Wondering how to cancel your Clover subscription?
Perhaps your monthly pricing nearly doubled in the span of a month or you don’t feel the hardware is a good fit for your business. Maybe you’ve found that your Clover device frequently experiences issues with tap payments being declined (indeed, the hardware can struggle with quick taps and may not work optimally in high-volume locations).
Whatever the case may be, we were wondering the same thing when we set out to cancel our Clover subscription.
One of the things that’s particularly confusing about the process of canceling your Clover account is that canceling with First Data (or a related payment processor) does not also cancel your Clover subscription. Clover comes with an additional equipment lease contract, which you have to pay on top of your primary one (here’s how to cancel First Data merchant services).
In this blog post, we’ll take you through our personal experience with canceling our Clover subscription so you know what to expect (and also how to choose a different merchant services provider in the future).
How Long Are Clover Contracts?
Like many other payment processors (but not all!), First Data and Clover require users to sign contracts. Yocale Pay is one of the few contract-fee payment processors.
To further complicate matters, often the equipment lease (hardware) contracts are even longer than the primary contract.
Generally speaking, though, a standard first-term Clover contract is 48 months in length or four years. Typically this contract is not cancelable.
How Do I Delete Clover? How to Cancel Your Clover Subscription: Our Experience
1. Call Clover’s Automated System to Determine the Remaining Contract Duration
You’ll reach an automated system that will tell you how many months left you have in your contract. In our case, we had 32 months left of the 48-month contract, which means that the contract was not cancelable.
2. Return the Device or Buy it Outright (If Applicable)
Next you’ll either need to return the device – ensuring that it gets there safely – or buy the device outright. If you’re returning the device, we recommend having proof that you mailed the hardware back and also taking pictures in case something happens during transportation.
If you’re like us, we were then forced to buy out the device at a total of $1,455. The problem here is that you can’t actually use the hardware unless the new payment processor happens to do business with First Data.
(To make matters worse, you can also purchase the same device on Amazon for $500).
3. Send an Email To Support
Next, we were directed to send an email to support. Even sending the email was not easy, which led to further delays.
At this point, we were finally able to reach someone on the phone (although even after an hour on the phone, our contract was still not canceled).
4. Monitor Your Account for Monthly Deductions
Although we were finally able to cancel our account, we noticed that there were still $40 monthly deductions coming out of our account (which Clover denied charging). This forced us to go to our bank to prevent them from withdrawing these fees, which still resulted in an $18 fee in order to do so.
After reading reviews, we realized that these were not isolated events and, in fact, had happened to others as well. One individual was charged $2,000 dollars even after they had canceled their account. Another person had their monthly fees taken out of an old bank account that didn’t have enough funds, which then resulted in overdraft fees.
Alternatives to Clover (Merchant Services Providers with Zero Contracts)
We are biased, of course, but Yocale Pay is one of North America’s fastest-growing payment processors known for complete transparency and wholesale rates. Yocale Pay was launched to counter the high payment processing costs that businesses have to pay.
On average, businesses save 30% of payment-related costs without having to sign a contract or pay any hidden fees, like early cancelation fees or American Express surcharge fees.
When it comes to how to cancel your Clover subscription, the process isn’t easy. Interested in a contract-free merchant services provider? Fill out this short form here OR email us three months of statements at payments@yocale.com.