A Quick Guide to Huge Credit Card Processing Savings

Cleaning the magnetic strip readers on credit card machine

The magnetic strip on the back of a credit card or debit card holds the vital information of the cardholder. A credit card machine reads this information when the card is swiped through its reader. Thus, in order to get the lowest processing rate, the machine should read all the data from the card’s magnetic strip.

You must clean the magnetic strip reader timely on your processing machine. It can save you huge bucks on processing charges each month. If the machine’s card reader is not cleaned up properly, making it hard to read the entire data. The transaction may still be approved, but it will be charged at a higher interchange rate. Keeping the magnetic card reader in your processing equipment clean will save you from overpaying for processing.

Switching from tiered pricing to interchange-plus

Almost all of the merchants that process credit cards utilize a tiered pricing model. Tiered merchant account pricing is an expensive model than the interchange plus, a more transparent model which is widely available these days.

Read your credit card processing statements carefully. If you find charges for “qualified,” “mid-qualified” or “non-qualified transactions” than you’re processing credit cards on a tiered merchant account pricing model. Switching to interchange plus pricing can save you as much as 25% or may be more each month over tiered pricing.

Monthly minimums waived

The monthly minimum adds substantial expenses to the processing bill especially in seasonal businesses. The monthly minimum is the amount charged by your merchant service provider regardless of your actual processing volume. Calling your processor and having this fee removed from your merchant account will save you a lot in any month where you don’t have to pay the minimum fee.

Monthly “junk” fees waived or reduced

The service providers earn profits on fees other than actual processing charges. Therefore, even if your merchant account is on the lower interchange plus pricing model, they may overcharge you with additional “junk fees.”

Monthly junk fees is also called as customer service fee, statement fee, Discover network fee etc. You can ask your merchant service provider to provide you the statement either on the phone or in person. And as they mention fees, inquire for what they’re for. If it’s a junk fee, insist to get it done lower or abolish from your account completely.

Get more information on Merchant Credit Card Processing Services at www.paynetsystems.com

Mistakes to Avoid While Opting Out

You can exercise your right to opt out to get rid of fee hikes. But choose the right way of opting out, else you might be the victim of new, higher rates introduced by the service provider. Try to avoid the following mistakes while opting out of the credit card services :-

1. Changing Automated Billing Info:- If you are habitual of making automated payments, than, while opting out you must ensure to switch your billing to another credit card. If the bills continue to go to that specific credit card, you are subjected to pay the higher interest rates and fees. Make sure that all your billing statements for annual and semi-annual charges are not being billed to the credit card.

2. Avoid ID Theft and Credit Card Fraud:- Protect your personal details and important information when all your details are online. Taking this step is even more crucial when you are opting out of a credit card agreement. If someone steals your details and personal information and use it afterwards, you’ll be liable to pay for that on the existing high fees and interest rates. But in case if you can prove that all this is result of a fraudulent activity, you can save yourself from making the payment. But proving all this consumes a lot of time and energy so its better to take preventive measures before hand.

3. Avoid using your card, even by accident:- Your decision will be void if you use the card you chose to opt out from. If you carry a number of credit cards in your bag and use that specific card in hurry, you will be liable to pay for the expenses at the existing rates. To refrain from such accidents, keep the card in question away from others so that you can save yourself from again falling in the vicious circle. Completely destroy or shred the cards you don’t want to use so that you can save yourself from the after effects.

4. Clean the stored billing information:- Make sure to remove your billing information from the records of your favorite online retailers. If they’ve your credit card number in their files, they can use it in case your credit card does not work. You can ask for the details from their customer support or by visiting user account settings.

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Importance of Online Credit Card Processing

Mode of payment through which customers will pay for the products and services is of utmost importance for individuals and businesses selling products and services online.

There are various ways to accept payment but the most preferred one is that which offer a lot of convenience to the potential customers. Accepting payments via credit card is one such option and is very popular among them. Users are more comfortable with using their credit cards to make online purchases.

Implementing this, it is very important for online companies to ensure that their website are able to process credit card payments easily and quickly. It includes setting up an Internet merchant account with a credit card processor. It plays a major role in allowing businesses and individuals to accept credit card payments online.

Internet Merchant Accounts

Internet merchant accounts sole aim is to accept credit card payments from the credit card companies of their customers. The accounts provide businesses with an automatic way of handling credit card payments that are made online.

However, before pinning down on an Internet merchant account, online traders first need to understand the various terms included. One of them is knowing what a payment gateway is? A payment gateway is an online credit card processor that provides a path between the Internet merchant account of the online business and a customer’s credit card account. Their principal function is to authenticate the customer’s account information and the online business’s request to transfer the funds to their bank account.

Other important term is funds capture. It is the process where a transaction deposit is made on a business’s Internet merchant account. Similarly, the term settlement refers to the funds from a customer’s credit card account has been transferred to the business Internet merchant account.

For online companies, processing credit card payment is an indispensable task. Therefore, before setting up such account, business traders are required to understand the different terms included in the process of accepting online credit card payments. It will definitely let them make knowledgeable on the whole functioning of its process.

Balance Transfer Checks – Saving Opportunities in Disguise

From November to February, you will find an increase in marketing gimmicks from the credit cards you already using. Credit card companies spend a lot of money on marketing to attract new customers. Also it’s always cheaper to keep the existing customers they have rather than searching for new customers.

With these promotional activities, you will get to know about balance transfer offer from your credit card company. The most lucrative offers are in the form of checks offering 0% interest. Others might include 3.99% interest or 6% interest and no balance transfer fees. These offers may prove to be a good deal, depending on your decisions.

For example, if you were to use a balance transfer check with 3.99% interest and a fee of 3% of your total amount to pay off a credit card or loan with 11% interest- as long as the dollar amount you borrow from the balance transfer check is high enough, you’re going to save enough money to make that a worthwhile fee to pay. You’ll can also pay off the balance much sooner with the lower interest rate even by making the same amount of payments each month- since more of your payment goes to principal.

Most of the users do not realize that they can actually get a balance transfer check from one of these low or no interest offers, and deposit the check into their own, personal checking accounts. After depositing, you can use it to pay off various debts that are costing you more than 3.99% interest. And this way you can save your money.

As long as you make your monthly payments on time, you’ll be able to keep your 0% or low interest offer on the balance transfer. Making even one payment late can lead to increase in rates or late fees, wiping out the financial gains offers.

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A Detailed Note on Credit Card Processing Fees

Merchant Accounts are extremely helpful for the businesses and proves to be beneficial in various ways. But these advantages do not come for free, because every service come for a price.

You are required to pay a certain amount of credit card processing fees and authorization fees.

Keeping a merchant account going does require certain credit card processing fees and one of them is the Authorization Fee. When a transaction is relayed to the card-issuing bank, this fee will be charged to the merchant even if the request has been denied.

Authorization fee is sometimes confused with Transaction Free which is completely different. However, both Authorization and Transaction Fees are collected by the merchant service provider, not the bank, and handed over to the merchant.

Another kind of fee included in the monthly statements is the Statement Fee that the merchant pays on a monthly basis. Few service providers oblige their clients to charge certain fees based on the transactions made. In case if merchant is unable to meet this requirement, he will be required to settle the amount that has not been collected in order for him to reach the monthly minimum.

Affinity Cards – Show You Care!!

Affinity cards offers a golden opportunity to the users by presenting their brighter and positive side in front of others. These card assists you in helping others in a very easy manner. The affinity cards support all kinds of good causes. Most of its features are similar to that of the general cards. But there are few differences in the two like;

The affinity cards are co issued or sponsored by another brand also, whose logo appears on the card, along with the logo of a charity. When card holders make purchases using their affinity cards, the card company donates a percentage to the partner charity. The cardholder gets cash back, rewards or other benefits related to the sponsoring organization when using it. The bank would pay the sponsoring organization part of the profits whenever the cardholder uses the card.

Before you apply for an affinity card, you should be aware that they usually come with higher rates and fewer perks as compared to other cards. Just like other cards, do read the fine prints in your agreements in order to avoid any ambiguity. Some of the most popular affinity card causes include child welfare, animal welfare, crime, public education, and environmental causes.

The donations you made are not of tax deductible nature, as they are made as a part of a contractual obligation. But it feels good to help the needy person, which is why affinity cards are still hugely popular despite their less-than-stellar terms and conditions.

Browse through http://www.paynetsystems.com to get more information about Credit Card Processing and How to Accept Credit Cards.

How to Ensure the Safety of Your Credit Card?

Every credit card comes with a note of signing the back immediately after receiving it or before using it. The three major credit card companies – Visa, Master Card and American Express,- requests the users to sign their credit card immediately. In fact, all of them have rules that prohibit merchants from accepting credit cards that don’t have a valid signature. Visa states that a merchant may not complete a transaction until the card is signed.

It sounds like good advice, but in case, if someone steals your card, he will get the perfect copy of your signature to use in any manner, he wants to. Experts are of the view, that instead of signing it, write ‘Ask for Photo I.D’ in the space. But as per the strict rules and direction of the credit card companies, you can not escape from signing your credit card. Instead you should follow some security measures to ensure the safety of your card :

1. Avoid revealing your credit card number to someone on the telephone. If the caller pretends to be calling on behalf of the company, than you can direct him that you will call yourself on the company number. This way you will get to know the real identity of that person.

2. Same things apply to the emails you receive in your inbox. You can type the URL of the company in a new browser to crosscheck the validity of that particular URL.

3. Always adopt the practice of reconciling the credit card bills every month. You can report the company in case you find any charges that are not incurred by you, or are nor recognizable.

4. Make sure to register all the information related to your credit cards. Note down the credit card number, expiry date, telephone numbers etc. and keep it in a safe place. In case your credit card get stolen, you will still have the information in case if you are reporting your credit card theft.

Guidelines on Making Credit Card Balance Transfers

Making a credit card balance transfer is one of the best ways to reduce the interest or APR on your credit card bill. This also serves as a marketing strategy to attract customers of other banks.

However, before going for such transfer, it is advisable to remember following points:

1. Always inquire about the period in which you can avail the low interest rate advantage, before it jump back to the usual rate. Usually, the interest periods last between six months to a year.

2. Search for a bank that offers lowest interest rate for the longer period of time.

3. Understand the process of transferring, it would help you in knowing all the required details. You might plan to close the old card once the balance transfer is made since the it would not be closed by the back automatically.

4. Look for extra costs involved in the credit card balance transfer before you apply and accept anything. At a later stage, you may be astonished with charges you didn’t expect.

5. You must know the requirements of the new bank regarding the transfer. A higher minimum monthly payment might be required in lieu of low interest rate. Make sure you are in the position to make the monthly minimum payments before signing up for the balance transfer.

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What is Credit Card Processing Floor Limit

Floor limit signifies the payment amount above which credit or debit card transactions must be authorized before being processed. It varies from business to business and is specified in the merchant processing agreement.

The term floor limit was significant, in the past when on the sales floor the point-of-sale staff had to call for authorization on any payment amount that was over a predetermined level. At that time credit card processing was very time consuming and expensive as it involved taking a physical imprint of the card and a personal review for the authorization process.

These days merchants can benefit from electronic authorization systems that merchant banks provide at a minimal cost. Once a payment is authorized, the merchant has an additional and powerful assurance against fraud.

Still, even today, the floor limit concept comes into play occasionally. For example, if unable to connect to the merchant bank’s authorization system, a merchant will not be able to obtain an electronic authorization and will have no recourse against fraudulent activity or a chargeback-generating customer dispute. Yet, if the transaction amount is less than the floor limit, no authorization is required by the merchant bank. If, however, the amount is over the floor limit, the merchant must authorize the transaction and can do this by making a telephone call to the merchant bank and obtaining a “voice authorization.” In this case the merchant will be well advised to also take the card’s imprint and place it on the sales receipt.

Floor limit remains zero for merchants who operate in a card-not-present environment. This means that all of their transactions always require authorization, regardless of the payment amount. All Internet, mail order and telephone order merchants fall into this category.

Portable Credit Card Processing Benefits

Almost all retail businesses accept credit cards these days and usually do it through a credit card processing terminal. Other businesses that work remotely or from their customers locations are not accepting credit cards as much these days for few reasons. First, most of them are used to invoicing their customers for the transaction total and getting paid later. OR, they consider jotting down the credit card number and process it later in the office a hassle.

Portable credit card processing machines are more common and offers a lot of advantages to the mobile businesses. First, processing the card on the spot is good for the business itself and also for their prospective customers. The transactions costs will be lower when scanning the card itself as compare to that of typing in the information later.

Most importantly, you can inform a rejected transaction there only, without wasting a second, and request a different card or a check instead. You are saved from dealing with invoices, collections, and depositing checks at the bank.

Whereas, from a customer’s point of view, they prefer that you don’t have their precious credit card number written down and like to get a printed receipt on the spot. Though a portable terminal is not cheap, most businesses can easily justify it both in terms of added convenience and added revenue compared to older methods of taking payments from customers. Ask your merchant services provider if they have the option of using a portable terminal for your payments and streamline your payments processing today.