Peter's Story - A Lesson For All

"Hi: I own Nails by Peter. I would like to relay a most unfortunate situation. Now looking back I made a costly time & money error regarding my merchant account.

In February 2009, I opened a merchant account with Ray. Six months later a rep from another company approached me about saving money by switching to his company. Ray spoke with me about making this change and he informed me that I would not save. I wish that I had listened to Ray - around seven months later I discovered that I had made a bad error in changing. I discovered my new merchant account was costing me more than my previous account with Ray.

I decided to close this new account & return to Ray's services. Altho I closed this higher costing account in May of 2010, I am still being charged fees, 8 months later. I've spent a huge amount of time & considerable stress in working to close out this account & stop the fees. Ray has even help me in to obtain refunds. How many people would do this?

My experience with Ray is that he is totally honest in his representations - so if you are approached by someone and you really think they can save you money - I strongly urge you to contact Ray for a second opinion/fair evaluation of any offers! Do not make the same mistake I did" - Peter

Thank you Peter for allowing us to share your story.

New IRS Reporting Requirement For Merchant Accounts

Starting this year, 2011, all processors will be required to report all payments made from a merchant settlement account. This new requirement is outlined in section 6050W of the internal revenue code. It is more important than ever to be sure the correct tax id number is recorded for your account. Failure to do so could result in a 28% back up with holding. In early 2012 you will receive a 1099 for the amounts reported to the IRS.

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

http://www.tampabaymerchantservice.com/

Can I Help A Friend And Let Them Use My Merchant Account?

I would like to make you aware of the following scenario – it may or may not have happened to you. A friend has asked you to run a credit card transaction through your account as a favor as they do not have a merchant account of their own. They will reimburse you for the cost, so what is the harm? You are a nice person and they are a friend so why not?

It is in your best interest not to do so. According to the terms and conditions that you agreed to upon opening your account - you agreed to process only transactions for the products and service as described in the application for your business. Also a financial profile about your transactions; such as average sale, average monthly and single highest charge was provided at that time. Should you oblige your friend, it violates this agreement. Should it be discovered, you could lose the privilege of credit card acceptance. It can also be constituted as money laundering, which is a violation of state and federal law. The bottom line is that you should decline to help your friend. You can however, refer them to me so that their business could obtain its own merchant account for processing transactions.

Remember also, if you would like to include a new product or service on your existing account, we might be able to add it. But we need to go through the proper procedure to have it approved. And depending on the situation a new account maybe required.


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

http://www.tampabaymerchantservice.com/

New Mandatory Pin-Based Debit Transaction Rules

As of July 1, 2010, Visa and MasterCard requires that merchants processing PIN-based debit transactions must meet the following requirements:

PED is a Pin Entry Device. PEDs currently in use must be either pre-PCI PED (Visa PED) certified or PCI PED certified.

All PEDs must use the most up-to-date encryption standards for processing debit transactions, which requires injection of a Triple DES (TDES) key.

In other words, the Pin-Pad device that you are using must be PCI-PED compliant.

OK. What is PCI? PCI is the Payment Card Industry. So, the PCI sets the security standards for how credit and debit cards are used.

A newer certified device automatically encrypts all key codes entered into the Pin-Pad device. Older devices sent the data over in raw format which is no longer acceptable.

To read more about the mandatory pin transaction requirements go to:

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/ped/index.shtml

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

http://www.tampabaymerchantservice.com/

What is the difference between a void and return?

From time to time a customer will ask this. This is a very good question. Also the next question might be when should I use them? While most terminals are different and the keys on the terminal might actual use the text of “credit” instead of “return”, however the premise is the same. A void, will delete a transaction in the current open batch. A return or credit will credit back the amount your select to the cardholder’s card. An example when and how to use it would be, the sale amount was $10, but the clerk mistakenly ran the transaction for $100. The batch is still open that has the $100 transaction. The best approach would be “void” the $100 and run the card again for the correct amount of $10. When using a return or credit is the customer come back the next day to ask for a refund for some reason and the transaction was in a batch that was already closed. This would be the reason to select return or credit depending on how the terminal is set up as different manufacturers uses different tags on the keys. Also keep in mind if the transaction was a pin based debit, you can only use return or credit while using the card as a credit card. Void will never be an option with a pin based debit.

As always if you have any question about this, please feel free to contact us at ray@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call 727-916-7294
http://www.tampabaymerchantservice.com/

Can I Charge Customers More For Paying With A Credit Card?

I am asked this question from time to time. The short answer is no. This thought comes up because of places Ticketmaster. Convenience fees charged by places like Ticketmaster are charged for the convenience of buying tickets online as opposed to at a ticket window face-to-face. You can give a "cash discount".

The link below is from Visa website, which has some information about the no surcharge rule. Please note that in some states also has laws against the merchant charging their customers surcharges for using credit cards. If a merchant attempts to levy such fees on their customers and it is reported to Visa, they may not be able to take credit cards going forward.


http://usa.visa.com/merchants/operations/no-surcharge.html


Please feel free to contact me if I may be of service to you or your business. Please contact us at ray@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call 727-916-7294
http://www.tampabaymerchantservice.com/

Ten Common Myths About PCI

What is PCI?

As you are probably aware over the past several years there have been many large credit card security beaches. To combat this Visa, Master Card, Discover and American Express has formed Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard or PCI DSS for short. As such every merchant has to be in compliance to avoid penalties and fines. A study conducted shows that compliance was lowest among small merchant. According to industry research by Verizon, 81 percent of the organizations that experienced a breach “were not Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant”. In addition more than 80% of breaches since 2005 have happened at small merchants.


Check out the following link:

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/pciscc_ten_common_myths.pdf

Please let us know if we can be of service to your business. Please contact us at ray@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call 727-916-7294
http://www.tampabaymerchantservice.com/