Harbortouch Review

Your customer service is HORRIBLE!!! Our system goes down AT LEAST once to three times a week! Problems NEVER get resolved or if they do its temporary! Get disconnected all time and while they have the phone number of both the person calling in AND the restaurant phone number they do not call back. They pull the old I'm sorry I can't hear you can you hear me? So you think they would call back but no. Also I or my staff have had times when we have been on the phone with your reps one time 5 hours in one day, the average time on phone with you guys is 1 to 1 1/2 hours. This is time my managers are taken away from my business, staff and customers! The pattern seems to be that by restaurant gets the equipment that does things you have had to deal with before because the response from your techs is always we have never seen this before and then they put us on hold forever then come back and say they have to take it to "the next level" and they will have to call us back. Which we have now figured out is code for just get us off the phone because you have no intention to fix it!!!! We NEVER get called back so we tend to like to stay on the phone util problem is resolved which can be hours. Our system seems to go down on a regular basis when we are extremely busy like a FRI or SAT night they just freeze up. Then when we call it takes 10 to 20mins to get a live person on the phone and then they have the nerve to tell you to calm down REALLY??!! I have 200 plus people in my restaurant phones ringing off the hook for carryout and delivery and people standing in front of me for pick ups and to pay for the tickets and we can't do anything and I'm supposed to CALM DOWN?! If this just happened once in a while I would understand however its all the time. As a matter of fact I'm typing this as we are on hold and working with one of your techs right now and this call is now been over an HOUR! I told him which station was not working (5) right up front 5 mins in he said station (3) and I said NO I never said (3) I said (5) oh. After a half hour of him having us do several "things" to station (5) we realize that he was on station (2) that WHOLE TIME!!!! Unbelievable! We have a station (2) that we have been paying for and have not been able to use for several months because you have not been able to fix it! You keep sending me parts and they don't work have I gotten any credit for it? NO! I feel we are doing your job, we are asked to plug, unplug, switch printers, cables run back and forth between stations on a regular bases. Myself and management staff have spent numerous hours on the phone with your company with absolutely no compensation whatsoever. It is ridiculous the amount of time spent on a system that does NOT work properly! Do I expect a response to this message? HA no it will be like every other dealing we have had with your company.

We have had the Harbortouch POS system for over two (2) years. We regrettably signed a three (3) year contract. Since day 1, we have had nothing but trouble with the system. The system can go offline numerous times, or freeze up, throughout the day, generally when customers are waiting. This is extremely bothersome when you are trying to charge a credit card. Added to this, is that this company has one to the poorest customer service I've had the displeasure of dealing with. Today, our system went down three times during sales, with the last time the POS froze up. One was with a credit card purchase, thankfully the customer was very understanding and used cash instead. Once again we had to call customer service (which is poor) and once again we were put on hold for over 35 minutes. At first, the customer service rep said to just turn off the system, and turn back on -- rebooting ---- informed him that has already been done, then he put us on hold again. He returned to tell us that 'yes' there is 'something' wrong with their system, they are working on it, and it should be around an hour or so. When asked about credit card sales, his response was that we could always call the credit card company! Unacceptable when you are running a restaurant and the customers are waiting to pay. Customer Services' attitude appears to be that 'we have you under contract... hahaha. I know another merchant who also has Harbortouch, and has the same problems and complaints. We laughingly called the Harbortouch our "POS POS". Today was the final straw with the POS and Harbortouchc.. we are paying for a service that is not useful at best. We have upheld our in the contract, they have not... as we told Harbortouch today. This matter is being turned over to our attorneys to get us out of the contract. My advice to any company considering a POS system, DO NOT go with Harbortouch. Do your research. Ourselves?? We are going back to Square, a very reliable service.

During the week they always do a system update during the day when it is lunch time and we can never process transactions with cards. Poor timing in updates to systems. Don't know why their tech support people don't do updates at night when restaurants are closed, or for our system to still work off line and process payments. Causes sooo much trouble for workers and our clients that eat here. And when you call in the tech support you can't get through and all customer service is hand it over to another party and pass the buck. Still no help from tech support!! I guess the managers are a lost cause!!! Soooo bad!!! Going to get another better POS system that can work offline or able to still can make transactions no matter what.

Going with Harbortouch was the absolute worst decision I made in opening my business. Let me start by explaining what initially attracted me to Harbortouch: 1) Low upfront costs, 2) Salesperson told me to expect my effective rate to be about 1.8%, 3) Equipment would be under full replacement warranty for three years, 4) Customer service would be on call 24/7, 5) Salesperson told me that they would be the first company to issue an EMV solution for restaurants, and 6) they told me that they had a reservation system built in to the system. Now here is my experience: 1) The low up-front costs turned out to be "not true". There were a lot of set-up fees, printer fees, etc that they never explained up front. 2) Four months in to operating my business, my effective rate is closer to 2.55% (not the 1.8% the Sales Rep quoted). 3) I've had two hard equipment breakdowns in the first four months. Yes, they did replace the equipment but transit and set-up time accounts to over a week. So that's two week's worth of down equipment so I've lost internal capacity and added wait times to my customers. 4) Yes, customer service is on-call 24/7. BUT, hold times to talk to someone often are over 30 minutes. I typically need their help a couple times a week because the software is complete crap as well. Then another 20-30 minutes or so to resolve the software problems. So I lose about 2 hours of my life per week dealing with crappy software and their Customer Service. 5) The promised EMV system is no longer even on the horizon. 6) The reservation system is unusable. It doesn't even have the base functionality of a free online software like TableAgent. Additionally, they randomly withdrew $2100 from my account. When I called to see what was going on, they said that it was an equipment charge from one of the pieces of hardware that needed to be replaced. After they investigated, they told me that this was a mistake and to go to my bank to put a 'stop payment' on the withdrawal. I did as they told me. Then the next few days they stopped paying all my credit card transactions. Again, when I called, they told me that this was a mistake from their automatic computer system. They eventually got it fixed, but it cost me about 5 days delay on receiving the restaurant sales. The software is complete crap and continues to break down a couple times per week. It doesn't even have the basic functionality needed to run a restaurant. In theory its simple to us. But with the number of times it breaks down per week, and the limited functionality, you always need a manager around to come up with workarounds when the software doesn't work or doesn't do what you need it to do. The number of times I've called customer service and requested a call-back from a supervisor: 9 The number of times I've received a call-back: 0 I am 4 months in to a 3 year contract. As soon as I am able to do it, I will definitely buy another system and take the loss on the Harbortouch contract. So yeah, Harbortouch is definitely the worst mistake I made. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Our experience with Harbortouch has been horrible.They have charged us fees above what was agreed to, and charged bogus PCI fees, which no reputable bank charges. To get refunds from them is like pulling teeth. Example: Looking at the December 2016 statement, I had total transactions in the amount of $802.34. Of this amount, $595.54 were debit transactions. Of the total of $802.34, I was charged $71.01, or 9% of my total. Square would have charged $22 for $800 in transactions at a flat rate of 2.75%. These alleged charges of "authorization" and "other" are included in the processing fees, not in addition to. Both their regional manager Darren Sellner, and their sales rep Sal Balistreri promised that any rates from other banks would be matched by Harbortouch. Complete BS! Also, their CEO Jared Isaacman basically told me I was stuck in a contract and no refunds for overcharges would be made. By the way, this so called "free" POS system costs us close to $100 per month, in addition to their outrageous fees. Also, there contract protects them from filing suit in your local courts, and that you wave class action status. Would a reputable company need this?

I've been with Harbortouch since day 1 of my new business. I trusted the slick words of Curtis Stevens at GotMerchant as he got me set up with everything I needed to get going. The first few years went well, and the software served my needs perfectly. However, when it came time to grow, the trouble started. Harbortouch made me "upgrade," which essentially meant utilizing their new software which was a HUGE downgrade in functionality. When I complained, after a few efforts to try and help, it was determined their new software couldn't do half of what I'd enjoyed about the prior version. I asked to be let out of my contract so I could find a workable solution, but Harbortouch flatly refused and my salesperson at GotMerchant was of absolutely no help. In fact that's when I discovered the heinous contractual bind he'd put me in - no doubt for some kind of bonus on the back end. My POS and processing contracts were staggered such that cancelling them would be almost impossible. The language they use to describe the Turn-Key solution lulled me into thinking they were representing things honestly, when in reality I'd stumbled into overlapping traps of auto-renewals - designed to keep me obligated to them forever unless I wanted to pay thousands in early termination fees. I worked for 45 minutes straight with a customer service person to obtain exact timing - down to the day - for when / how I'd have to communicate with Harbortouch to cancel with ONLY $2500 in cancellation, inactivity and early-termination fees. I am going to cancel because I hate being tricked and trapped so much that it's worth the cost to be free. However, I feel extremely angry at Curtis Stevens, GotMerchant and Harbortouch for such predatory and disreputable practices.

Harbortouch has 2 different POS system options so you can choose which one you want. However, it limits your choice in payment processing companies, since it's not universal.