Credit Card Transactions New Way of Holiday Giving?

The Salvation Army of Washoe County on Saturday unveiled a new option for donating at a few of their Christmas kettle sites: swiping a credit or debit card.

One credit/debit machine was put into service Saturday at the Damonte Ranch Walmart.

“We have received three of the machines,” said Major Doug Williams, corps officer. “So many people these days use debit or credit cards, rather than cash. It’s another convenience that we can offer our donors.”

Two other Walmart stores, off Kietzke Lane and off Pyramid Way, served as test sites for the debit/credit card option Saturday. The three machines will be tested at other sites around the area.

Donors at sites equipped with the machine can use MasterCard or VISA debit/credit. The donor handles the transaction, following step-by-step instructions.

Those wishing to help, but who can’t stop by a kettle location can donate on the Salvation Army Web site, www.salvationarmyreno.org.

Also being offered is a turkey option on the Web site for those wishing to donate to Operation Turkey Drop, which is 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday at the Salvation Army offices, 1931 Sutro St. Turkeys and nonperishable food items are needed for thousands of Christmas food boxes

Salvation Army Credit Cards? Well, not really. Traditional Salvation Army donation kettles are on the streets to accept cash for the holidays — but in Oregon they’re happy to accept plastic, officials say.

An “electronic kettle,” moving around the Salem area, offers donors the ability to donate more than spare change; they can donate with a credit card, Salem’s Statesman Journal reported Saturday.”Everyone is having a tough time with the economy, especially those in need in our area,” Mary Yoder of the Salvation Army said. “We really want to extend to those who want to give a variety of different ways that we can do that.”

Donations help pay for meals and food boxes for the homeless and toys for children.

“This is a tough time for lots of people,” said Anna Hender, who donated to a red kettle Friday. “I can put food on the table. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

What’s PCI Compliance?

While we all enjoy the benefits and convenience of living and working in a high-tech era, unfortunately we must realize high tech crime comes with it. Computers and phone lines around the world are being hacked into on a daily basis and this has the major credit card companies more than just a little concerned as they’re suffering huge losses due to fraud. This is why PCI compliance was introduced to all merchants who accept credit cards as a form of payment.

PCI stands for Payment Card Industry and you will often see the letters DSS after it, which means Data Security Standard.  This is a set of standards financial institutions and credit card processing companies have to comply with when facilitating credit card processing. The goal is to protect personal information and to make sure all transactions and data storage are handled securely by using a common security standard. Basically, it’s a way for the industry to regulate itself.

If banks and merchant account providers don’t comply with these standards they may be fined or could even have their credit card-selling privilege taken away. Merchants themselves must also meet the PCI compliance standards.

There are four different levels of standards that must be met, and these depend on how many annual sales you process. Level one is for merchants who handle over 6,000,000 transactions a year and level four refers to those that handle less than 20,000. The more transactions you process, the more security measures you must meet.

You should start off by filling out a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) which will be sent to you with your merchant account statement.  Your answers will be scrutinized by security departments and they will decide if you need to implement any further security measures.

If you process transactions via an Internet connection, then the system must undergo a security scan to make sure it can’t be compromised or hacked into.  An auditor may also show up at level one merchants to make sure everything is being done according to PCI compliance.

There are several categories of PCI standards that need to be met for you to be considered as compliant.

• Your network has to be secure and the proper firewalls and other security measures need to be installed.
• Credit Card holder data must be protected when it’s stored and transmitted. This means limiting access to it and possibly encrypting the information.  Encryption is essential for internet transactions and information must be encrypted with at minimum 128 bit SSL certificate to meet the standard.
• A vulnerability management program should be in place. This basically means that you must ensure that you’re using updated hardware, software, and operating systems. Be sure to install anti-virus software and run virus scans on a regular basis.
• Strong access control measures need to be implemented.  Meeting PCI compliance means you should only give cardholder information access to employees who need it.
• Networks should be tested and monitored on a regular basis to meet the standard. Make sure you identify and immediately fix all possible security leaks.
• An information security policy needs to be maintained.  This means you should make sure all employees fully understand and know what their responsibilities are when it comes to cardholder information.

If you can meet these standards above, you’re well on the way to PCI compliance.  However, things don’t usually get that involved for level four merchants and they often meet standards by using a payment gateway or merchant account provider that offer compliant services. And remember, if you don’t store, transmit or process any credit card data at all, then you don’t have to meet PCI compliance.

While adhering to PCI compliance makes credit card transactions more secure for you and your customers, it doesn’t’ come without a cost. Because all of the security measures have been implemented by financial institutions and merchant account providers, the costs are naturally passed down to the merchants. However, you can shop around to see who offers the best deal as the price varies.  Some credit card processing companies are currently waiving any PCI compliance fee.

Since PCI compliance is now a standard industry requirement for accepting credit card payments, there’s no two ways about it, you must become compliant. If you’re not sure you are, then contact your credit card processor to get all of the details as the monetary fines for not meeting the standards can be astronomical.  You don’t want to find out the answer to the question, “What is PCI

I Just Got a Merchant Account, Now What?

The “Do’s and Don’ts” of Credit Card Processing:

Do not refuse to accept credit cards when a customer is averse to presenting personal identification – It may be understandable and permissible to ask a customer for personal identification, such as a driver’s license, but you cannot deny use of plastic if a customer does not accommodate your request.  Many states have laws prohibiting merchants to base their decision whether to swipe a card on whether the customer presents suitable ID.

Do not require that the sale has to be a certain minimum amount to swipe the credit card.  This is in violation of the cardholding association rules.  Moreover, imposing maximum transaction amounts as a condition to accept plastic is also taboo.

Do not charge a surcharge to your customers for using their plastic.  While it makes sense / cents for business owners to recoup credit card processing fees, customers are not supposed to foot the bill for this expense.  Of course, merchants can build such expenses into their pricing model, but they are not supposed to itemize an invoice, for example, where the customer is charged for using their credit cards.

Of interest, merchants can offer “cash discounts” to customers who pay with cash, but again, cannot penalize credit card wielding customers.  (Some institutions, such as utility companies, may be able to charge a “convenience fee” to customers for using plastic if such businesses do not ordinarily accept credit cards.  The rules and loopholes to charge convenience fees are murky so proceed with caution if this is your intent.

Do not place a hold for the estimated tip when swiping a credit card.  The practice to authorize tips used to be habitually done by many restaurant, hotel, and hospitality businesses and is now against Visa regulations.  Too many customers became upset when their actual bill did not match the total price reflected by the merchant’s charge because it has factored in an estimated tip.

Do not, under any circumstance, provide a refund in cash for a credit card purchase.  You can easily imagine how this practice can leave you susceptible to fraud.  It’s also against the cardholding associations’ stipulations.

Do not refuse to accept rewards cards.  Although there may be an additional cost to accept rewards cards, you cannot prohibit customers from using them, as long as you accept that brand.  For example, if you already accept Visa and MasterCard cards, you cannot tell customers to refrain from using Visa and MasterCard rewards cards.

Do not try to compel customers to waive their chargeback rights.  According to the cardholding associations, customers have the right to dispute any given charge.  You may have a customer sign and acknowledge that there are no refunds, for example, but you cannot try to convince customers that they cannot initiate chargebacks.  (Of course, you would probably win a chargeback when presenting this “no refund” acknowledgement, for instance, but customers still have the right to challenge the authenticity of any transaction.

Quick and Easy Merchant Application Process!

A lot of business owners find filling out applications, forms and going through the process of becoming a credit card merchant provider difficult, tedious, and frustrating.  But, if you know  the process you’ve won the battle!  Understanding it before you even go through the process can make it easy and painless!

Here are some of the basics of what will be required:

Your federal ID number

Your person social security number – Just like getting a credit card for personal use some background information and tracking will be used in obtaining a merchant service account.

Your Doing Business As (DBA) name.  The indicated DBA is the name which will appear on your customers’ bank statements.

Number of years that your business has been in existence, the nature of your business, where you run and operate your business (e.g., residence, office building, storefront, etc.)

The date in which you intend to charge customers’ credit cards and the time frame that you will deliver your products.

Some applications may also require your return policy.

References: Companies that can vouch for their entity’s existence. You can use your lawyer, or supplier, anyone that can vouch the legitimacy of your company.

Monthly volume – The monthly volume is the amount in credit card processing sales that you anticipate.

Average ticket, and highest ticket- the average ticket is the amount that a typical customer will charge on their credit for a given transaction; and the highest ticket is the highest amount that a customer will spend for your product or service.

Helpful tips:

Don’t rush through the application, even the most savvy business owner can take 30-40 minutes to complete application.

Remember that you are giving information that is the over all impression of your business. The people who are approving your application (the underwriters) need to see the full picture of what your organization is, who you are, will you have a lot of chargebacks.  Which is why it is important to provide information that is factual and realistic.

Why Have Multiple Merchant Accounts?

Many business owners have multiple merchant accounts. For example, wineries typically have at least two accounts, one for their tasting room set up as a retail account and the other account for their wine club set up MOTO (mail order telephone order).

Occasionally they will have a third account for their website, which is set up as an ecommerce account. We set them up this way because it helps them track distinctive parts of their business and most importantly, it saves them money.

Each type of merchant account (Retail, MOTO, Ecommerce, Restaurant, etc.) has different guidelines and rates. So if you have a retail merchant account setup for your website, your transactions will not meet the guidelines of a retail account, resulting in being downgraded which results in a higher rates.

sure your account is set up correctly to match the environment your transactions are being accepted in.

How to re-bill your customer’s credit card, without storing it!

Many times business and website owners want to store credit card numbers for later. This allows re-billing customers for recurring orders, and allows easier checkout for repeat customers on a website.

If a business decides they want to actually store credit card numbers, they are subjected to stricter PCI-DSS standards, and run a real risk of losing customer data just by the fact that they have it. Apart from PCI, it’s difficult to securely store credit card data as there is a multitude of technical aspects to doing it safely. If you lay it all out on paper, there is a huge amount of work, ongoing management, and liability in storing credit card numbers.

We simply let somebody else store it for us. If we outsource our credit card number storage to another party, we are no longer liable for that data. This is still your customer’s data, so your reputation is on the line, but not necessarily your wallet. What’s even better is that with some of today’s available services, outsourcing this can give us an easier method of re-billing our customer than if we could easily store credit cards.

This is the easy part. Your payment gateway may have a customer storage mechanism, or customer vault.

What this does is store your customer’s information and credit card number in the payment gateway’s secure database. If you need to charge your customer again, you simply reference their customer number and the amount you wish to charge. You can do this manually through the administrative virtual terminal of your payment gateway, or you can often do it directly through your website using an API. You can also setup recurring payments, refund, void, or credit via a customer’s stored card.

With a system like this, a developer can create a custom recurring billing system, or a user friendly “remember card” feature with your ecommerce site’s checkout system

Who’s Who in the Credit Card World?

The credit card industry has multiple players, each one with a defining role. For an individual or business owner who doesn’t necessarily work in the credit card industry or may not fully understand how the world of credit works, it is important to educate yourself about who is who in this world. Business owners especially need to understand how the credit industry works for two reasons. One if a business owner is operating a business on credit they should understand each person’s role in this industry. Second, if a company accepts credit cards for payment, they must also be well-educated in how the industry works.

How the Credit card industry works and what you should know:

• Credit Card Companies: MasterCard, Visa, Discover, American Express and Citibank are some of the largest credit card companies in the industry. These companies are the producers of credit cards and take the risk of consumer spending. Credit card companies also set the rates that merchants pay in order to accept credit cards.
• Merchant Service Providers: Allow businesses to accept credit cards for payment. They provide around the clock service as well as an added touch of security to business owners to allow them to process credit cards. They typically help to monitor spending and work with banks to make sure money is transferred from the credit card company to the company processing credit cards. They also provide business owners with the right tools to have the capability to accept credit cards, such as Point of Sale terminals. 
• PayPal: This is an example of a third party processing company that allows people to accept credit cards. PayPal is an online service in which practically anyone can sign up for an account in order to accept credit cards. Users of E-Bay typically set up an account with PayPal to transfer funds for payment of their products. The downfall of being a small business owner who accepts PayPal is in that they do not provide additional security and service. It is merely a way to accept credit cards online. Working with a merchant service company ensures a small to medium size business more accuracy in credit card processing.
• Business Owners/Companies: Every business now has the capability to accept credit cards through third party merchant service providers. Businesses play a huge role in the credit card industry for two reasons; one, being that companies typically own a business credit card and therefore spend a considerable amount on their card each year. Secondly, because businesses need the ability to accept credit cards, not just to use them. Business owners should know the rates they pay for both their spending and the processing, in order to efficiently run their business.
• Consumers: people who purchase a company’s products or services. They also play a huge role in the credit card industry, because not only do they keep businesses operating, they also keep credit card companies in business as well.

What is Electronic Payment Processing?

In simple terms electronic payment processing is the ability to accept non cash payments for products and services electronically. While this is quite simple, it should still be taken a step further to explain what it is and how it works. Payment processing in general is how a company survives. Payment processing is the ability to accept payment for services rendered or products sold.  In the early 1900’s credit cards and the use of credit was a new idea and cash was primarily used as the form of payment.

The idea of using credit to pay for travel and large ticket items started to become more prevalent after the Great Depression. During the 1950’s the Diner’s Club Inc. invented the first credit card that could be used at a variety of stores and businesses, however its primary use was for entertainment. Even still, merchants were happy to accept this credit card, because they found that customers were more likely to spend more if they were able to “charge it”. Electronic payment processing first began by Franklin National Bank who screened applicants and issued a card to them upon approval. The credit card user would then take the card to a retailer to make a purchase and the retail store would then have to call the bank to authorize the transaction.

 

As the use of credit became more popular, along came the invention of magnetic stripes on the back of credit cards which allowed retailers to accept credit cards by swiping the card through a dial-up terminal. Electronic processing has advanced immensely over the years and now virtually allows businesses in almost every industry the capability to accept non cash payments.

 

Examples of non cash payment forms include:

 

• Credit Cards
• Debit Cards
• Gift Cards
• Electronic Checks
• Loyalty Card Programs
• ACH Processing i.e. direct deposit

Electronic payment processing has expanded the way companies do business over the past century. It is responsible for allowing companies to operate on a more sophisticated budget and accounts for 90% of all e-commerce transactions. Credit cards have become imbedded into the culture of the world over the past several decades and companies who accept credit cards as form of payment generate substantially more revenues than when accepting cash, check or wire transfers alone.

 

 More about the history of credit cards

 

 

 

 

City Parking Meters Accepting Credit Cards for 90 Trial

What’s next? From vending machines to parking meters, many different industries are seeing the value in allowing consumers to switch from using change to using their credit cards to pay for products and services. The daily Northwestern revealed today that the city of Evanston installed new parking meters last week that accept credit cards.

There are 41 meters located in downtown that are participating in a 90-trial period during the winter months to see how improved parking meters accepting credit cards will hold up during the cold temperatures. Already many Universities and city parks have installed a new form of meters that allow a driver looking to park their car in a metered space to go to a machine, enter in the space number and pay by credit card. However an even newer meter has now entered the realm, making it convenient for drivers to pull into a metered space and pay directly to the meter at the parking space by credit card.

City officials are concerned that the new meters will not be able to withstand the weather during the winter months, but want to see the limit of this new technology. Possible problems could include dead batteries and ice buildup. This trial will prove the durability of the machines, and if they are proven to hold up could stir a new trend for how we pay for parking.

How does this help the population?

• These machines will help to ease the stress of drivers having to dig for change
• Helps to improve performance and customer service on the city
• Eliminates change from the puzzle and is more convenient on city drivers
• Business owners will be able to better track their spending on parking for tax purposes

 There will still be kinks to work out with these new meters, and the work of parking officers won’t necessarily get any easier. However, by accepting credit cards for parking the city could potentially increase their revenues and city drivers will be happier knowing they do not have the worry of constantly needing change to pay for parking.

Read article from The Daily Nowrthwestern

Vending Machines Accepting Credit Cards?

 The credit card industry is constantly changing and over the past few years has become very diverse. A newer growing trend is installing slots in vending machines to allow customers to use their credit or debit cards at a vending machine.

It may be a little hard to believe at first but many hotel chains have already converted their vending machines to accept credit cards. Several Universities and rest stops are also making the decision to allow customers to use their credit cards to purchase many of the items that can be found in vending machines. From soda machines to snack machines, it seems that the convenience of being able to use a credit card or debit card to purchase your snack of choice is a trend that is spreading like a wild fire.

How many times have you been in need of a snack and the only thing around is a vending machine? Now out of those times, how often have you been stuck hungry and without cash, wishing that vending machine would take plastic? So you walk back to your car to see if you can scrounge up some change, but 9 times out of 10 you can’t find enough to buy what you really want. Often times you will settle for something cheaper, stepping away feeling cheated somehow. There is a new remedy to that problem. In the future you won’t have to worry about whether you have cash or not, all you will need is your card to purchase your snack of choice.

With the move for vending machines to accept credit cards, now travelers, college students, hospital workers and anyone else using vending machines will be able to swipe their card and be on their merry way. Locations with vending machines are more than likely going to increase the number of snacks and sodas sold on a daily basis because of this decision.

Not all vending machines or retail locations have started accepting credit cards, you may still find locations only accepting cash, however as the trend grows and new machines replace the old ones, you can bet that in the future every vending machine will be made with the technology to accept credit cards.

Another popular move for schools and Universities are to make vending machines across campus accept their school card. Students can put money on their card and use it to purchase snacks while studying or on their way to class. What a smart move to allow consumers more convenience and increase sales by accepting credit cards in vending machines.