I visited this fitness center while researching which local gym I wanted to join. For starters… this had to have been the filthiest gym I've ever stepped foot in. I got the heebie-jeebies from just being inside the roach-infested dump. I was given a tour by an employee named Chris Marzella.

Not only was he physically repulsive in the way of looks (in fairness though, I think he may have been retarded), but his behavior was very sleazy too. As he was showing me around, he was asking personal questions like whether I was married and whether I was gay or straight… very innapproprite stuff.

Part of the way through the tour we ran into a guy named Kent Bierly, who apparently was either the manager or owner. He compounded the creepiness. He was very egotistical. It was a real putoff. He asked if I ever thought about competing in a physique contest. Apparently he also runs an organization referred to as the ANBF – American Natural Bodybuilding Federation.

He was trying to recruit me for one of his contests. After it became apparent I had no interest in competing in a physique contest, he changed gears and began asking uncomfortable personal questions similar to what Chris had been asking me.

Kent and Chris tried to pressure me into a gay three-way, but by that point I was subjected to more than enough to know I needed to get the heck out of there ASAP. I walked out as fast as I could. These guys were about the creepiest individuals you could ever imagine running into. I'd join any gym over this one!

http://gofederated.com/

They always say its you. But whats always the common denominator? They are

When an employee almost dies after being found the next morning, blood soaked in an elevator, after using drugs and alcohol in the Melville office with Scott Avery afterhours, you must believe something is wrong

As a former employee of this organization for MANY YEARS at an executive level, I can only agree with the negative remarks posted. Not only have I had a professional relationship with this organization, I have also had an extensive personal relationship with the individuals mention at this company. In the end, I was treated just like everyone else was; disposable.

No matter how good you are, how much revenue you earn them, how hard you work for them It will come to an end and they will fabricate anything to put the blame on the other party. This is a company who fired 20+ employees, just hours before a company Christmas party. This is a company who

intentionally cuts off residual payments weeks before they vest for life to the agent. This is a company who will [and has] take away the livelihood of the most loyal of employees.  All because they are greedy. CEO Jon Levitt says it best with his famous line, My kids eat first.

Jon Levitt recently terminated the #1 sales manager for the past 5 years, via a phone call from home, while the employee was at his desk working to earn this company more. This is a manager who has accounted for over 10,000 of their existing clients. Thats more than Scott Avery, VP, has even accounted for. All over a rumor that this individual was looking to advance his career else ware after CEO Jon Levitt stated, as long as L**** is employed at Federated, he will be a sales manager. Period. Furthermore, they attempted to slander his name across the company after his dismissal rather than resolving the matter privately. This is an employee who would work 65+ hour weeks with no overtime; fueled by his dedication to the company.

They will attempt to discredit you: They will hypocritically denounce you. Calling you irresponsible, dishonest, or disloyal.

Then they use lines like:  Just another case of a rep who cant close Just a guy mad that he cant sell –  You violated your agreement ( usually based on fabricated info)  to rebuttal any blogs like these.

They will tell you: We cant set appointments in your area anymore, its a bad area. (this is how they get you to perform below your contract requirements so they dont have to pay you anymore)

The bottom line at this company is the bottom dollar. I understand free enterprise, I appreciate capitalism, and yes I was part of this organization for a very long time.

Just remember EVERYONE IS DISPOSABLE at this company. 

Federated Payment Systems, a.k.a. Federated Payments, a.k.a. FPS, a.k.a. OnePay, a.k.a.  National

Debit Card Network, a.k.a. MSI Canada, a.k.a. Federated Payments Canada, a.k.a. Wholesale Merchant Services, a.k.a. U.S. Bankcard Center, is directed by Jon Levitt, John Guirguis, and a silent partner who has no part in the daily operations of this company. Evan Schweitzer is the CFO and Scott Avery is the #2 to Jon Levitt.

I'd be careful before getting into to anything. I actually work for their biggest competitor, direct for the bank and through my employer, I found out some disturbing things, namely:

1. MSI, Merchant Services Inc all don't exist as companies anywhere in Canada. My employer has me working with their legal department to investigate this matter and void each of the contracts I signed and sign up with Moneris. This will be executed Nation Wide. MSI et al changed the contract terms for each and every one of my customers, numbering over 25 for a breach of contract in the millions of dollars.

2. MSI or Federated Payments is what they are calling themselves, failed to pay me and we are in adjudication with the Province of BC to get my owing commissions of over $11,000. They tried to dupe me and the province by trying to state that they signed a contract with my company, but issued me a T4A (Employee Statement of Self Employed Earnings). Oops! By BC Law, all self employed contractors are entitled to at least minimum wage if commissions are not sufficient to cover minimum wage levels. Plus, employers are required to pay vacation pay, termination pay and for stat holidays. The Strangest thing is that I signed my contract with MSI or Merchant Services Inc but my T4A came from Federated Payments. I don't think these guys really know what they are doing, just expoited our country and our people.

3. Failure to register a legal company within each province is illegal and having contracts signed with a false name is illegal as well. I actually spoke to the Vancouver Police fraud detective who is compiling evidence from me and Afftidavits from each of my customers to substantial criminal charges with the Crown Prosecutor. The owner won't be able to hide in the States if there is a criminal charge laid.

4. I will be filing a Wrongful dismissal, fraud, breach of contract statement of claim in Supreme Court here in BC and already filed in Ontario. In BC, I retained a lawyer who seems to think I have a solid case and is working on contingency for me.

5. I have complied a list of ALL employees in Canada of MSI which I have forwarded to the competition bureau and Employment Standards for further investigation. I am confident that presenting my evidence including signed contracts, Schedules, afftidavits from customers I will win my case both with Employment Standards and in Supreme Court of BC.

6. I've gone to so many sources including the CRA to investigate tax fraud, the competition bureau, industry canada, the Police, and most importantly the courts which should leave a public record of events which can be used as press releases in the future for all aliases in Canada and the US. I am also in the process of trying to get a fraud alert issued for employees, customers and businesses who can be affected by this company.

As you know, in this technology age, it is easy to go after a company from a multitude of angles. I will stop when they pay me what they owe me, plus damages and wrongful dismisall and contract breaches for my customers and myself. Ironically, I was on pace to make over $150K with them but now I will make even more working for a reputable company and directly for the bank.

Unfortunately, they found the wrong person to screw in me. I will fight this to the end and won't stop until justice is served. The longer this takes, the more damage inflicted to their reputation. Yes, I think all of my interviews are completed and my lawyer has a few thousand pages to sift through, thank goodness he is working on contingency and he will work with each of the parties involved to formulate a proper legal strategy in BC going forward. I'll keep the blog posted when I have time. I'm swamped working and signing deals (I actually average about 7 – 10 deals a week) so I have to do the litigation work in between.

But, mark my words, I will NEVER stop until Justice is served.

I worked for this company for a very short period of time. Initially, I was very hesitant to move forward with this company, and was pursued by National Sales Manager, Scott Avery. Mr. Avery finally convinced me to come to training by saying "Try it out for at least 30 days, if you don't like it, we'll pay you residuals for as long as the client stays on the books.". Lived up to my end of the bargain and worked for the company for a little over a month, and ultimately decided it was not for me. The ultimate goal in this form of business is to charge the client as much as you can, as the more you charge, the more you make. Since I did not like ripping off small business owners who work hard for their money, I pursued other forms of business where I can sleep well night by providing a value added service to businesses, and the price is the price with zero negotiation. Bottom line, they paid me residuals for a few months and than stopped with absolutely zero notice. I attempted to call Scott Avery for several months, and he never returned any of my several messages, When I grabbed him on the phone live, he told me he was busy, and said he would call me back, which he never did. After numerous attempts, he finally responded back to me in email as he was obviously afraid to speak with me live, stating that according to the contract I signed, if I do not sell 2 deals in a given month, than the company does not have to pay me any residuals. I recently came accross one of their job postings on Monster.com, and they advertise Lifetime Residuals. Protesting to Mr. Avery via email, as it was the only way he would communicate with me, that it is not what we verbally agreed upon, he dished it off as a signed contract and I could not do anything about it. Seeing my residuals were about $150/month, and I am close to a year since they have not paid me any residuals, the company owes me $1,800 and growing. If you are considering working for this company, I would highly recommend you reconsider, or make sure to go through your contract with a fine tooth comb. If you are a business considering utilizing Federated Payment Systems Services, make sure to shop them, and by all means do not take the first offer they give you. The rate is always negotiable, and I would recommend shoping to at least 2 other vendors before coming to a decision. Hope this information is helpful to other people, so they can avoid being lied to by representatives of this company, and making sure to protect themselves at all levels. Recently worked for federated Boston, Massachusetts
U.S.A.

HELP!  My name is Ed and I work for Christopher Columbus LLC.  I am asking for help because I have been working on resolving an issue with one of your partners and their leasing company about a nurit 8020 wireless device our company leased.  We leased our nurit 8020 in April of 2009 and sent the machine in to our processing company, Federated Payments, because we had an error code come up approximately 3 months after we had it.  Our processor told us initially that the machine was struck by lightning.  Federated sent us out a nurit 3200 as a loaner until they could decide what to do, Ocean Equity continued to bill us for our lease payment even though we did not have the machine for 4 months.  I followed up several times with Federated Payments and they had no answers and then most recently they told us that the machine was sent to you to be checked and you deemed that the machine was opened.  Federated sent me back the machine with it labeled 'beyond economical repair'.  I explained the situation to Ocean Equity, who sent e a letter confirming that we were out of our lease, but also deducted $501.62 as final payment for the broken machine.  I asked Federated to fax me some type of documentation to verify that they did send our equipment back to you and that you deemed it beyond economical repair.  Federated Payments has not produced that documentation to date.  I have been working on getting this resolved for the last 2 months and have  received nothing but the run around by both Federated Payments 1-866-912-8777 and Ocean Equity 757-631-0163.  I have left several messages asking to speak to supervisors at Federated and no one returned my calls.  I have spoken with the owner of Ocean Equity several times when I catch him and he did state he would refund our money if he got back a working machine by the middle of this month.  We are in the middle of 2 crooks in my opinion.  Federated has told us many different stories and Ocean Equity took money from us for a machine that does not work.  Our serial number for our machine is    BLU xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx.  Our merchant ID with Federated Payments is xxxxxxxxxxx  Can you please let me know if our machine was sent into you to be evaluated and if it was, what the outcome was because I have not gotten any cooperation from Federated Payments or Ocean Equity, who I am going to put up on Rip Off Report. Sorry for the long winded story but, I really do need help.

My aunt is an older woman and is looking for a job in Florida, now that she had to relocate for health reasons, she asked me to help her out and gave me the above address listed on the web that she thought was the USPS Website and I agreed to help her register because she was not familiar with online processes.

It looked like a website for the post office human resources and makes it look very much like they are affiliated with the company. The claim about a disclaimer that should be at the top of their website but it is conveniently located at the bottom (in grey very appropriate color by the way) stating they are not affiliated with the USPS.

Thank you guys for absolutely nothing!! Your so called resources that an 11 year old can put together are not worth the virtual space in which they take, and refusing to give someone back their funds after a simple mistake that is easy for anyone to make looking at your site; 15 minutes after they charged it.

You people know what your doing and your services are garbage and should be valued at zero. I am just getting started with you people. I got plenty of time and friends so have fun.

I was shopping for nightgowns and ordered one from this company. I returned it only to find they don't exist. I called , no answer.

This is a scam company and I wish someone would take them down. They are thieves!

I worked for Tammy for over a year and at first was paying commissions but then started to pay later and later until eventually she stopped paying. She now owes me close to $1500 and has completely blocked me from all contact with her.

She has now sold the business and new owner is saying he is not responsible. I just want to money I worked hard for. I’m not the only one owed money

The down payments are reasonable, I'll say that. My car was never registered nor did I receive my hard tags even after car being returned to them knowing that I already paid the payments to receive them I acquired the 2003 Cadillac CTS in a buy here pay here situation on 06/13/2019.

I had my tag from my last vehicle that was still current because I had just got it months before, so I asked them to just transfer it to the new vehicle instead of getting all new tags, the lady that did my sales paperwork said I might as well get new ones because they charge me for it anyway.

The first 3 or 4 payments were to be 242.03 tags, tax, title, and registration, and then drop to regular bi-weekly payments of 150.00. I was on time with first payment of 242.03 on 7/01/2019. The car started messing up within 3 week's time stalling on 7/03/2019, I called the Nashville Ride and Drive, they made it clear that the Clarksville TN office should of offered me a vehicle of similar value or gave me my deposit back, so I called the Clarksville TN office to make them aware of the situation.

I ended up spending a little over 900.00 stranded an hour away in Indiana because it was the transmission that needed to be replaced. Just in 3 week's time, a transmission replaced, I took in my repair receipt, because Alex said that if a customer makes a major one-time repair, bring in the receipt for a credit towards the payment for the car.

She only credited or did a forgive charge for 500.00. Alex claimed I still had a payment due for 242.03, and by the time I came in with that payment, I would have my hard tags,W they already discarded my current hard tag that they didn't transfer in place of a temp tag, next thing you know there is a crack in the radiator, seals needed to be fixed which Midas quoted me over 400 bucks for parts and labor.

I called ride and Drive again to let them know they seriously got over on me by leaving me in this horrible car. Alex says that since it was my last payment for 242.03, she would break it up because I wouldn't be able to miss a payment in my registration period.

I make payment on 7/18/2019 and they still didn't have my hard tags, they gave me my second temp tag. When I come to make last part of broken up payment, I inquired about my hard tags, and Alex had said the next time I came, they would have my hard tags, they didn't and gave me a third temp tag.

I moved forth on trying to make the other needed major repairs to the car, fell behind on car payments, then the car gets repossessed. I understood that, but inquired about getting my hard tags since they were already paid for and I wouldn't have enough time to get that same vehicle back.

Stephanie at the Clarksville TN office said to give her until 01/06/2020 andI could come get it, but I gave them until my last holding date for the vehicle which was 01/13/2020, which was also the date I brought them the key and got my personal items out the vehicle, and they still refused me my tag.

This time the black girl in the middle desk in front of the door, said that the owner said he was not going to get my tags, because I was behind. So, they not only upped the first payments claiming it's for tax, title, and registration, but they took the cash, they made me get a whole new tag registration even though I told them it's cheaper for me to just transfer my tag registration to that Cadillac, but they never even registered for my tags, and now I have not a tag at all.

It's either refund me my cash for the higher payments, or get my tags, it's simple. 

I started trading with this company in June, 2019. Over 5 months, I spoke regularly with my account manager, Max Bauer. I first deposited $2,000 in bitcoin through my Coinbase account. There were a few hundred dollars in commissions and fees, which Max promised would be reimbursed.

Over the next several months, he made many trades that looked profitable on paper, and I also qualified for a few bonuses that were promised when I signed up. In July, while on an Anydesk conference call, Max made an error and created an overdraft in my Coinbase account.

I had to cancel this with my bank, and incurred more fees. Max's mistake left my Coinbase account with a $78 overdraft which he promised he would pay, but never did. I tried to cover it myself, but the Coinbase system wouldn't process my attempts to fund it. They finally cancelled my account, forgave the overdraft, and opened a new account for me, which is still open today, but with no money in it.

In August Max offered more incentive for additional funding, so in August I sent a $1,600 wire transfer to his account with the Bank of China, in Hong Kong. I live on a fixed income, and borrowed the money to put into this investment firm.

My wife died in 2018, I lost her social security benefits, and made it clear to Max that I would need a steady income of at least $800 a month, starting in October. He explained that he was very busy, but would help me learn the cryptocrrency trading platforms so that in time, I could continue to trade profitably myself, as he had been doing all along.

In September, I started making small withdrawal requests from Tradenix. These were ignored. When I called to question this, I was told that I hadn't properly verified my identity by providing utility bills, photos of debit cards, and deposit declaration documents they had provided me their own forms to do. I supplied everything several times, but they kept telling me they didn't have it on file.

Over the course of the summer and early fall, Tradenix changed the design and layout of their website and trading platforms several times, and I wasn't always able to keep a record of my trading actvity– each new revision made it difficult and finally impossible to access my account activity or trading history. Max told me not to worry, he would request the financial department to make this information available to me.

The problems began on October 24. When I emailed Max to call me, he told me sorry, he made a bad trade, and my account balance was now $3.74. Sorry man, that's the inherent risk in trading this kind of equity……

I was able to make a printout of those last few days of activity, before online access to my Tradenix account was blocked. When I called, I got put on endless hold with some awful electronic music, then the line would ring busy after about five minutes.

I've sent emails and called regularly since then, and my calls don't go thorough. Emails are never answered.

In November, I started getting calls from individuals identifying themselves as Tradenix representatives. They tell me that they can recover the money I lost, by paying up front a percentage of the amount they stole from me.

Every time, when I tell them I'm not going to throw good money after bad, they hang up on me. They call from blocked numbers, but my phone system is able to trace the calls, and when I dial back, I get put onto the same endless musical hold that picks up when I dial their toll free number myself…….

In addition, I've been getting hangup calls, and breather calls, from these same New York exchanges the scammers have been calling from to try to get more money from me.