Great Merchant Provider
Irrespective of which companies and/or banks you could interview as prospective merchant processors for your credit-card payments, make sure to ask the following questions:
Find out the total Setup Costs involved. - Confirm specifically precisely what the grand total upfront costs will be, including any initial costs that you're going to incur throughout the first few months of processing.
Find out the total Monthly Costs that apply. - Above all, you will need to ask about any "monthly minimums" which may apply. This may often add $20-25/month in additional cost. Be sure to ask "if I processed $0 in sales, what would my grand total monthly billing amount be?"
Find out if there is any Once-a-year Fee or Yearly Cost. - Some processors charge a yearly fee after just the very first 1-2 months of service. Others charge fees up to $95-$150/year and place this within the fine print of the contract.
Find out the Per Transaction Costs in Detail. - You will need to make sure that you understand the "Per Trans/Item" costs as well as any AVS, batch header or gateway per transaction items.
Ask what "Downgrade Fees" apply. - It really is not uncommon for some accounts to have 3 Tiers - Qualified, Mid-Qualified and Non-Qualified. Unfortunately, there are actually often *many* transactions billed out at the Mid-Qualified level that may significantly impact your total cost. A 2 Tier program is thus preferable but be sure you ask what % of transactions are billed at each level statistically.
Ask how Chargebacks & Risk Management issues are handled. - This is a *critical* operational area that effects many merchants and any company should be able to tell you in great detail how it handles these kinds of issues. For example, do they automatically notify you via e-mail? Or merely mail out rebuttals in United States mail that can delay your capability to return a rebuttal?
Do your Due Diligence and see what other merchants have experienced using that processor. - Keep in mind, the best predictor of future results is a processor's current background with nearly all of its merchants!
Many times, the answers to visit these guys questions may surprise you. You can find a big range of businesses that just "go with their bank" for merchant processing and find yourself paying the cost. Just when you shopped for bank accounts you need to too shop for merchant processors.
