By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
Before I get to the meat of the matter, let me finish what I began last week. It bugged me that I only knew what TJ Maxx was supposed to be fined, so I went and found out what they were fined. Rather than the roughly $100 per [...]
I just got off a conference call with authorize.net and a new client of mine. Our mission was to switch their merchant account provider within their authorize.net account. I happy to say the whole process took about five minutes and was almost painless (the hold music was brutal!).
I have previously written on this [...]
Watch this video and read this post to learn what to look for and ask when you are shopping for a merchant account.
What watch out for:
Super low discount rates – the lower the advertised rate is the greater your effective rate typically will be.
Free terminals or gateways – in business nothing is free in the [...]
Case Study - Winery
Business Type: Napa Valley Winery (specific name withheld)
Initial Status: To the untrained eye this merchant account statement looked just fine; here are a few of the problems that stood out to me:
One merchant account for both their tasting room and wine club
25% of there Visa transactions going to a “non-qualified” status
Transactions being [...]
RDC Post Intro
First lets start with what RDC stands for - Remote Deposit Capture. RDC is a new generation of check imaging and conversion. This new service was made possible by “The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act,” formally known in the U.S. House of Representatives as HR 5414 and informally known as Check21, [...]
Watch this video to be warned about the dangers that lurk in many merchant account contracts. The focus of this lesson is on early termination fees and contract auto renewal. If you heed these words you can save yourself a lot of money and suffering.
Watch this video and save significant money on your merchant account.
convenience_fees
Last night I went out for dinner with my family and some friends. We all love authentic Mexican food so we went to a real “whole in the wall” restaurant and ate some incredible food. When I was about to pay the cashier I noticed a hand written sign hanging from the wall [...]
About This Quickbooks Post
If you want to use QuickBooks® accounting or point of sale software you may think you have only one option for your merchant account provider. If Intuit had it’s way that would be true but thanks to some determined companies that is not the case. That means now you can use Quickbooks [...]
By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
They’ve nailed some of the ring that stole 45 million cards’ worth of information from TJX Companies. 11 people have been charged, and the ringleader, Albert Gonzalez, could get life in prison. Life.
And in addition to TJX, check out who else Albert’s gang targeted: BJ’s Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, [...]
If you would like to lower your merchant account fees by switching to a “straight pass through” account go here, fill out the short form and we’ll have you saving money in no time.
If you would like us to analyze your current merchant account and show you how much a “straight pass through” merchant account [...]
By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
It’s a Pain in the You-Know-What, but Necessary.
PCI seems daunting. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. To start, it’s actually PCI DSS that we’re concerned with, and that stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. “Data Security Standard” is the key here.
Basically, the idea is to prevent identity theft. [...]
Credit card processing seems simple enough. However, there are lots of moving parts behind the scenes. Here is a simplified, step by step list that reveals the whole process:
Authorization
1. Your customer presents their credit card (or the card number, expiration date and security code) to you or your employee.
2. You swipe the card or key [...]
By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
For the remainder of this discussion, I’ll discuss interchange fees and then a little about the fees to the merchant account provider. The assessment fees paid to the associations, both being small and not negotiable, can wait for another day.
Interchange fees usually make up roughly 80% of the fees you [...]
When I first thought up the name of this blog as "Straight Pass Through" (SPT) my focus was merchant accounts alone. It was all about exposing the truth behind interchange and how it affects a business’s bottom line.
However, in the year this blog as been up my understanding of that phrase has been expanding. SPT [...]
