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Merchant Card Services

John Showalter

John Showalter

Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
3
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Location
West Chicago, Illinois
I’m new at the art show circuit and need to establish credit card services. Online investigation has been daunting with very complex and confusing information. Can anyone give me references for a service that does the following?
1. Has reasonable (or no) monthly minimums and modest monthly service charges.
2. Allows suspension of monthly charges for those times when I know that there will be no activity.
3. Has a user friendly application for virtual terminal services (though I’d be happy with a “knuckle buster†as well).
4. Has no multi-year contract and minimal or no cancellation fees.
Thanks for any advice.
John
 
#1 and #2 would be really nice, good luck
 
Chase has 1, 3 (we use 'touch-pay' and paper slips) and 4. Good luck finding 2, but they only have a monthly charge when you've no activity (so do something each month!). They also own their entire network, so you don't get hit with PCI compliance fees or penalties.
 
What I have found is they require a minimum amount of transaction $s/month. Say $25 plus a $10/month statement fee. The $25/month minimum comes from the %2.5-%4.5 per transaction that you pay when you take the card, in addition to the per transaction fee of $0.25-$0.35. If you use an electronic gateway, there is usually another monthly charge (which I haven't figured out why because it just runs with little or no human interaction).
And you don't know the % of the transaction until you see the statement,as a normal card may be only %2.5 (or the bottom rate) and a different rate for a membership card (rewards points).
So if you don't use the service for a month, in this case you would be on the hook for $35/month
 
I use a service called Merchant Anywhere. It works very well, with a 1.69% fee on a swiped transaction. A small printer/reader is available which links up quite nicely with your PDA cell phone. The Pocket Merchant printer/reader will strip your wallet of @$199, but will work flawlessly anywhere you can get cell phone reception. There is also a Bluetooth reader for @ $299 but it is a piece of junk!

I love the user friendly set up and you know instantly if the credit card which you've just swiped is approved. Just swipe the card and the printer will spit out a receipt. It will even figure the sales tax out for you. The cool thing is that if you have a Palm device, your customer just signs the screen on the PDA and his signature is captured and the receipt is accessible to your computer at home. The only downside is that monthly fee of $34. If I remember correctly, it breaks down to a $25 statement fee and a $9 security fee.

http://www.merchantanywhere.com/
 
Thanks for that info on Merchant Anywhere 🙂. I have been looking into this too. I checked out their website and it looks good. I did notice that you can process transactions from your PDA, like iPhone, Blackberry, and more. I think I will give them a call. 🙄
 
The software for the card swipe units from Merchant Anywhere is designed for and work best on a Palm OS. I'm processing my transactions with a 680 TREO......Palm Centro is also recommended. Remember to stay away from the BlueTooth unit. Don't ask me how I know!
 
I use ProPay. Their per-transaction fee is higher than some, but their yearly fee is lower, and with the relatively small number of transactions I do, it's been the most cost-effective solution for me. I could get a reader, but I just use a knuckle-buster and enter my sales on the computer at home after a show. Here again, my relatively low volume hasn't warranted the expense of a reader. To date (knock on MDF) I've had no bogus cards. (No bounced checks either, for that matter.)
 
Thanks, everyone. The info has been helpful. I've found Midwest Transaction Services, which caters to artist who do episodic billing. Their rates are fair and transparent, and best of all there are no long term contracts, no annual dues, no cancellation fees and they have a program for suspension of charges if you don't have activity for several months. I'll let you know how well it works after I've had a few billing cycles under my belt.
Happy turning.
J
 
John Showalter said:
Thanks, everyone. The info has been helpful. I've found Midwest Transaction Services, which caters to artist who do episodic billing. Their rates are fair and transparent, and best of all there are no long term contracts, no annual dues, no cancellation fees and they have a program for suspension of charges if you don't have activity for several months. I'll let you know how well it works after I've had a few billing cycles under my belt.
Happy turning.
J
Click to expand...

Meanwhile, do you have a link to them?
 
Also check out http://www.globalpaymentsinc.com/default.asp, I used them when I first started doing shows. At that time they were only $10 p/m plus your % discount. The knucklebuster was the weapon of choice and worked great, crunch the card and then call it in for approval. Because we do in excess of 25 shows per year, we do an electronic swipe which is more costly but we get the approval instantly and the $ are in the checking account the next business day as well.

Good Luck
 
Not sure how this would, or if it could work but what about paypal payment made from the purchasers phone(PDA)? Or an onsite computer. I imagine security would be an issue...

Just thought I would ask🙂
 
Larry Cronkite said:
There is a new kid on the block that sounds quite interesting:

https://squareup.com/

No sign-up or monthly fee - just a transaction fee.

I've signed up with them but have not used it yet - waiting for my card reader.
Click to expand...

Thats better than the fees I pay on my merchant account.
 
accepting credit/debity cards

Hard to beat Intuit Merchant Services (the Quicken people)
Monthly fee of about $13 with no long term contracts. Cancel at any time without penalty.
 
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