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/

PIN Pad Device: Is Your Merchant Service Company Taking Advantage Of You?

In the past few months I have meet merchants that have showed me letters and other notices where their current merchant service provider has informed them that they have to “upgrade” their pin pads, because of a mandate of the “Payment Card Industry Security Council” and the requirement date of July 1, 2010. Of course you must go thru the provider, because the pin pad is security encrypted based on the processing company of that particular provider. All of this ok, except the cost to “upgrade” is a bit high. One company is charging an extra $25.00 per month if the merchant does not call in and obtain the new PIN Pad Device by February 1, 2010.

While it is true there is a deadline of July 1, 2010, Visa/MC will not assess any fees until July 2012. In my opinion, these companies are using this as another excuse to extract more money from their customers, the merchants. It seems to me most companies see their merchants as an ATM Machine. If you of tried of this kind of treatment and lack of respect, please give me a call to experience a better service.
Please contact us at ray@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call 727-916-7294
www.tampabaymerchantservice.com

Are You In Compliance With Your Credit Card Receipts?

As disclosed in the merchant agreement and other notifications, merchants must follow the compliance regulations in relation to credit card transaction receipts. The card association rules as well as federal government legislation requires at a minimum that the receipt provided to the customer mask the credit card number so that only the last four to five digits appear on the receipt and completely mask the expiration date. In addition to the above minimum requirements, legislation in some states now requires that the merchant’s copy of the receipt also mask the credit card number and/or expiration date. Please be advised that it is the merchant’s responsibility to investigate which local, state and federal statutes apply to the location(s) in which they conduct business and to find out if any additional truncation laws apply to them. Although meeting these compliance requirements is the responsibility of the merchant, we are here to assist you in any way that we can.

It is imperative that you verify that the receipts being printed from you point-of-sale (POS) device that are given to your customers, as well as receipts that you keep for your records, follow these compliance requirements. Based on the trend that our industry has seen over the past several years in relation to this topic, it is very likely that many states will be moving to truncation of both the credit card number and expiration date on the merchant’s copy as well. As your merchant service provider, we strongly urge you to transition to supporting truncation on both receipt copies regardless of whether your state legislation currently requires you to do so. Because the liability of fines, assessments and associated costs to become compliant are the responsibility of the merchant, we urge you to take the time to comply with these requirements.

We welcome your comments. If we may be of help to you or your business, please contact us at ray@tampabaymerchantservices.com or call 727-916-7294
www.tampabaymerchantservice.com