Global Payments was founded in 1967 by its former parent company, National Data Corporation, opened for business in 1970 and they service virtual and brick and mortar businesses. Global Payments is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (GPN), is a member of the S&P MidCap 400 Index and they are currently headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. They have offices located throughout the U.S., Canada, UK, Europe, Spain, Russia and the Asia-Pacific region. Global Payments currently processes approximately five billion transactions each year and serves over one and a half million merchants via their electronic information network. Global Payments is a Fortune 1000 company who provides electronic processing services for businesses, ISO's, financial institutions and government agencies. And they offer a variety of processing solutions, such as: credit cards, debit cards, Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT), as well as purchasing cards, gift cards, loyalty cards and stored value cards. Global Payments doesn't believe a one-size-fits-all solution works for the majority of businesses; therefore, they do not disclose any rates on their website. Each merchant is asked to contact the company for a consultation where the company will be rated based on their business model and monthly volume then given a rate quote. This is one area where aggressively negotiating the terms of the contract just might pay off with lower rates and better terms.

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The Good

Many Options
Features and Products

Many Options

Global Payments has a good reputation for a payment processor of its size and it doesn't appear that they use any deceptive marketing tactics; however, there are some complaints directed at Global Payment stating such, but they were actually derived from the actions of their resellers. Therefore, you can't really attribute those types of complaints to Global Payments themselves as they weren't due to any action on their part. Additionally, Global Payments appears to be very good at what they do and they have a massive number of options that are perfect for larger volume businesses. However, if you are a smaller merchant with low-volume processing, you might find a more suitable option elsewhere. Global Payments currently offers a three year contract that contains an automatic renewal clause. In addition, you will also enjoy many popular features, such as: terminal management, point-of-sale support services, electronic check conversion, check guarantee, check verification and check recovery services.

Features and Products

They also offer emerging payments, business-to-business payments, a front-end network, internet-based solutions for payment processing, storefront support, a payment gateway through the use of Authorize.net, as well as terminal leases and sales, non-profit fundraising, financial data management and resources for gaming operations. And on top of all that, they have a 24-7 toll-free customer service line for both technical support and general issues. That's a lot of bang for your buck and something to consider while trying to decide if Global Payments is right for you.

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The Bad

Security Breach
Independent Resellers
Early Termination

Security Breach

Global Payments was the victim of a security breach in March of 2012, which affected 50,000 to 10 million of its credit card holders. They self-identified the problem and self-reported the breach, but believed the affected customers were confined to North America and fewer than 1,500,000 card holders. Their investigation showed that Track 2 card data might have been stolen, but no names, addresses or social security numbers were accessed.

Independent Resellers

Unfortunately, Global Payments uses independent resellers to acquire new merchant accounts. This is a common practice among larger processing companies; however, this practice usually results in a multitude of complaints due to deceptive marketing and advertising tactics by resellers and because having so many independent resellers is so hard to oversee and control. It's quite possible those types of complaints stem from the fact that there are plenty of merchants who don't take the time to thoroughly read the contract and are surprised when they are assessed various fees or dinged by other written policies they weren't aware of. You should always read every word of any contract before you sign it, regardless of whether the salesperson is trying to rush you into signing or telling you that it contains standard contract verbiage.

Early Termination

It seems that Global Payments charges an early termination fee of $100-$500 per location and some merchants have mentioned a liquidated damages fee as well. This is just another reason to thoroughly read the contract before signing. Regardless, this is one area of the contract that should be aggressively negotiated.

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The Bottom Line

Global Payments has been in business for a very long time and has built their business model and their reputation to the level you see today. They offer an amazing number of features that are perfect for larger businesses with high processing volumes. However, for smaller businesses, Global Payments might not be the best fit for you due to their undisclosed rate structure, especially if you are just in the start-up phase. However, you should keep them in mind as a future possibility as your business grows. As far as some of the negative reviews posted around the internet, you really have to dissect them, understand them and use some common sense to determine whether or not you feel they are legitimate or are caused by some fault of the merchant themselves. Or possibly caused by one of the Global Payments resellers. Global Payments itself has very few complaints for a company their size and if they weren't performing up to merchant expectations, they would not have been in business as long as they have. Due to their long-standing positive reputation, their multitude of feature-rich services and the fact that they seem to be able to handle a variety of complex business needs with ease, we can confidently recommend their services. However, with that being said, there are some complaints that should be taken as fact and as with any business, what might be effective for one company, might not be as effective for another. Therefore, we strongly urge you to weigh your options carefully so you can make an educated decision that's right for you.

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Lily Montreal, QC

In the morning of June 8th, I noticed a suspicious money deduction by global payment from my business bank account and I asked global payment what it’s for, they asked me to give them the proof that money deduction did happen and they would do nothing otherwise. It’s not reasonable cuz they did the deduction and they had all the info they required in their own system (dispute service management).Anyway, I submitted the screenshot of my bank account to them and no response came back since, so I called them again and they said “we’ve gotten your request and you have to wait for 5-7 business days cuz our research team need do some research on it”. I was concerned so I kept calling them and finally on June 14th, they told me it’s a chargeback caused by a stolen credit card, the ‘customer’ who paid us using this card is a scammer. It’s so shocking cuz the scammers ( a group of people) kept using these stolen cards to buy products from my store from June 8th to June 13th and my total loss is $40k during this period. I could have saved $10k if global payment told me about the scam ONE day prior, and I could have saved $20k+ if they told me on June 8th, the very day when I asked them what the money deduction was. Global payment even had all the information available to warn me before June 8th that there was a chargeback involving a possible credit card fraud so I could check my history transactions and stop being scammed immediately. But no, they did nothing but asking me to give them the PROOF of deduction that’s already recorded in their own system. Later on they said I could access to these chargeback records on my own, but it turns out that I couldn’t cuz of some technical problems that they cannot solve. I wanna give global payment ZERO star instead of one. They don’t deserve one star. Don’t use their service. Keep away from global payment as far as you can.

2 years ago

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patrick le blond Havre-aux-Maisons, QC

This compagny is a FRAUD. The payment teminal TPV dosen't work. The APP dosen't work. The website dosen't work. The custumer's sevice is the worst i've ever seen. They don,'t even know how to use their own system. They make me repeat my email 10 times EVERY time I call because they don't understand ANYTHING I say. I've spent more than 12 hours on the phone with them. I've been ditch on the phone several times. I'm trying to my my acount since ONE month now. And still no possibility to do it. They charge fees for their service that we used for less than 6 hours. They tried to manipulate me on the phone as well, trying to make me say that I didn't wanted to close my account while I was trying to CLOSE it. I'm STILL on the phone right now and i've been waiting for 2 hours 5 minutes just to try to close my acount AGAIN. But of course they won't.

3 years ago

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Animesh Bhatia New Albany, OH

This company is a masterclass scam artist. They will sneak in add-on services and charges to your statements without your knowledge and then insist that these are "mandatory services and charges" per the "regulations" . When you did deeper to ask what regulations they are talking about, they will remove the charge...Oh, so what happened to the regulations now? The customer service reps have the people skills of car salesmen and it looks like they make a commission from whatever additional charges they can fleece off of customers. My so-called 'personal rep' Carl R. is a complete liar and sounds like those phishing random callers claiming they are the IRS. I am a business owner for 25 years and the best advice I can give you is DO NOT WORK WITH THIS COMPANY

4 years ago

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Steve Metcalf Swindon, SWD

very poor company, they hit you with stealth charges, they do not tell you before your are hit with charges, which they are meant to, they say that you must be PCI compliant, but they make it almost impossible to become compliant and they will charge you if you have not done what you say you have at £75.00 per month, they have broke the terms of their own contract by not informing me, it will cost you £75.00 to send your old device back, to make sure its working, who knows what they charge if it was broken? I have had no contact with the company since it opened my account except for the invoice statements I get when I used it, on section 6 of my contract it states "You understand that we require proof of your compliance with PCI DSS within two months of processing your first transaction.Please refer to the Know the Risks leaflet for further information. Failure to provide this may result in non-compliance charges being applied to your invoice. Non-compliance charges will be advised" Clearly a breach of contract from Global Payments in not informing me! go else where there are far better companies out there

5 years ago

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Shelley

The absolute worst staff ever! my Debit machine isn't working, they said it was my internet provider, I called Cogeco, my internet is fine because all my other devices are working perfectly, then they said it was my router and on their advice I bought a $180.00 dollar router, and still the debit machine isn't working. But the worst thing is Global Payments thinks I should pay for something I don't own $150.00 dollars for a technician to come out and fix their machine. And the other worst thing one of their Technician John that I last spoke with said I wasn't allowed to talk with a manager, disgusting, and towards the end of the conversation I was in the middle of speaking and John just hung up on me. What a way to treat your clients. Global Payments you should be really proud of yourself, I gave you a 1 star because you without doubt deserve it.

5 years ago

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Gerri

We decided to change merchants and contacted customer service in November. We left multiple calls to Sales but none were returned. We were told later that our contact was on sick leave! No-one was covering his work??? We reached out to support to obtain a cancellation form to include with the terminals. We were told it would take 24-48 hours to send a form by email. Ludicrous!! We had to call 4 times to obtain the form and only when I threatened to go to senior management did I receive the form - 20 minutes after I called. So much for 24-48 hours!. By this time it was December and the billed us again. They promised a refund but still waiting ... Bad business, Bad service. Bad ethics.

5 years ago

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SH. P

Business located in Calgary - This company overcharged us about $9,500 in fees over 1 year and 3 months. Initially, you start out paying the average collective ~5% for processing credit cards (including monthly fees, and their thousand other fees). Then they increased it (by adding more fees) June 2018 to 8-9% of our sales. Apparently, they gave us "notice" through back page on our month statement that does not get mailed out (you can only access through website, and my parents are not tech savvy nor is their primary language English). AND THEN, they added MORE FEES AGAIN in March 2019 to collectively equal 10-12% of our total credit card sales. THIS IS ROBBERY. If you don't refute within 3 months, it means you've acccepted the rate. My parents only started taking notice when their bank account balance seriously began to dwindle then I came in to investigate. They have offered to lower the collective rates to about 40% of current 10-12% charge, but that's still higher than other major merchant rates. We are going to change. WATCH OUT everyone. They're scam artists, they tell you to go get a lawyer if you want to try to get your money back. Terrible. They will keep increasing your fees if you don't take notice and they will singlehandedly BANKRUPT you.

5 years ago

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Fair Flower Mejor Rees

This is the crappiest company ever. Do not sign up with them or else tou go bankrupt. We had issues with them for more than 2months now and still on going. They owe us money and because of that we could be homeless and loose our busineas anytime soon. We have 2 small children to feed and shelter and UK's weather is not the best to sleep outdoor. If you dont want to be victimize with these people do not I warn you do not sign up with them.. Global Payments, screw you! Give us our money back!!! Wait for the case we filed against you.. We may not have all the power and money but I will do my very best to get our money back and to make sure you pay damages

5 years ago

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Nelson Salazar

I got robbed every month. I complained almost every single month. Some months I never used the global payments machine and I would get billed 250 for the month. I have no idea who was charging me. It was manually being taken out of my account. I complaint to my provider who neglected to contact me back and always had a strange excuse and also was always saying he was busy. I will never use or trust this company ever again. Do not go forwars with this company! When i canceled with them I got billed 280. If you can avoid going with then use stripe or PayPal. They're wait time for your paymebt is 4 to 6 business days which is horrible. I recommend not going with global payments. Their customer service is horrible, they do not care for your account, they always had a strange excuse for billing me high rates.

6 years ago

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Thomas Kirby Glen Allen, VA

I am a veteran independent software engineer and developer who has integrated dozens of different payment systems into sites from small to huge. I have never seen anything as bad as Global Payments. The company seems to be a disorganized collection of acquired companies. We signed up for a GP test account, and as we get deeper into the online documentation, the actual payment service involved is a 2015 acquisition called RealEx Payments. As we started writing test code, we had a few questions. Several phone calls later, I am told that the only support channel is through an email address. Fine. I sent email, waited several days, and received an adequate response. During this delay, I discovered several more issues. Their documentation is incomplete, and often simply incorrect -- what's written does not match the real-world requirements or results at all. Worse yet, the API is full of gaping holes - basic functionality you would expect to find is absent. When you ask them about it, they just stop responding. I've dealt with many payment processors over the years, so this is not completely unheard of, just the first of many "red flags." I end up calling Dublin Ireland, trying to track down the RealEx people, who are initially responsive and helpful in solving one problem (out of ten?). As the number of problems begins to increase, though, they refer me to someone at another company in the US, Heartland. This guy is nice enough, but I'm still not getting answers. Turns out, he is relaying my questions back to Dublin! So, I email them again. Almost a week later, I get a response that reads basically, "read the documentation and (word too naughty for delicate eyes) off." The message apparently being, "what you see is what you get, and we're not going to help you." Thanks. So, I've wasted FOUR WEEKS doing what should have taken 4 days. Now we're pushing the whole thing back to the corporate client behind this project and we'll see what happens. My recommendation is to avoid Global Payments at all costs. It is definitely not worth the trouble.

6 years ago

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Jennifer DeBrielle Springfield, NJ

Worst customer service ever! As a small business owner I am utterly blown away at the unacceptable business practices of this company. I worked with their customer service rep to set up my account, and accept my first payment. While I was assured that the account would accept charges of a large amount ($7000+) only to be told a week later after providing all of the clients information, my business information, repeated daily emails and calls back and forth with their risk analysis team, that my account was "the wrong account type and could only accept payments of $300 per day" Although their bank accepted the funds from my customers bank, they still refused to release the funds to me, I was told that I had to get another form of payment from my client and that "the clients funds will be refunded to their account in 7-10 days" This did not come across in a formal letter on company letterhead it came through via email in a very unprofessional manner. When I requested a formal notice 3 days ago I received yet another email stating the funds were returned and should show in the clients account in 7-10 days. again unacceptable. STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE especially Gladys d. RISK ANALYST, NA RISK TEAM, GLOBAL PAYMENTS PROCESS CENTRE, INC.

7 years ago

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Rob A Coquitlam, BC

MINUS (Yes -5) STARTS > THE WORST COMPANY EVER. They put you on hold and pass you around from person to person(entry level customer service person only) and end result is ZERO progress on anything. They never give you any direct number for anyone in a MGT position. Instead i have spent about 8-10 hours(estimated) on the phone getting the run around. They refuse to email anything, instead insisting everything done by phone so there is no written record of there scam and scum moves. DO NOT SIGN UP WITH THESE SCAMMERS.

3 years ago

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Angel L.

Michal K who works for the company is a horrible sales rep. Who writes an email saying "I was exploring your website and see how invaluable your platform is to your clients and your market". This isn't 2007 lots of people are using other payment methods on their platform now...... This man is making people turned off of the company in my honest opinion.

3 years ago

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Helen Traicus Markham, ON

I would give them a zero rating if possible. They did not cancel an account and continued to withdraw money out of our bank account. Trying to get our money back has been a nightmare. The person dealing with the account Nishanthan K, will not answer his phone, or return any phone or email messages. We have been trying for months. Stay away from this company!

4 years ago

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Harish Raniga

The calls get routed to Philippines and the clowns there have no idea of what is going on. Based in the UK, we never get to speak to anyone in the UK. The operators in the Philippines office act like circus clowns. Primary schools Kids can do much better. Based on the outrageous charges we pay, GET SOME SENSIBLE STAFF. YOU ARE CHARGING US ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO HIRE PEOPLE, NOT CLOWNS. They are all very very well trained to keep apologising for their other clown colleagues but not one is capable of answering a straight question with any degree of satisfactory response.

6 years ago

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Andrew

Its been a complete nightmare dealing with them. My rate went up to 250 a month (even if I didn't touch the machine) with no notice. When I tried to cancel they kept forwarding me to a man WHO NO LONGER WORKED FOR THEM. 3 months before they let me talk to anyone else. But still continued to charge me $250 a month for those three months. I was with a new provider and wasnt using their service but was told it couldn't be refunded even though I attempted to cancel months prior and had the emails and phone logs to show for it.

6 years ago

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Mark Raleigh, NC

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! After horrible service I cancelled my account in December of 2016. Unbeknownst to me they continued to fraudulently charge my business account from between $41.92 to $195.87 monthly for two years until my accountant questioned the nature of the charges. They are almost impossible to reach on the phone and provide a set of excuses when one finally get through. I have been defrauded of $1920.79.

6 years ago

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Mathieu Baribeau

These guys doubled my rates from about 2-2.5% to 4.7% overnight , then trying to contact anyone about this was impossible, then I decided to cancel my services and agree to pay a cancellation fee of 575$. Two weeks after sending the proper documentation, they still had not cancelled the account and they charged me 175$ even though I did not use the machine at all during the previous month. These guys are robbers, stay away if you want to have a good mental health

7 years ago

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Gary Reaves Flint, TX

Your CRAZY if you do business with this company. I called an got an approval code from a LIVE PERSON but now two days later they have frozen my account till THEY verify with the bank that it is good. SO maybe in two business days ,they will unfreeze my account , since this is Thursday , maybe Monday , I might start getting my money put back in my our business acct.

8 years ago

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nick lashgari

very unreliable payment processing, at one time it took almost 3 months before they deposit the money in to my account, then they processed all transactions at once and I'm getting calls from angry customers thinking I have hacked their credit cards coz they haven't been to my store recently and have lost customers for this reason. unreasonable fees and terrible customer service. I do NOT recommend this company to any one.

8 years ago

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David Young Ambler, PA

Increased our fee's 10x in a month with 0 notice. Then generously offered to reduce by 1/3. I am switching processors ASAP. Terrible tech, poor customer service, and robbing me just put me over the edge. I will be putting a stop payment against them on my account. I hope they sue us. At least they'll have to pick up the phone to do it.

6 years ago

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Super Top Tires Paterson, NJ

very complicated company that always go against the merchant in a disputed transaction, which in my case as small car repair there is nothing you can actually do to protect you business against crooks that uses credit card services to take advantage of small business.... Shame on you GLOBAL PAYMENTS!!!

8 years ago

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Lyle Burkhardt Pensacola, FL

I'm stuck using them for my chiropractic business because they have an agreement with my health records software. Terrible response time, they give you 3 numbers to call, and leave you on hold for 20-30 minutes at a time.

3 years ago

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Ute

Customer service is minus 10, this company are robbers, they never return messages, answer questions and suddenly increase my monthly fee payment from $59 to $243. Any small business stay away from those robbers

6 years ago

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Shahab

horrible experience with their wireless machines. i had to call them numerous time and the issue is not fixed yet. now I am trying to cancel and they want 500 cancellation fee!!!!!

6 years ago

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Kamie Demers

The company is not very competent and lack basic knowledge when they send couriers/installers to update debit machines. The communication with this company is very difficult.

6 years ago

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Amy Charlotte, NC

These guys are robbers, stay away if you want to have a good mental health. They force you to use their service and all of them are a liar included the supervisor.

6 years ago

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Jeramie Kramer Boise, ID

Terrible COmpany!!! They tell you one thing when you sign up and learn later. Do not use this company..you have been warned!!

3 years ago