never gone

I know this is an old post but people should be a little careful with them and here's why. Right on their website it says...

" 2.29% VISA/MasterCard Qualified Discount Rate# $0.29per Transaction"

That is NOT good pricing. If you look at a merchant that's not huge and not small, say they do $10,000 a month in V/MC an have an average ticket of $30. Their EFFECTIVE rate would be 3.26% which in all honesty is really not good at all. Plus, a merchant with these kind of numbers would have at minimum 30% of the cards they get would be check(debit) cards so what about the fact the their rate on those cards should be almost a half of a percent lower? Also, what do they consider to be a "qualified" transaction? MANY processors offer "great rates" on their "qualified" transactions but then fail to tell the merchant that maybe 2% of their transaction will fall into their definition of "qualified." I'm not trying to stir the pot but I believe an educated merchant is a dangerous merchant and that's a GOOD thing.

Here's some interesting info most don't know. Yes a debit card can be treated like a regular credit card if a pin # can't be entered. What most don't know is the cost for a retail merchant is WAAAAY lower than if it was a regular card and not a debit card. Yes pin based transactions are super low and you only pay a transaction fee but a LOT of processors will sell you on that even if it's really not something that will benefit your business. If you have a really small average ticket, it makes no sense to take a pin based debit card because the cost can actually be higher than if you treat it like a regular card. However, merchants think that just paying a transaction fee instead of a percentage rate is the way to go, which is true as long as you have a high enough average ticket to make it worth it. Processors will use pin debit sales as a reason to sell you more equipment so don't fall for it.

So if you can't take a pin based debit, it's still all good. Example, cost on a regular visa for a swiped transaction is 1.6325% + .10 a trans. That is COST (in the US), not including the processors profit, no matter what processor you're talking about, for a basic swiped transaction. Now, if you're with a processor that participates in check card rebates, your cost on the same transaction if it's a debit card where there is NO pin# being entered, the cost is 1.1225% + $.15 a transaction. It's a HUGE difference between the two but the kicker is most processors will not charge you the lower rate even though they are getting charged the lower rate from Visa/MC, they keep the difference for their profits. The thing is that processors do not have to give you the lower rates for debit cards because it's completely elective for them to do so. I hoped that helped a little.