I own a merchant services company and agree with just about everything that you stated. After dealing with a few thousand internet merchants over the past five years I am sometimes quite surprised at their lack of understanding of the process and the potential consequences for poor business practices.

The consumer has numerous avenues to address internet merchants that are "sloppy" or outright "fraudulent" in their business practices. The business could lose their merchant account and end up being placed on the Terminated Merchant File and will never be able to get a merchant account again. Ultimately - no merchant account - no internet business.

Hopefully the OP and others at BF have reasonable expectations (I believe the OP does) and the OP does all a favor by letting us know about their experience with a particular merchant.

One dollar - One Vote! Bad service and we vote somewhere else!