I just got a call from a woman who said she had an update for my merchant services account. We already use Stripe so I knew she was full of crap but I wanted to hear the phone script so I played along for 30 secs.
She then proceeded to talk about chargebacks and how our discount rate was at the retail level and how she's offering the same rate as the interchange, while dropping in references to obscure financial industry terms and acronyms. It's one of those scripts that is only effective when it's used against people who are easily confused and don't pay attention.
She identified her company but I didn't bother to remember it. It's probably a front for Paragon or one of the other merchant account scammers out there.
People who sell cars or merchant accounts have an almost identical psychological profile: they say anything to get the sale. And these same a-holes can be "successful" because there's no penalty for them when their lies are exposed.
After many years of experience, I think the best way to handle cold calls from merchant account companies is this:
1) verify they're not calling from your actual merchant account provider
2) say "just a minute please"
3) put them on hold
4) go about your day
The Caller ID says "AZ Diamond Group"... they keep calling wanting to speak to the owner of the business about changes to his merchant account. I've called our bank who directed us to our merchant services company to inquire if they are trying to reach us for any reason and they said no. This company that keeps calling is one of many who all say the same song and dance, when I ask who they are and what company they're with they just say "merchant services" to which I explain there are several different merchant service companies, what is the name of yours?... when they tell me, I explain that our business isn't affiliated with them in any way and they try to say "We're above that company", but I didn't even tell them the name of the company so how would they know if they're above them or not? And how are so many different merchant service companies suddenly above our current provider? Well I finally gave in and had one of the companies do their song and dance only to find out that they're trying to get us to sign a contract with their company for a better rate.... but yet after that they insist that they're not trying to sell us anything..... Sounds like a sales pitch to me. We've told them we aren't interested and they argue with us and say they need to meet us in person, to which we've explained there's no need to meet, we aren't interested and to stop calling... these companies are relentless, idiotic, and really bad at lying. I don't know how to get them to stop because apparently verbally telling them to stop calling we aren't interested isn't doing the trick.
I just got a call from a woman who said she had an update for my merchant services account. We already use Stripe so I knew she was full of crap but I wanted to hear the phone script so I played along for 30 secs.
She then proceeded to talk about chargebacks and how our discount rate was at the retail level and how she's offering the same rate as the interchange, while dropping in references to obscure financial industry terms and acronyms. It's one of those scripts that is only effective when it's used against people who are easily confused and don't pay attention.
She identified her company but I didn't bother to remember it. It's probably a front for Paragon or one of the other merchant account scammers out there.
People who sell cars or merchant accounts have an almost identical psychological profile: they say anything to get the sale. And these same a-holes can be "successful" because there's no penalty for them when their lies are exposed.
After many years of experience, I think the best way to handle cold calls from merchant account companies is this:
1) verify they're not calling from your actual merchant account provider
2) say "just a minute please"
3) put them on hold
4) go about your day