Best for
Sam's Club Merchant Services is best for small to mid-sized businesses serving the retail, restaurant, and services industries.
Specializes in
Sam's Club Merchant Services (Sam's Club) is a reseller of Fiserv (previously known) merchant account services catering to the retail, restaurant, and services industries. The company offers a tiered pricing structure that isn't as transparent as interchange-plus pricing. There is also no specific mention by Sam's Club of the company's offering of an easy-to-integrate payment gateway, shopping carts, virtual terminals, or API and support for eCommerce service businesses. Sam's Club partners with Clover and First Data Global Leasing to offer mobile and traditional POS equipment.
Pricing Summary
Setup Fee: Undisclosed
Monthly Fee: Undisclosed
Swipe Rate: 2.29% + $0.19
Keyed-in Rate: 3.29% + $0.19
Early Termination Fee : Up to $90
Contract Terms:
Sam's Club Merchant Services is an ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., of Concord, California. The parent company, Sam's Club, was founded in 1983, and the company's headquarters are in Bentonville, Arkansas. The current CEO of the company is Kathryn McLay.
Sam's Club was founded in 1983 as a member's-only retail warehouse outlet. The current headquarters of the company are in Bentonville, Arkansas, and is led by Kathryn McLay. Sam's Club Merchant Services is a division that offers merchant account solutions via its reseller agreement with Fiserv. The company has also partnered with First Data Global Leasing and Clover for POS equipment sale and leasing.
Sam's Club caters to the retail, restaurant, and services industries and offers tiered pricing. Sam's Club is not accredited with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and has no rating. However, there have been a fair number of complaints against the company for lack of fee disclosure, misrepresentation of rates, and poor customer service.
Head Quarters
Bentonville, AR
Year Founded
1983
CEO
John Furner
Employees
24000
Merchant Provider Risk Tolerance
Offers a full line of Clover products
EMV-compatible mobile card reader
Primarily offers tiered pricing plans
Standard multi-year contract
Undisclosed early termination fee
Deceptive sales tactics
Poor customer service
Limited pricing disclosed online
Payment Processing: Sam's Club offers businesses merchant services to accept American Express, Discover, Visa, and Mastercard as a reseller of Fiserv payment processing, formerly First Data.
Point of Sale: Sam's Club resells and mobile POS equipment of Clover and First Data Global Leasing. The company's POS products include Clover Flex, Clover Go, Clover Station, Clover Station Pro, and FD130.
Tertiary: There is also POS software available through Clover, along with the equipment depending on merchants' needs, including:
Payments Plus – can accept cash payments and signatures.
Register Lite – offers the functionality of Payments Plus along with barcode scanning and inventory tracking.
Register – Includes all other models' functionality and offers order management and operations management, and analytics tools.
The Clover Go mobile app lets merchants review transactions, manage operations, employee performance, track inventory, and run reports, all in real-time.
Discloses All Important Terms
No
Public Pricing Available
Yes
Sam's Club resells payment processing services of First Data. Below is the detail we have found for their fees;
Swiped rate: 2.29% + $0.19
Keyed rate: 3.29% + $0.19
Annual PCI Compliance Fee: $49.95
Early Termination Fee: $90
Since Sam's Club specializes in catering to retail, restaurants, and e-commerce and services businesses, merchants are likely to incur charges for batch fees, gateway and virtual terminal costs, and technical support charges. The company does not disclose these fees and has had its fair share of complaints about that lack of disclosure.
Pricing Model
Tiered Pricing
Swiped Rate
2.29% + $0.19
Keyed-in Rate
3.29% + $0.19
Mobile Payment Rate
Virtual Terminal Rate
3.29% + $0.19
Monthly Fee
Undisclosed
Payment Gateway Fee
Undisclosed
Batch Fee
Undisclosed
Early Termination Fee
Up to $90
PCI Compliance Fee
$49.95 Per Year
Equipment Lease Terms
Up to 60 Months (locked)
Address Verification Service (AVS)
Application Fee
Account Setup Fee
Undisclosed
Gateway Setup Fee
Undisclosed
Annual Fee
Monthly Minimum
$5 (Value Rate Plan Only)
Statement Fee
Unfortunately, Sam's Club isn't very transparent with the contract terms. The company offers tiered pricing via its reseller merchant accounts partner Fiserv.
The company also has a lease equipment offering for POS equipment through Clover that has a duration of 48 months. Also, the company offers equipment leasing through First Data Global Leasing for which is proprietary POS equipment. In that scenario, the merchant ends up with an equipment lease of 48 months and is bound to only process payments for the lease duration through Fiserv.
We firmly believe that the outright purchase of any equipment merchants need as the lease is a much more expensive prospect.
Contract Length
Month-to-month
Early Termination Fee
Up to $90
Sam's Club Merchant Services is not accredited with the Better Business Bureau as a separate business, nor is the parent company. To make matters more complicated, most complaints are likely to be filed against Fiserv rather than Sam's Club, as they handle all payment processing and customer support. Nonetheless, there have been complaints against Sam's Club Merchant Services mainly for poor customer service, misrepresentation of rates, and lack of disclosure to begin with.
BBB
N/A
N/A
N/A
Yelp
N/A
Total Online Reviews
60+
Total Online Complaints
25+
Lawsuits
None
If you're in the market for a merchant account provider, be sure to check out our user reviews, our merchant accounts guide and our top popular merchant provider picks