Credit Card Processing Company Recommendation

Jay Honeck

Jay Honeck

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
11,571
Location
Ingleside, TX
Display Name
Jay Honeck
Home Airfield
KTFP - Ingleside, TX
Any small business owners happy with your processing company?
 
I think we recently switched to Authorize.net from Merchant E Services, but I didn't get real personally involved in it, this time around. I believe the fees were lower and they have a portal for managing recurring charges (I have a managed services business).
 
Either way, do not and i repeat do not use first data. Merchant ESolutions is alright if you're not doing extremely high volume.
 
I am using TransFirst with a swipe-reader on the PC. It provides a web interface to look at daily batches, make corrections etc. They settle most of the charges the next day. I dont have to deal much with disputes, so I can't say how they are to deal with. The 2 or 3 I had were painless.

Some people love square. There is no free lunch, they seem to hold on to your money longer than the classic merchant account providers.
 
I've used Authorize.net for the most part.. almost can't avoid paypal though.
 
We use a local company, so it's no help to you. I have found that a lot of these companies sound good upfront and when the dust settles, you paid more than you thought. :mad2: A lot depends on volume, our fees are in the 2% range for ALL cards, we do $150-200K per month in CC sales. We opted for a flat fee on all cards vs 5 different rates on various cards, AMEX, VISA, debit vs credit etc. I don't know if it is the absolute cheapest way to go, but it makes our book keeping staff happier. :dunno:
 
In the last year Jesse and I have led a project within our company that has resulted in a spin off that specializes in payment processing for software developers. While our online gateway is focused on developers, we can provide merchant accounts and payment solutions for any business.

We have access to the same pricing as anybody in the industry and are hungry to build our business. If you're interested in talking to us about providing your service just PM one us.

I could also talk to you about a company or two that I would trust if you'd like to look around. Let me know what your specific needs are and I'd be happy to give you some direction. I can also tell you what I would watch out for from a pricing standpoint.
 
John221us said:
I think we recently switched to Authorize.net from Merchant E Services, but I didn't get real personally involved in it, this time around. I believe the fees were lower and they have a portal for managing recurring charges (I have a managed services business).
Click to expand...


Be very careful here. Lock-in with Auth.net is a big problem. Once you put your cards in there is NO WAY to get them out. If you want to move them to another recurring billing system you'll have to get all of the card numbers from your customers again (or have them on file...which totally defeats the purpose).

Our recurring system should be online within a couple of months. I could point you to some other companies that I would trust if you wanted to tell me your specific needs.
 
I would call myself a really small business but I use Intuit Gopayment (single airplane flight school).

I've been very happy with it. I have an Ipad that I use to "check people out". It has a credit card swiper that plugs into the phone jack. Takes about 2 seconds and works very well. They sign on the ipad with their finger and it either emails the receipt to them or it can be printed out.

No need for any kind of merchant service from anyone, or phone/internet. I also do it from my iphone.

I pay 12.95 a month and the fees are: %1.75 (swiped) %2.75(when keyed in). Also the record keeping with quickbooks online and online management with gopayment is great.

I set up other instructors with my account so they can charge people when im not around from their phones, yet not have any access to my account.

http://intuit-gopayment.com/free?ci...gEAxw&ef_id=UR-WJwAAAbnnigIP:20130216200620:s
 
We do a low volume of CC sales and square works great. Really simple.
 
Square and PayPal are both simple though square is cheaper for low dollar transactions.

Authorize.net is a good cheap option but you have to fill out more paperwork and have possible terminal and / or merchant gateway hassle, so for low volume I wouldn't use them. They were great for our website though.
 
lr60plt said:
I set up other instructors with my account so they can charge people when im not around from their phones, yet not have any access to my account.
l]
Click to expand...

Read your merchant agreement. Some frown on sharing an account across entities.
 
weilke said:
Read your merchant agreement. Some frown on sharing an account across entities.
Click to expand...

They are doing the flight for the LLC that the account is for, in an airplane owned by the company. They are paid as independent contractors.
 
lr60plt said:
I would call myself a really small business but I use Intuit Gopayment (single airplane flight school).

I've been very happy with it. I have an Ipad that I use to "check people out". It has a credit card swiper that plugs into the phone jack. Takes about 2 seconds and works very well. They sign on the ipad with their finger and it either emails the receipt to them or it can be printed out.

No need for any kind of merchant service from anyone, or phone/internet. I also do it from my iphone.

I pay 12.95 a month and the fees are: %1.75 (swiped) %2.75(when keyed in). Also the record keeping with quickbooks online and online management with gopayment is great.

I set up other instructors with my account so they can charge people when im not around from their phones, yet not have any access to my account.

http://intuit-gopayment.com/free?ci...gEAxw&ef_id=UR-WJwAAAbnnigIP:20130216200620:s
Click to expand...


Check your bill very very closely.

http://gopayment.com/pricing/

1. Card-swiped rate applies to qualified swiped Visa/MC/Discover network transactions and requires the GoPayment card reader. Most rewards, corporate and special card types are not considered qualified.

2. "Key-Entered Rate" will be charged on all qualified manually keyed Visa/MC/Discover Network transactions that have verified addresses. All Visa/MC/Discover network transactions that do not meet the requirements for card-swiped and or key entered rates will be charged a non-qualified rate of 3.75%.

3. Elimination of per transaction fee does not apply to American Express transactions and "Non-Qualified transactions". Different discount rates for American Express and JCB may apply. A per-transaction fee of $0.15 will be charged for "Non-Qualified" transactions. *Offer available while supplies last. Valid for new Intuit Merchant Service customers only. Account approval required. Free Intuit Credit Card Reader is compatible only with select phones (see below). Free card reader will ship within four weeks of redemption. Offer cannot be combined with any other Intuit Merchant Service offer.
Click to expand...

Basically, "non-qualified" cards are generally the business cards or cards that have a generous rewards program. If you serve primarily businesses or high-end clientele, you could have 40-50% "non-qualified".

It's called bucketed pricing...and it's the easiest way to get extra money out of people. Depending on my volume, I'd either find a merchant provider that was truly flat rate (e.g. square/stripe/braintree/etc.) or find one that quoted me an "interchange plus" pricing scheme. Those are the two truly transparent pricing structures.
 
ChrisK said:
Square and PayPal are both simple though square is cheaper for low dollar transactions.

Authorize.net is a good cheap option but you have to fill out more paperwork and have possible terminal and / or merchant gateway hassle, so for low volume I wouldn't use them. They were great for our website though.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I haven't heard too many people describe them as cheap. Are you talking about just using their gateway and not their merchant account product?

I haven't even found them in the ballpark when comparing their pricing and feature set to somebody like Samurai.

https://samurai.feefighters.com/pricing
 
Last edited:
We switched to square -- our so-called merchant providers who had 1.69% through costco or sams -- we did the math and found it was over 4% on average due to BS fees, and the non-qualified card issue was way more than 50% for us (pushing 80% rewards cards/amex, etc)

Very happy with square -- micromanaging the fiddly charges and nonsense wasn't something I enjoyed at all. the limits are only for keyed amounts -- and you can push them to increase it. We've done two increases and are allowed 60k/mo in keyed transactions, no limit on swiped. It works for us, and when it doesn't, we'll yell for another increase.

$0.02

- Mike
 
I used to use a company called PayQuake. They were no worse than most, and better than some.

-Rich
 
jason said:
Interesting. I haven't heard too many people describe them as cheap. Are you talking about just using their gateway and not their merchant account product?

I haven't even found them in the ballpark when comparing their pricing and feature set to somebody like Samurai.

https://samurai.feefighters.com/pricing
Click to expand...
Just gateway. We got a separate merchant account provider, which is why I called that solution "complicated". We were doing a pretty good business so the flat fees got spread out quite a bit. It worked out that, compared to say Paypal and Square, we were making better margin on Authorize.net, but that was only because of the types of transactions we were doing.
 
ChrisK said:
Square and PayPal are both simple though square is cheaper for low dollar transactions.

Authorize.net is a good cheap option but you have to fill out more paperwork and have possible terminal and / or merchant gateway hassle, so for low volume I wouldn't use them. They were great for our website though.
Click to expand...

I use paypal for my aircraft rental buisness...about 3% with no other fees but we have had issues with them in the past trying to "hold" payments for no other reason than to float them for their own benefit. I put a quick end to that when I almost quit them but since then its worked alright (as long as people pay the darn bill)
 
Last edited:
Wow. Interesting thread.

We are thinking about jumping to a company called Mercury, on the recommendation of a fellow local pilot/business owner. They charge just 0.1% over the standard interchange rate that Visa/MasterCard charges everyone. I know nothing else about them, though. Anyone use them?

All I know is Heartland (our current processor) holds our deposits for up to five days, charges more, and just cost us $800 in a slam-dunk, open and shut dispute that we should have easily won -- so they're gone, ASAP.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Wow. Interesting thread.

We are thinking about jumping to a company called Mercury, on the recommendation of a fellow local pilot/business owner. They charge just 0.1% over the standard interchange rate that Visa/MasterCard charges everyone. I know nothing else about them, though. Anyone use them?

All I know is Heartland (our current processor) holds our deposits for up to five days, charges more, and just cost us $800 in a slam-dunk, open and shut dispute that we should have easily won -- so they're gone, ASAP.
Click to expand...

I've never had a charge disputed, but the holds used to bother me. That's one of the reasons I dropped PayQuake and just started using PayPal as my card processor, as well as for running PayPal payments. When I run a CC charge using PayPal, it's there in my account immediately -- even on the keyed charges.

As I said, though, I've never had a dispute, so I have no idea how PayPal would handle that. The rumor is that they lean heavily toward payers. But for the work I do, it's not likely that a payer would dispute a charge unless they want their site shut off, so that's not a major concern for me.

The other company I used, PayQuake, was okay as merchant processors go. The monthly fees were pretty low and I never had any particular problem with them. I just didn't like the holds.

Personally, though, if I were considering a switch at this point, I would give Jason's service a try.

-Rich
 
bbchien said:
I fired paymenttech and have never looked back.
Click to expand...

I need to do the same. They have been okay at first (long time ago) but I've seen an upward creep on the rates. Enough now that I need to shop other solution providers like Jay is doing.

@Jason... I'll be in touch with you in the next week or two.
 
AggieMike88 said:
I need to do the same. They have been okay at first (long time ago) but I've seen an upward creep on the rates. Enough now that I need to shop other solution providers like Jay is doing.

@Jason... I'll be in touch with you in the next week or two.
Click to expand...

Credit card processors have traditionally been the most unresponsive, borderline corrupt businesses I have had to deal with over the last 23 years. Luckily, this is only our second charge back loss in all those years.

Part of it is structural. Visa/MasterCard dumps all of the responsibility on these middlemen, but gives them none of the authority when it comes to disputes. Thus, Heartland is able to sit back and blame Visa for our loss, even though we have no direct contact with Visa.

Heartland even went so far as to tell us we did everything exactly right, that we followed their procedures to a "T" -- but we lost a disputed no-show charge anyway. In my world, that's what is called "bull*&it", which is why Heartland must go.

Then, to add to our pain, they added a $400 "fee", because we took the matter to "arbitration" and lost. Of course, instead of the hearing we expected, "arbitration" turned out to be nothing but a re-reading of the documentation we had already submitted. More absolute BS.

Before anyone backs up Heartland, I know that Visa is the root problem. Unfortunately, I have no direct contact with Visa, so my only recourse is to work with their representative. That means all blame is transferable...to Heartland.
 
So.. your real beef is with Visa.. over a dispute...

So you will pull your business from ONE Visa intermediary and put it in the hands of ANOTHER Visa intermediary. And no mention of no longer taking Visa cards.

Tell me again how this will punish Visa??? And tell me again how this will benefit you in a business sense (other than the emotional satisfaction)? Just trying to get a handle on your angle of attack here...

This whole thread is about finding a good intermediary, yet in theory this entire debacle could have happened with ANY of them no matter which one you are with.
 
Among 'the happiest day of my life' happenings was the moment we called our credit card intermediary and told him to go pizz up a rope, and 'oh yeah' come pick up his crap terminal and get it off the property by 5PM Friday, which now belongs to a giant corporation who will eat you for lunch if you so much as look them the wrong way.

"You are obligated to finish out your contract." he growls.
I laugh in his ear. "Ain't gonna happen, Jack."
"Well, then we will take you to court."
"Ummm, gee I didn't think you would be that way, but I guess. Well gosh my attorney is (the corporations head shark) Mr. xxxx at 1-800-...-..... You can discuss it with him"
"Oh, HIM!" click, end of conversation.
I smiled so much for days after that, that the wife thought I was doing some Sport Illustrated Swim Suit girl on the side.

I suspect you can tell from the tone (above) that dealing with CC intermediaries when a charge bounced was not among my happy times.
 
I started out with First Data through Sam's Club. They were easy to get set up with, but the fees were eating me alive. Domestic card transactions weren't bad, but I take a lot of overseas orders and the extra fees were just too much to deal with.

So I switched to Authorize.net through Leaders Merchant Services. They were less of a ripoff than First Data, but a careful reading of my last few statements tells me they are, in the end, costing me TWICE AS MUCH as PayPal. So... I dumped them. PayPal, for as much as I don't trust them, has no surprises and offers everything Authorize.net did (and then some). Virtual terminal, mobile swipe with NO charge or extra fees, etc. The other places wanted to charge me an extra $20 a month for a smartphone swipe so I could run cards at shows, and they wanted a big fee up front - PayPal's solution cost me zero.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but so far I have never once had a payment held. Of course I've also never had a chargeback or disputed payment. Anyway, as I said, I don't trust PP so I regularly sweep cash from that account into the bank. But, it's working pretty well for me.
 
DaleB said:
I started out with First Data through Sam's Club. They were easy to get set up with, but the fees were eating me alive. Domestic card transactions weren't bad, but I take a lot of overseas orders and the extra fees were just too much to deal with.

So I switched to Authorize.net through Leaders Merchant Services. They were less of a ripoff than First Data, but a careful reading of my last few statements tells me they are, in the end, costing me TWICE AS MUCH as PayPal. So... I dumped them. PayPal, for as much as I don't trust them, has no surprises and offers everything Authorize.net did (and then some). Virtual terminal, mobile swipe with NO charge or extra fees, etc. The other places wanted to charge me an extra $20 a month for a smartphone swipe so I could run cards at shows, and they wanted a big fee up front - PayPal's solution cost me zero.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but so far I have never once had a payment held. Of course I've also never had a chargeback or disputed payment. Anyway, as I said, I don't trust PP so I regularly sweep cash from that account into the bank. But, it's working pretty well for me.
Click to expand...

I don't distrust PayPal, per se, any more than I distrust merchant processors in general. The horror stories I've heard about PayPal all seem to have originated in either buyer disputes or unusual transactions that looked suspicious -- even though they were quite legitimate.

Regarding the first set of horror stories -- buyer disputes -- let's look at reality. There are three major card issuers: MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. There's also a distant fourth: Discover. They all know that they have a lot more to lose from cardholders who lose confidence in buyer protection than from annoyed merchants, who are over the barrel and can't just walk away. If a merchant loses a dispute, they may switch processors, like Jay is doing; but what do the card issuers care? They have an oligopoly that's more like a monopoly where Visa and MC are concerned. (How many merchants accept one, but not the other?)

So in this regard, is PayPal any different from any other processor? Would a buyer dispute of a card purchase be handled any differently were it processed by Authorize.net than if it were processed by PayPal? I kind of doubt it.

Regarding the second set of horror stories -- those related to card transactions that just looked suspicious -- here's a real-life example. A client of mine performed an expensive service at a property that was jointly owned by four people in three different states and one foreign country. Each payer gave my client a credit card number, and the bill was split evenly between the four owners. My client manually keyed the four identical charges into the Virtual Terminal (because all of the payers were absentee owners), one right after the other.

That set off a flag at PayPal, understandably in my opinion. Four identical hand-keyed charges, all for ~ 1,500.00 as I recall, in rapid succession. I can understand how that looked fishy and raised a flag. So PayPal put holds on all four transactions and contacted the payers to confirm the charges.

One payer -- the foreigner -- steadfastly denied that he had authorized the charge, which PayPal ultimately canceled. The other three buyers acknowledged the charges, and those funds were released to my client.

Now we can look at this in several ways. On the one hand, if three payers acknowledged the charges, then maybe PayPal "should have known" that the fourth was lying and taken his money, anyway. But realistically, would any other processor have handled it any differently if a buyer outright denied that he had authorized the charge? Would the card issuer even have allowed them to have handled it differently?

I also sweep money out of my PayPal account into my credit union accounts, but more because I need the money there than because I'm afraid that PayPal is going to snatch it up. But I also use my PayPal business debit card to pay for most of my business expenses, which is a great convenience.

The other nice thing about PayPal is that on the handful of occasions when I've had to call them with some question or another, my hold times have been minimal, and I've always been connected with a U.S. based support person who was able to answer my questions.

So yes, I'm familiar with the PayPal horror stories, and there's always a certain nagging discomfort. But in fairness, my experiences with PayPal have been 100 percent trouble-free ever since I've had a PayPal account. I also get immediate -- as in instantaneous -- access to my money via the debit card, which I don't believe any other processor offers.

Another thing about PayPal that I like is that as a card issuer, they're pretty excellent. For example, I once made airline reservations on my PayPal debit card, and then extended my stay and rescheduled my return flight using another card, mainly because it was the first one I happened to pull out of my wallet.

The day after I was supposed to be home in New York according to my original plan, I made an ATM withdrawal for $400.00 using my PayPal debit card from a bank in California. The machine spit out the money, but about a minute later, PayPal's fraud department called me and asked me a few questions to confirm that I was the one who'd made the withdrawal.

Apparently, PayPal (or MasterCard, whose logo is on the card) is smart enough to expect that someone who has traveled somewhere is likely to use their card while at that somewhere, for the duration of their stay at that somewhere. But because the withdrawal in this case had been made after I was already supposed to be home, according to my original reservations, it tripped a flag; so PayPal called me to make sure my card hadn't been lost or compromised.

They didn't cause an inconvenience by blocking the withdrawal, but they did immediately follow up with a call, which I thought was a splendid way of handling things. They also asked me what my new return date was so there would be no further flags tripped by routine purchases.

So again, I will admit to a certain vague, nagging discomfort with PayPal; but in fairness, they have never been anything but 100 percent trustworthy and professional in my own personal experience.

-Rich
 
Last edited:
Doggtyred said:
So.. your real beef is with Visa.. over a dispute...

So you will pull your business from ONE Visa intermediary and put it in the hands of ANOTHER Visa intermediary. And no mention of no longer taking Visa cards.

Tell me again how this will punish Visa??? And tell me again how this will benefit you in a business sense (other than the emotional satisfaction)? Just trying to get a handle on your angle of attack here...

This whole thread is about finding a good intermediary, yet in theory this entire debacle could have happened with ANY of them no matter which one you are with.
Click to expand...

Possibly. However...

I sell coffee mugs with our logo on it. If the handle is cracked, I give the customer his money back -- I don't blame the supplier.

I expect to be treated the same way by any vendor, whether I'm buying mugs or credit card processing. If they won't back me up, I don't give them my business.
 
As a seller on e-bay, I did once have a transaction held for over a month that was disputed by the buyer. I submitted all the paperwork to paypal over the dispute and they simply held the money. Like my case got 'lost' or something. I'm sure they were earning interest on my $$. Took a few calls and finally got it straightened out.

Its fine as long as the buyer does not complain.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Possibly. However...

I sell coffee mugs with our logo on it. If the handle is cracked, I give the customer his money back -- I don't blame the supplier.

I expect to be treated the same way by any vendor, whether I'm buying mugs or credit card processing. If they won't back me up, I don't give them my business.
Click to expand...

Sure sounds a lot like divorcing your wife and marrying her sister because the dad screwed you over on a dowry.. and expecting something to be different the second time around...
:goofy::rofl:
 
In the mail this afternoon was a notice about a class action settlement involving Visa/Mastercard and merchants who accepted the cards since 2004. See attached.

More details at www.paymentcardsettlement.com

.
 

Attachments

  • ClassAction.jpg
    ClassAction.jpg
    2 MB · Views: 12
RJM62 said:
I don't distrust PayPal, per se, any more than I distrust merchant processors in general.
Click to expand...

PayPal is a very strange outfit.

For years, I had my Discover card account linked directly to PayPal, and everything worked fine.

Then, one day last year they woke up and decided that I HAD to link my checking account to them, for no apparent reason. I declined.

In the meantime, I sold an item that was paid for using PayPal -- so I had a credit balance in my account of several hundred dollars. I then tried to pay for a $34 item with PayPal -- and was DECLINED, because I had not linked my checking account to them.

After several nasty emails back and forth, they are back to being okay with "only" my credit card linkage -- and now, when I sell something, I tell PayPal to send me a good, old fashioned, pain in the butt paper check in the mail.
 
My guess to crossed over the total transaction limit with out being "verified"

Not looking forward to that day
 
Skylane81E said:
My guess to crossed over the total transaction limit with out being "verified"
Click to expand...

That's exactly what they said. lol

So, I need to be "verified" after a decade of use, when I've got a credit balance with them for an amount greater than the transaction being denied? Whoo-wee, that is one effed-up business model, there.

I got it straightened out, eventually -- but I now use PayPal only as a last resort.
 
Jay Honeck said:
That's exactly what they said. lol

So, I need to be "verified" after a decade of use, when I've got a credit balance with them for an amount greater than the transaction being denied? Whoo-wee, that is one effed-up business model, there.

I got it straightened out, eventually -- but I now use PayPal only as a last resort.
Click to expand...

That limit is why I use PayPal as little as possible.
 
Reviving this discussion for a moment....

I got my merchant account statement from Chase Paymenttech this afternoon by email. With this thread in mind, I took a look at the amount I was charged by Chase and divided by the net volume processed.

Result was 1.991% on my calculator.

Am I reviewing this correctly?

Yeah, I'm getting messed over with some fees I don't really like (such as $0.15 per transaction to deposit the money into my account), but I'm not sure at this low of an "overall rate" if it's worth the hassle of switching to someone else.

Anyhow, statement posted if folks want to be nosy and or review and kibitz.
 

Attachments

You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top