Comments on: What Does All This Mean? – Merchant Account Fees

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:27:08 +0000

Nobody you know…

That is the absolute worst advice I have ever seen anyone give. You are so mis-informed as to what a business owner needs to do to put their business in the best possible position. Going direct to the processor is NOT the best way but the worst. A business owner has no buying power and can not negotiate rates with a processor. So really, they are subject to what ever rates that processor gives them not to mention they will get lost in the customer service hell if they ever had an issue. Going to a bank is not the solution either..Come on man..how long have you been doing this? Don’t you know that a busy business owner does not have the time to call 10 different companies for their processing getting the same BS story for every shady salesperson. Then what if they want check conversion or gift cards? Do they have to call another 10 companies and go thru the same crap? Who has time for that? No one. So before you start spewing you nonsense about what a business owner has to do, who don’t you put your self in their shoes.. Try that

By: SS

SS — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:28:30 +0000

Question to (Nobody you Know on July 24th, 2009 at 12:10 am) or anybody else who knows, Would FNBO (First National Bank of Omaha)
be one of those processors? Because their website refers to them as “processors” and the reps from that company claim to be a “front end, and back end” bank. Or are they full of it like so many of them are.

By: james lin

james lin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:10:48 +0000

Can you get a lower rate if you can provide PCI-Compliance report for your website?

By: Nobody you Know

Nobody you Know — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:10:57 +0000

I like the fact that you print out all of the fees for people to see, however, I feel that some of them are unfairly represented and scrutinized unfairly as a result. For instance the application fee. There are costs associated with approving any merchant for an account. These costs range from checking creditworthiness to special licensing and document requests. Any business would require a fee to cover costs in this event. If they don’t, I can guarantee you that they are getting it somewhere else. If there is one thing that I learned in this industry is that NOTHING is free. The retrieval fee should ABSOLUTELY be passed through to the merchant. The customer is Accusing him or her of wrongdoing, not the processor. If the chargeback is won and no refund is issued, there is typically no retrieval fee made, however if the chargeback is lost, then it was because proof was given that the merchant did something wrong, so why should the processor be liable for that?? The sales transaction fee is pretty standard. Good luck finding a provider who doesn’t include that and if they do, you better look at your discount rate because I’ll bet it’s higher as a result. You list “good downgrade charges” and other percentages you deem as good without specifying which merchant type it is good for? This varies depending on so many different things. Is the card present or not, is it swiped or keyed, did avs match or fail, did you get the cvv2 values or not and were they correct, is it a rewards card or other special type that carries a higher fee from the associations themselves, etc. etc. Look, I completely agree that there are a TON of merchant account providers sticking in their BS fees whereever they can, but you can’t downplay a reasonable fee for a service simply because you don’t think you should pay it. You are lumping all merchant account providers into one categories…like we all do with attorneys. The bottom line is that, as a merchant, you should ALWAYS get at least 3 bids on your merchant account and let each provider know that you will be getting multiple bids AND if possible try to deal directly with a credit card processor, rather than a 3rd party. The processors that deal with nothing more than 3rd parties are not out there for the benefit of the merchant…they simply contract with as many ISO’s as possible and pile on the merchants. The problem here is that you have their fees now on top of the processor’s fees on top of the card association’s fees. There are only a few MAJOR processors, regardless of what your MSP says…most claim they are the processor when they are only contracted with the processor. The major players are: Global Payments (formerly NDC), First Data Corporation or FDC/FDMS, Chase Paymentech, Fifth Third, Elavon (formerly Nova – part of US Bancorp – also acquired First Horizon Merchant Services), Heartland Payments, and Total Systems (formerly Visanet and Vital Systems). Regardless of what they tell you, BofA, Wells Fargo, PNC, First Tennessee, and most other banks ARE NOT PROCESSORS!!! They are only contracted with processors. Save yourself time and money and go to the processors directly!

By: What do these merchant rates & fees mean? | Approved Payments

What do these merchant rates & fees mean? | Approved Payments — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:51:52 +0000

[...] What does all this mean? – Merchant Account Fees from the Merchant Account Blog. A thorough look at ALL the fees that may apply. [...]

By: Accept Payments

Accept Payments — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:31:54 +0000

Shawn, every merchant account statement is different do you have a specific term?

By: shawn

shawn — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:46:08 +0000

do you know where i can get explanations of the abbreviations on a merchant statement