Which CC Processor?

[hittjett]

I need an account that allows me to accept credit cards on-line and to enter them manually. I have read through this form ad nauseam. Surely there is a consensus among us about who provides the best merchant account. No? What should we expect to pay each month? I am currently using CCNow because my sales are not high enough to warrant paying more, but they take a whopping 9%. I am about to start processing large transactions, and I need a much better rate.

Please suggest some services.

Thanks,
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[StevenAllen]

I accept orders offline in our brick and mortar retail stores and process on-line for our four retail stores. We place all our volume thru the same master account and our discount rate for card present transactions is 1.52%.

I am sure there are varying opinions as to which merchant program is the best, but we are pleased with ours.

If you have additional questions, please drop me a line.

[Corey Bryant]

CCNow is a third party processor. That is why your discount rates are so high.

You have two different types of credit card accounts: brick & mortar & internet. Brick & mortar are cheaper because the risk is less. Internet / telephone / mail order - your rates are a bit higher because of the risks being higher.

The big differences with your own merchant account & third party processors: Third party processors usually hold your money for a couple of weeks (or you tell them you want it) and their name appears on the CC consumer statement. When you have your own merchant account, if transactions are made - then the money is usually deposited within your account 24-28 hours. And your name appears on the consumer CC statement.

Now I need to ask - why don't you want to process the CCs online? Most merchant accounts offer a virtual terminal. You can process credit cards manually thru this way. But one problem with this - you also need to enter the address for Address Verification Service (AVS). If you do not do this, your discount rate might go up about 200 basis points (2%) or more. because now the risk is even higher of it being a fraudulent credit card & being declined.

There are some other options out there as well. You can do what is a called a pre-authorization (pre-auth) & then later to the sale / post-authorization. A pre-auth dedicates that money to you for a certain time (this time varies per issuing bank). This could get a little expensive because transaction rates could rack. Usually every time you hit the gateway, it is a transaction rate. If you think you are going to be doing something like this, feel free to talk to the person who is offering you a merchant account / gateway to see if that fee can be reduced.

As far as a gateway - you should be spending about $10.00 a month. Then there is usually another $10 charge, either a statment fee, customer service fee, etc. (It varies from processor to processor.) And then you usually have a monthly minimum, from about $15-$25. For example, if your sales are about $1000 that month & your discount rate is 2.25%, then your monthly is $22.50. So if your monthly minimum was $25 - your charges would be increased. If your minimum was about $15, your have already passed that amount, so nothing to worry about.

[PCPerformanceparts]

1st american card service... www.1stamericancardservice.com everything you want

[jconley2]

There's a good offer at http://www.merchantseek.com/touch-pay.htm Don't know if using the telephone to process transactions is up your alley, but it's worth a look. Just $39 setup, 3.95% per transaction and $5/month. This is a real merchant account.

- Jim

[sslcheap]

So is this Cellcharge considered a merchant account or a third party processor?

[Corey Bryant]

With those fees, I would hope it would be a third party processor or something similiar to that.

[mr_computer_pro]

Don't get caught up with someone asking you to manually enter a credit card number for them. Be careful, lots of scams out there. Take it from someone who knows. I myself learned real quick, you enter your own credit card numbers and you do the transaction, otherwise only accept cashiers check, and even then, no one gets nothing until the cash is in my hand (account). Toooooo many Internet fraud scams out there. Be careful.

[Solaron]

Check out this link.

http://freeauthnet.com/

It sounds great. One of my hosting companies suggested it to me.

Good luck!

Peter

[Corey Bryant]

Looking at this page: http://freeauthnet.com/rates.html - make sure that what they are quoting is updated. The industry average is no longer 2.25% but 2.39 after 1 Apr. And it could still be correct. They ight be taking a loss since it seems they use http://www.chargem.com/ as the processor. But at least on this page you can check where the ISO is & who the acquiring bank will be.

[bythevineyard]

We looked at several and decided to go with the real thing. Paypal is okay, but if you want to be professional, take the plunge. It will pay off in the end.

One that is easy to set up is Card Service International. Approval is easy and your discount rates improve with time, and you can use it with your existing accounts. http://cardservice.com/

Dave

http://bythevineyard.com