Accepting Credit Cards

I am wanting to start offering my customers the option to use credit and, maybe debit cards. I don't really expect to use this over 5-10 times a year. Can you guys advice me of a cheap way of doing this without needing terminals and contracts and all that BS that costs more money. I don't care if I have to call in the cards by phone. Would be nice to be able to clear checks electronically, but I can live without that. Thanks

Randy, you might look into Square Up. It's a service that allows you to swipe a credit card on your smart phone. There are no minimums or maximum charges. There is no monthly service fees. You don't have any contract or obligation. The fee is a reasonable 2.75% on each transaction. Its about .5% more if you key in the numbers instead of swiping.

I signed up last week online. It was painless. They sent me the tiny card swiper (free) two days ago. The bank account is still in the process of being verified so I haven't actually tested the card, and process, yet but it seems simple enough.

I don't think I'd accept payment for any large amount because I fear the ability of the customer to take back the funds with a bogus claim but I will use it for smaller repair contracts.

We never did. Let the customer be creative, no reason you should have to put up with extra work. JMO PC

Back in the day when time wasn't like it is today. I excepted credit cards. This is from my memory ... Some one didn't want us or allow us to charge the percentage, I believe it was in an agreement with the processing company ?. It was long ago enough I don't remember.Credit cards sales worked well for quite awhile. B) :) :) B) Deep Down In Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day

tinner666 Said: Since I deal with this on my retail sauce site, I have some knowledge. Not much though. Does it concern you that 180 days after the charge, the client can dispute the charge, and the bank can and will back-charge your account the same day? This can happen a week before youre aware of it, unless you start bouncing checks before then.

Just food for thought.

Ditto........we've never had that happen but it's always an "option" for a customer to do. You're not going to get a very good transaction fee with only that many deals. We pay close to 3% for Visa and MC and it's better for Discover. Stopped taking American Express because they charge a monthly fee for the priviledge of accepting their cards. We also now charge the 3 points to the customer if they want to use a card. It's clearly spelled out on our estimate page so there are no surprises. We used to just absorb the fees but found out they were costing us over $10K a year........that's money right off the top. Now the customer will write a check instead so it's mission accomplished.

JET

Be careful using PP for 'services'. It's against their TOS, and you have ZERO defense in a dispute. PP is for mail order retail only in which shipping records are used for disputes.

I have used Paypal a few times. They hit you for @3% and like Tim said the customer has to set up an account. But it's pretty hassle free and does not require any equiptment or contracts.

I use Intuit for my website hosting and I constantly get junk email from them on processing credit cards, they offer many different options. One caution, if they set it up the same way the do their website design, expect to be nickle and dimed each step of the setup for things you assumed would be covered.

http://payments.intuit.com/?priorityCode=psd543210013&t0=0

A couple of different ways to go about it. My car wash went the traditional way of setting up merchant accounts, which works well but it's a hassle to begin with and can be expensive if you don't find the right one (I use Sterling)...this because I process 100-200 transactions per day and they need to be almost instantaneous. Or, on the Kold King site I just use Google Checkout and Paypal which was very easy, but the downside is the customer has to set up an account to use it. Both work well.

Since I deal with this on my retail sauce site, I have some knowledge. Not much though. Does it concern you that 180 days after the charge, the client can dispute the charge, and the bank can and will back-charge your account the same day? This can happen a week before you're aware of it, unless you start bouncing checks before then.

Just food for thought.