Need A Credit Card Processor

Our business has out grown Paypal's virtual terminal. I would like to get a "real" credit card processor. It would be nice to be able to punch credit card payments with a phone just in case I get a phone order and I'm out of town. I'm looking for a processor that is fairly inexpensive. Any suggestions?

 

not 100% sure what you mean by "real"... but you can try out 2checkout.com - i'm using it and so big complains so far...

 

I don't want any third party processors for those who call in orders. I will continue to use Paypal on my site, but I'm looking for a processor to handle orders I get over the phone. I don't want a virtual terminal. I want a real terminal or as close as possible to a real terminal.

 

I think you need a mobile terminal + merchant account & gateway.

 

I'm not on the run that much maybe once or twice a year. I'm mainly pretty stationary. I had a merchant account about 11/2 years ago where I could put credit card orders in on my cell phone. At the time my business wasn't making enough money consistantly to pay for the cost of the merchant service. I don't remember who I had, but I think they were quite expensive (hidden fees). This is why we stopped using them.

If I could get a merchant account with free gear for $30-40 a month, I would be happy. Any one know of a reputable merchant service that have offers similar to the above?

 

As far as just keying transactions in on a phone, it is called an ARU account. You can manually key them into a cellular or standard telephone. It is a bit more expensive than keying transactions into a terminal or virtual terminal, but there is no setup cost at all.

As far as the limited number of transactions, if you have an idea of when you are actually going to accept credit cards (Certain Events, tradeshows, etc) you should look for a seasonal merchant account. This way, you don't pay any fees during the months that your account is inactive. You would then have your provider open and close your account as needed. If you don't have specific dates you need to accept credit cards on, you need to get an account with no monthly minimum, and as low of statement fee as possible.

I wrote an article about seasonal merchant accounts last year if you're interested: http://www.merchantaccountblog.com/archives/24

 

Also, a mobile terminal may be a good idea if you are doing a large volume of mobile transactions and need to get a swipe rate on processing. Mobile terminals are expensive, and you have to pay additional monthly cellular fees with this type of account.

If you do go the mobile terminal rout, avoid any Motient or Mobitex terminals as they are soon going to be obsolete. Get a GPRS or CDMA terminal.

 

You don't need a mobile account. That would be overkill for you. If you just want to take orders over the telephone get a cheap credit card terminal like a Tranz 330 (~$45) or Tranz380 (~$65) and key your sales into that. It's much cheaper then a wireless terminal (~$650) and you don't have any monthly wireless fees (which run anywhere between $15 and $25 depending on who you choose for your provider).

When you are "on the run" you then would have two options:

1) If you have access to a telephone line and power outlet simply bring your terminal with you.

2) Get a manual imprinter (~$15) and imprint your customer's credit cards. Then key them into your terminal when you return home.

As far as a seasonal business goes if you're not going to be processing all year it is a no-brainer to do. You get to have your account closed during the "off season" which is very cool. Any decent provider should be able to set that up for you.

 

1) is a great idea.

We accept credit cards year around, the only time we are not at home is when we go on vacation. We are strictly an online business.

Thanks for the info.

 

I signed up with LoudCommerce. You might also check them out. I have been very pleased with their services and the sign up process.

If you have a Nextel phone, they have a device that will work with that and have seasonal merchant accounts which you could can activate and deactivate when needed.

 

Anyone else have suggestions of which merchant service to use? And again, I need a year around merchant service not a seasonal. I'm not interested in virtual terminals since paypal already has one. (I'm trying to get away from Paypal style terminals.) What merchant services do some of you use?

 

Just so you know caliguy80 is affiliated with LoudCommerce so don't take it as an unbiased suggestion. Heck, he didn't even read your post and recommended a seasonal merchant account.

One thing you are going to need to know is if you are accepting credit card payments online and wish to process them offline there are certain rules you must obey for Visa and MasterCard. Basically, if you accept transactions online you must use software/equipment that will transmit a flag that indicates this is an online transaction. It's called the Electronic Commerce Indicator. If you don't and get caught you get a warning. Second offense means never accepting Visa and MasterCard again (you'll be out on the match file which is the industry's blacklist).

So what equipment is ECI compliant? None. There are no credit card terminals available today that are ECI compliant (actually, one is, but processors won't activate it). What does this mean? You'll need to use software to do this. All major gateways are ECI compliant (as you would expect). But you said that you don't want another virtual terminal so that rules that option out.

That leaves PC software as your last option. The problem with this is I don't know of any software that is compliant yet. I have heard that PC Charge Pro is compliant but haven't been able to confirm it. And if you are on a Mac or Linux you have no options to choose from.

One thing to keep in mind is this only applies to sales that you accept online. By that I mean if you accept payment through your website. If someone visits your websites and calls you then this does not apply. All phone non-Internet orders will work with the equipment and programs I mentioned above. Also, ECI has nothing to with the merchant account specifically. Just the method you use to process your online sales.

 

I think authorize.net would be your best bet, or verisign's pay flow pro.

 

I've been using Paypal's shopping cart to process online orders. I used the virtual terminal to accept credit cards over the phone. Most of our sales are phone orders because of the nature of the product. I want to keep Paypal for my shopping cart and I want to get away from Paypal's virtual terminal because it's been about 3 times now that we couldn't process customers credit cards who ordered over the phone. The last customer had a credit card that was attached to his Paypal account. He was having problems with Paypal so we couldn't process his card, but there wasn't a legit reason that Paypal could give me why the card couldn't be processed. If I go to a non virtual terminal, but I still use Paypal for an online shopping cart, will this go against visa and mastercards rules? By the way, I need to accept American Express and Discover. I have a lot of customers that only use American Express.

 

If you are taking orders over the phone you won't need ECI compliant software and a credit card terminal will suffice. And you certainly can use Paypal for online orders and a true merchant account for phone orders. But once you have a true merchant account you should consider taking advantage of it and using a gateway's API to offer a seamless checkout for your users and still offer Paypal for your customers who prefer it. Plus you'll get a free virtual terminal to boot. I know you seem to be having issues with Paypal's virtual terminal but I don't think it's the virtual terminal itself that is the issue. I think it's Paypal simply not wanting to process those cards for their own reasons. Based on this assumption, I would recommend not ruling out using a virtual terminal as provided by a gateway like Authorize.net as their gateway is virtually no different then keying a sale into a credit card terminal. The sale will always be processed. Now whether the credit card is accepted or declined is a whole other story.

If you have/get a true merchant account the person who set(s) you up with it should be able to establish accounts for those two cards as well. You would then process them normally as you would a Visa or MasterCard.

 

but still.. how big is paypal? does not having it affect your sales?

 

Sorry to say he is just a satisified customer that signed up thru this board.

It seems he recommened a seasonal merchant account since the OP stated he used one of the a couple of times a year.

 

That doesn't sound like a seasonal business to me. He just has a couple of odd mobile events. Otherwise his main criteria is to be able to take telephone orders year round.

 

I really don't know who you are but I am actually a client of Cardservice. I wanted Cardservice because they were a very large ISO and after speaking with a couple of individuals, I chose them.

It seems that you have a grudge against others and just want to speak bad about people. I was giving my opinion as to who I use.

 

Well seasonal merchants accounts are accounts that are used a few months out of the year.

You also might check out CDG Commerce. Adam over there can help you out with discount rates, etc Blonde Jon