How to proccess credit / debit card payments

[Accelerated]

Hi All,

I am in the early stages of possibly setting up my own business and was wondering how it works with regards to accepting and processing credit/debit card payments from customers over the phone, is there any costs involved in setting this up, or special conditions imposed by the banks?

Thanks!

[Gateway Networks]

i think its a merchant account.

lots of options.. could always have a chat with your bank manager?

[Accelerated]

thanks for that mate, just googled merhcant account and all the info i need turned up, seems like a bit of a long proccess to set one up though!

[MHT223]

If you're doing mail order/detasils over the phone you can use PayPal Webpayments Pro. Its geared towards setting up your own online store, but part of it includes Virtual Terminal.

You log in to PayPal and then type on the card details to process the payment. It means you dont have to pay for a terminal, its £20 a month, there's no contract, but you pay 3%. Fair trade off really if you dont know how much of your business is going to be card based.

I just took it out, start to finish was about 10 days to get up and running. Oh and there's no monthly fees till July


Mark

[Accelerated]

sounds good I already have a payapl account so maybe I could just upgrade it. Does it allow you proccess refunds? Any transaction price limits?

I found this company - www.streamline.com , but they dont give out prices unless you know how much money you will be taking through card transactions, also there are monthly fees

[K1 CERB]

We use streamline. The best thing about it is the money is (almost) up front, it takes a day or two to hit your account, the downside is costs. Each month I do a quick check to make sure they costs don't exceed the £s profit.

From my last statement:
2.5% of each 'Mastercard' Transaction
3.1% of each Commercial Card Transaction

£23.18 'Misc charges' - that includes terminal rental etc.

Don't forget to add the VAT!

Best of Luck

K1 CERB

[paoloh]

Setting up a merchant account can be done in 14 to 21 days if your bank manager pulls his finger out. Only thing about phone orders is that the cadrd company can claw back the money if fraudulent. Only guarantee nowadays is in face with customer using PIN number.

[Accelerated]

paoloh said:

Setting up a merchant account can be done in 14 to 21 days if your bank manager pulls his finger out. Only thing about phone orders is that the cadrd company can claw back the money if fraudulent. Only guarantee nowadays is in face with customer using PIN number.

Really? Thanks for the tip! I always thought the card company took the hit if the transaction was done using a fraudulent card, after all its up to then to make sure the card is being used legally isn’t it?
Is there any sort of insurance you can get to protect against fraudulent activities?

[PAOLOH]

I don't think so mate. You may be able to negotiate a routine with your merchant that highers a higher level of protection.

[Alanq]

For on-line payments (not telephone) its worth looking at Google checkout. From now until the end of the year there are no merchant fees at all (!) From 2008 on its 1.5% which seems very reasonable. They also promise to take the hit on fraudulent cards but I suspect there’ll be a catch somewhere – there usually is. We normally use Barclays Merchant services and unless its customer PIN keyed in they definitely don’t take the hit for fraud.

[PAOLOH]

coyft said:

Alanq said:

For on-line payments (not telephone) its worth looking at Google checkout. From now until the end of the year there are no merchant fees at all (!) From 2008 on its 1.5% which seems very reasonable. They also promise to take the hit on fraudulent cards but I suspect there’ll be a catch somewhere – there usually is. We normally use Barclays Merchant services and unless its customer PIN keyed in they definitely don’t take the hit for fraud.

We were asked to be a test merchant for Google checkout, due to time constraints we declined. However I checked it out thoroughly and there are no catches. Google checkout is the way to go, if you spend x on adwords they will offset their 1.5% charge in the future. For a lot of merchants this will mean zero cost for processing online payments. About time someone gave the banks a good kick up the arse. In my experience Barclaycard are an arrogant bunch of tossers!

When we first stated with Barclaycard, they insisted on 30 day payment terms....... Talk about strangling a business financially!

[Accelerated]

As if it isnt hard enough to start a business!