shop without question, makes me think they know this. And I'm sure the poor souls in the call centre spend all day cleaning up the sales teams mess.

So, here's an idea CARDSAVE, ditch the out-of-date, high-pressure, say-anything-to-close-a-deal sales techniques and concentrate on providing some actual service. Oh, and when people do cancel, best inform Streamline so that we don't carry on getting bills for not being compliant without even having a card terminal.

I would steer clear of CardSave. Their 12-month rolling contract practices have been banned in other business sectors e.g. Telecoms.

They rely on busy business customers not giving 1-months notice prior to their renewal date. Even then, they move the goalposts about renewal dates. In our case, we believe the contract commences when the service is activated and commenced. CardSave believes the agreement is when ever they decide!

Any decent, customer-focussed and professional provider automatically gives due notice regarding forthcoming renewal. But not CardSave. I have written to them outlining my concerns and will update my thoughts accordingly.

Update 09/04/2014
Typical of the woeful customer service from CardSave; they were very quick to respond in TrustPilot with a generic cut'n'paste reply but have not had the courtesy to respond to or even acknowledge my email to them that was sent on the same date.

We run an online business and were put into CardSave by a new developer who we were working with. We thought this was because our developer was looking out for our interests but discovered afterwards that Cardsave actively target developers and pay them nice commissions to put new customers their way.
What a disaster. The CardSave integration with our site did not work resulting in anything up to 25% of orders being lost because customers could not pay. Multiple hours on the phone to Cardsave and our developer (at £70 per hour for our developer), did nothing to improve things. We had also had enough of our developer and so decided to find a competent one and just leave CardSave alone until we could move back to an alternative supplier (not allowed to mention who).
Between the lost orders, wasted time and extra development costs Card Save cost us something in the region of £15 000. I told them this when they asked why I wanted to cancel. I never got a single word of apology. The new developer put the gateway from the alternative supplier (not allowed to mention who) live 4 days after our annual renewal date. Given our abysmal experience with them I would have expected them to be able to immediately cancel our account but this option was only available for a £500 charge. Alternatively we could keep our account dormant for the next 12 months at a cost of £300. In an attempt to keep our admin costs down I even offered to pay the £300 up front but any attempt to reason with them went out of the window and the only answer I managed to get out of anyone is "it is in our terms and conditions". They rattled this off in such parrot fashion that my guess is they must use this phrase many many times per day.
As Card Save were clearly happy to maintain a dormant account for 12 months we decided to make it as costly for them as possible and cancelled the direct debit and have been paying monthly by cheque.
In short, if you value your business, your sanity and your cash, do not even think about working with Cardsave.

[name] walked in the door on the 20/9/2013.We sat down and agreed on prices contract etc all good better than my current deal.Received e mail on the 29/9/2013 Telling me my application was successfull and was being processed.Then nothing, noticed in December a direct debit was on my bank account. As i had recieved no communication from cardsave i cancelled it.On the16/12014. I received a card terminal from cardsave.My wife phoned and explained we would not be using card save and had stayed with our current merchant.We were told some one would be in contact regarding trying to revive business with usand to hold on to the terminal.THEN THE FUN BEGINS.We have been billed for the hire of terminal so we phoned and were told to send a e mail to confirm cancellation of contract.CONTRACT we had not heard anything for 4 months and now i have been told we will have to pay £255.60 cancellation fee.Well i will not and after readinrgreviews on hear i will got to court and let the judge decide who is right.

UPDATE: I received a call from Cardsave customer services and my issue was promptly resolved. If things were as smooth in the first place my review would have been a 4/5 as opposed to the 1 star review I gave with my initial feedback below.

I will like to state that my only grievance was the termination fees which I was cornered to pay. Now that this has been waived and a confirmation letter is on it's way - I see no reason to review this company unfavourably.

For new businesses, please watch out for the closing clauses. Cardsave should train their staff to make sure the termination dates are clearly understood by potential customers. Further, it won't be a bad idea to call or inform customers prior to the renewal date as is the case with almost any industry. Should these changes be implemented, I am certain Cardsave will get no less than a 4 star rating.

My initial review is still visible below.

Thank you for resolving my grievance, and I sincerely hope you amend your cancellation policy.

Kind regards,

Muma Kaba


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I signed up for a year contract with Cardsave and in about 9 months in, the rates I was on were no longer competitive. So naturally, I got another terminal and kept on paying the monthly fees for the fixed and internet terminals provided by Cardsave. I was saving about £50 per month with this switch to an alternative company.

I called Cardsave (by telephone) about 3 months towards the end of my contract informing them that I will not be signing up or renewing my contract when it comes to an end.

Wait for this: The operator told me my request could not be processed, as I could only make such a request on EXACTLY 30 DAYS TO THE DAY MY CONTRACT ENDS. I questioned the legality of that but decided to call back 30 days later.

I was sold the terminal service by a field sales Rep on the 21/02/2013. It took a further 7 days for me to receive the terminal and for things to start working. I emailed Cardsave on 23/01/2014 informing them that I was giving them a 30 days notice to terminate both my internet terminal and the fixed terminal.

I received an email the very next day listing the charges that I will incur should I continue with cancellation, and a phone call later confirmed that Cardsave was hell bent on making life difficult for me because of my decision to move away.

I wrote a very reasonable letter stating my refusal to pay the charges for a technicality of missing the request to cancel date by 2 days (considering they took 7 days to get me running with the fixed terminal) and absolutely forever to get the internet terminal working. Do you think they acted reasonably? No! I am now being harassed with threats of county court judgements and they are demanding two payments of £251.82 for the internet terminal and a further £251.82 for the fixed terminal.

This is not how to treat customers especially when the service you have delivered hasn't been up to scratch. I am getting my solicitors to take over the fight for me. I will never recommend this company to any business; especially if you are a new business.

Muma Kaba

I have only had my card terminal since July 2013 and signed up under a deal with no minimum card transaction fees. I was notified in February that Cardsave now want to charge me a minimum of £25 + vat per month for card transaction fees starting in April. In the notification letter it clearly stated if you didn't accept these new terms you could cancel by the 1st April and not incur a charge. I have given written notification on the 1st March and still haven't received an acknowledgement. I have had to phone them and was given an alternative email address to send to, still no reply. During the phone call I was told there would be a charge of £150 + vat plus the outstanding months rental to cancel. This charge isn't mentioned in the letter I received and having checked the original agreement I cannot see any mention of a £150 + charge, I have asked for confirmation where this charge is mentioned in the agreement and surprise, surprise no reply to this question.

This isn't the first time I have had a problem getting Cardsave to reply to questions, their customer service is absolutely appalling, you have to constantly chase them to get an answer. I certainly won't be staying with them and would advise anyone thinking of a card terminal to look elsewhere.

I have now been contacted by Cardsave, unfortunately I must say I stick with my original review. Don't consider dealing with them, they aren't willing to listen, it doesn't matter that the salesman promised no increases or changes during the contract term. I only signed with Cardsave because they didn't impose a minimum transaction charge each month, I had already received cheaper quotes for both the card terminal and fees, but the other companies imposed a £20 minimum transaction charge.

Having spoken with a lady in Cardsave's customer service department, I must say they really are taking the mickey. I had always been led to believe that the £25 minimum transaction fee was what you would pay if your transaction fees didn't come to £25 each month, but I have been told that this will be levied on top of the transaction charges each month if they don't come to £25. So you could have £24 of fees and a £25+vat charge = £54.

When I was accepted for the card terminal last year I received a copy of the Worldpay Terms & Conditions, which don't impose a cancellation charge, you just have to pay the remaining monthly terminal charges, which is fair enough. However I am informed that Cardsave weren't part of Worldpay at the time and that this doesn't apply to my contract, but if you search the internet you will find that Worldpay acquired Cardsave in December 2010.

Maybe Clive Kahn can tell me why I was given a set of terms and conditions for Worldpay if they didn't actually apply to my contract, surely this is against the law?
Following my chat with their customer service department I have arranged return of the card terminal and resigned myself to a Small Claims court case to recover any cancellation charge which is levied by Cardsave / Worldpay.

Signed up with Cardsave on the 7th February 2011 after a lengthy meeting with sales representative. After using for three years and becoming increasingly aware of the hidden costs (again not advised by the sales representative), poor terminal performance (GPS unit) and lengthy time for funds to be deposited into business banking account as well made it incredibly difficult to change my business banking details when I changed banks.

Eventually I decided that it was time to move on and find a more cost effective company to work with, which I did. I contacted Cardsave to enquire about cancelling my contract, as it had been explained by the sales representative I could do this after 12 months as I was only tied in for the initial 12 months.

I was given no information about cancellation on the phone and was told to email the cancellations department. Two weeks later I emailed again as I had heard nothing and today 24.03.14 I have received an invoice for £481.86. Letter stating that this is for cancellation charges and for membership fees.

None of this was made clear by the sales representative as far as I was aware it would cost me nothing to cancel after the initial 12 month contract had expired.

Whilst I now appreciate that this is in the small print of the contract I feel that this is important enough that the Sales Rep should have made a point about telling me about these charges and fees.

As a small independent trader these charges are nigh on impossible to pay.

Needless to say I will not be recommending this company to ANYONE.

I am write to dispute some of the comments made by the chief executive. I rang cardsave yesterday to cancel my account. I have given 2 months notice and the anniversary of my contract is in July.

I was informed by Cardsave that the cancellation fee is unavoidable. It is not related to advance notice nor is it linked to the anniversary date. Whenever I choose to cancel I will always incur a fee of £120 plus vat.

This I find is underhand and unfair. We were also advised that the cancellation fee only applies to the first year of the contract but having had the machine a few years and given sufficient notice I see no reason why a cancellation fee should apply