Ent Federal Credit Union is the largest locally owned financial institution in Colorado Springs. EntFederal.com provides a wide range of financial services which include – Internet account access (Ent@ccess Online Banking), online Bill Payments (Ent@ccess Bill Pay), 24-hour loan applications, 24-hour-a-day transactions by phone (Entell24), and investment services.
Ten Ways to Foil Credit Card Fraudsters
In the last twelve months, credit card fraud against online companies has exploded as more and more thieves figure out how easy it is. To make matters worse, online and phone orders are not automatically insured against fraud – you are 100% liable for all your losses.
Credit Cards Online – Where to Start?
Are you thinking of changing credit cards or looking for a new one? Where do you start to look when comparing credit cards? Let’s talk about where we compare credit cards services and prices online.
Policy Preparation: Credit Requests and Employee Conduct
When a customer requests credit, do you:
A. Turn to your previously developed credit policy for the answer, or
B. Stammer and wonder what to do next?
Prepare Yourself to Accept Credit Cards
When it comes to accepting credit cards for your business it’s important to make sure you’ve taken the necessary steps ahead of time before jumping in to purchase a merchant account. Preparing yourself will help to streamline the approval process, get your business setup faster, and save you money. The quicker you are setup, the faster you will be making sales.
Taking the Mystery Out Of Taking Credit Cards
One of the more frustrating and potentially expensive aspects of opening an on-line store is being able to take credit cards for payment. Taking credit cards is not always essential to a successful on-line store operation, but it sure helps.
A look at four approaches.
1) Use an intermediary.
2) Use a third party processor.
3) Process transactions in-house.
4) Use an Application Service Provider.
To Your Credit… When A Customer Requests Credit, Do You..
A. Turn to your previously developed credit policy for the answer,
or
B. Stammer and wonder what to do next?
For those of you who selected the latter, here’s some tips from an entrepreneur with over 35 years experience in credit and collections. Ian A. Love, owner of Alexian Accounts Receivable Services, offers the following tips.
Credit Card Processing Vendors
Gain Understanding
To gain an understanding of how different vendors make payment transactions, we must first figure out how credit cards were originally designed to work. Before anyone even thought of ecommerce, or even EDI became widespread in commercial uses, credit cards were created. However, they did not have a magnetic strip to store information, so all credit card purchases were called in, and a carbon copy of the card was made. With advances in technology, the magnetic strip was added, so merchants could submit customer card information electronically, and quickly get back approval numbers, which were then sent to the bank on carbon copies of the cards. The introduction of the internet and standard EDI for merchant to bank credit card authorizations cut out this step, so now your purchase goes to your creditor, and money is transferred to the merchant’s bank, in only a few seconds.
Accepting credit cards through a reseller service
Looking for a way to accept credit card transactions online but can’t meet your bank’s requirements for a Merchant Account? One of the many ecommerce services that proliferate on the Net may be the answer to your problems.
Resellers handle the transactions on your behalf, then issue you payment for sales according to a pre-arranged schedule. You do not need a secure line, since the actual transaction occurs on their site, not on yours. Reseller services are easier to arrange than is a merchant account through the bank, and although you will probably be asked to pay a lump sum at startup, it will be much less than a bank would require.
HOw to Accept Credit Cards on Your Site
The most difficult aspect of selling something from your web site is figuring out how to accept payment. Asking people to send checks is an option, and it will result in a few sales. Various services offer assorted payment methods. All of them will result in a few sales. But the single most important service you must offer is the ability to accept credit card payments. In the 18 months that I have been selling templates from my web site, easily 90% of my sales have come through credit card transaction, although I offer two alternative payment methods.