Best Practices - Never Ask For Credit Card Numbers To Be Emailed

As a business that accepts credit cards, never ask for a credit card number to be emailed.  If you provide a form for a customer to complete, you should state very clearly that full credit card numbers and expiration dates should never be emailed on the form.  Also this applies to this same info left on voice mail.  This is for the security of credit card data of your customer and for your business to adhere to PCI Compliance per the card brands.

If you have questions about this subject or other concerns related to Point of Sales Systems or credit card processing, contact us anytime via email info@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call us at 727-916-7294

Stand Alone Credit Card Terminals & It’s Communication

Many years ago before the internet, the old “ma bell” phones and the phone lines operated on sending/reading pulses.  With the advent of the internet a new system has come to the market called voice over internet or VOIP.  Today most if not all phone system uses VOIP or Digital Phone lines. If not in your office / business, but at the switching stations.

Today’s credit card terminal, when using a phone line and the built in modem, is based on the old “ma bell protocol. Voice over IP or Digital Phone lines simulate this pulse, which isn’t always sufficient for what the terminal is looking for. For this reason if a merchant has VOIP we recommend  processing over IP instead.  It must be a wired internet connection.  Wi-Fi will not work for the vast majority of stand-alone credit card terminals.

If you have questions about this subject or other concerns related to Point of Sales Systems or credit card processing, contact us anytime via email info@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call us at 727-916-7294

E-commerce Websites & Card Testing By Fraudsters - Up By 200%

If your business has a website that takes credit cards, beware of a fraud that is increasing. Non-profit businesses are more at risk because the obstacles to prevent the fraud are normally not used.

The fraudsters’ uses e-commerce websites to test stolen credit card numbers to see which ones are still good. This type of fraud is up 200% first four months of 2017 compared to the same period last year, according to a report from Radial’s E-commerce Fraud Technology Lab.

They can high jack the use of the site for running test transactions. This is done by a very sophisticated manner using bots and scripts repetitive tasks at lighting speed. Attempting hundreds of card payments online in minutes. If this happens at your site, it will cost in transactions fees just for the test. Any good payments funded can later results in charge backs. If you have too many charge backs that exceed a threshold, per the card brands may results in the shutdown of your merchant account.

To protect your business from being a victim of this type of fraud, review your security setting to make it harder for the “bots” to run the scripts. Do this by turning on or add an extra requirement for verification. This feature will require the person prior to entering credit card info, to enter a security code from a randomly generated image. Consider turning on an email notification so every time a credit card is used for a purchase on your site, you will receive an email. This could alert you to this fraud because, if attacked, you will receive numerous emails very quickly. Depending on the software / services you may be using, there can be additional security features available.  In some gateways you can also limit how many transaction will be allowed to go thru in a day. It’s called daily velocity. If you use authorize.net you might want to consider their Advanced Fraud Detection Suite by using Authorize.net 13 fraud-fighting filters and tools.

Last if you find you are attacked, turn off your gateway so no new transactions can be tried at once until you have made your site secure to stop the testing. If any fraudulent transaction were good, void or refund depending on the status.

If you have questions about this subject or other concerns related to Point of Sales Systems or credit card processing, contact us anytime via email info@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call us at 727-916-7294

Visa and MC Settlement Update: Appeals Court Overturns Settlement

Back to the lower court for new settlement discussions or a trial...

Visa & Mastercard Settlemen Update

More Junk Fees

They just keep coming.  A new junk fee I recently came across.  I am often asked what is your rate? It’s not about one rate, one needs to look at the sum of the total. Here is another example about another “junk fee”. Monthly Funding Advantage is a made up fee. Also I am seeing a new junk fee called “EMV non-enabled Fee” at a rate of 3 basis points. This fee will hit restaurants that does not have a POS to accept Chip Cards.

Give us a call to find out how we can help you eliminate junk fees. 727-916-7294

Omnichannel retail - What is it and Why?

Customers want more than most retailers are able to offer. Modern consumers want to buy online, but pick up or return at the store. They want to browse product information on their laptop or smartphone, get coupons or discount codes, even make a purchase on their mobile phone while in a store. New consumers are naturally combining channels as they browse, research and buy.

With 90% of consumers researching products online before they buy and 25% of shoppers buying online after they’ve experienced and touched the items in-store, the path to purchase is no longer a straight line. Today’s tech savvy consumer demands flexibility from retailers as they drift from in-store to mobile to online and back again. The age of the brick-and-click is here and retailers need to catch this wave or get washed away as more and more of their competitors adopt the agile omnichannel model of retail.

In an omnichannel world, retailers can combine data from every transaction and interaction, from any channel, into a unique individual file for each customer. Customer records can include previous in-store and online purchases, deliveries made, coupons used, gift cards purchased, comments on social media, phone interactions – anything and everything that can be used to gain deeper insight into customer behavior patterns.

With a better understanding of their customers, retailers will benefit from higher customer satisfaction, which will ultimately result in more sales and brand loyalty. Being open for business 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, frees customers once bound by the dated constraints of store hours. This gives them added opportunities to interact with your brand on their own time and allows you to literally ring up sales while you sleep.

We have an affordable solution for retailers which give the best of both worlds. An integrated system means that retailers will be able to streamline their operations, saving time and effort with joint reporting, a unified inventory, and centralized sales information.

Give us a call to find out how we can help you.  727-916-7294

What Makes A Business / Merchant “HIGH RISK”?

High risk has to do more with the charge back exposure, since the acquiring / sponsoring bank is responsible for all charge backs if a business were to cease business and close for any reason.  A better way to characterize a business as high risk is harder to place

Why then is a business “harder to place” for taking credit cards?  This is because an acquiring / sponsoring bank will not even consider or approve a business based on various details that are not in line with their underwriting guidelines.  Most of the time it about the financial expose and loss. As an underwriter they look at worst case scenarios in regards to financial expose and loss.  For example, if a business had their processing account stop abruptly, this will have a serious consequence to their cash flow, which might affect delivery of product or service on payments taken previously.  This in turn causes customers to dispute credit card transactions when the product or service is delayed and everything for the business spiral out of control. 

Let’s examine travel agents.  There are several factors that make this type of business “high risk or hard to place”.  The vast majority of travel agents are good people who run legitimate sales through their business, but the problem lies with what is outside of their control.  They can do an excellence job booking a vacation well below market price, but a last minute deals from hotel or an airlines that significantly drop their rates the week before the vacation starts due to a surplus of rooms / seats.  In this example the customer books this last minute deal and goes to the issuing bank and disputes the original credit card charge and will likely win the dispute.  Also consider the travel agent has no control over how their vendor operates and if the customer has a bad experience for any number of reasons they are likely to get buyer’s remorse and dispute the charges. 

Another example is electronic cigarette most acquiring / sponsoring bank will reject this type of business type on principle alone citing it is too easy for a minor to purchase the product online.  It’s the potential of taking part in facilitating the sale of nicotine products to minors that the acquiring / sponsoring bank is avoiding due to nothing in regards to financial expose and loss.

Banks having been doing this a lot longer than you have been in business and have enough experience and history to know that even a good business can go bad.  They look at the long term, “how much do we stand to lose if this company closes its doors tomorrow?” Acquiring / sponsoring bank are typically on the hook for charge backs for six months after the delivery of a product or service. We hope this might help to give you a better understanding into this subject.

If your business is "high risk" or not, we can help.  Contact us at 888-506-9225 or info@tampabaymerchantservices.com

Are You Being Charged Junk Fees?

Just like in your business you want and need to make a profit to pay overhead and expenses. This is true in the credit card processing business for the company that is providing the service.  With interchange plus pricing you will see the mark up because of the transparency.  This is what we promote and suggest that any business that is looking for credit card processing insist on. Some companies will give a low ball "show" rate only to make it up somewhere else. Hence the reason why you might see "junk fees". There can be that line that is crossed when too much is too much.  Sometime it is just plan sneaky. One of the worst offenders that I have seen recently is the attached statement.  

If you have any question about this, please feel free to contact us at info@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call 727-916-7294

The Info Behind Our Terminal Label

Look at two terminal labels below.  One is from a competitor and the other is from our firm.  What is the story behind these two.  Our terminal label state we stand behind what we sell.   As you can see we give our number and the national toll free number.  You get the best of both world.  No need to call a toll free number all the time with our service.  We know our merchants and they know us.  If you like that type of business relationship, then give us a call or email!

info@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call 727-916-7294