Slip-Ups Merchants Make With Credit Card Processing

Ecommerce is a common place off late, there are technologies that exist and have made ecommerce business really affordable and doable for even small startups. Most of the banks and merchant account providers however still are skeptical about ecommerce and consider some business high risk (depending on the chargebacks they face). Nonetheless, it has become easier to get a merchant account for credit card processing today, especially because of high risk merchant account providers that do not shy from providing merchant accounts and payment gateways to high risk business. 

The bank or merchant account provider will provide you with a merchant account to process credit card payments – payments that are collected through sales. The account provider will charge you a fee for the service and in return assure you of service (but you must make sure that you get what was promised and you expected). Read on to avoid the common mistakes that business owners commit when selecting their merchant service provider. 

    Read the agreement and terms and conditions properly 

When researching for a High risk credit card processor or a simple credit card processor, you will speak to a lot of sales people, each of whom will have different quotes. When you are looking for the best one, do not haste your decision and apply and get approved for a account before anything else. When applying, the paper work will include terms and conditions of the merchant account and merchant agreement. Some people tend to overlook the agreement and terms and conditions simply because they are legal documents with a lot of complicated and confusing language. But these are very important and you must in all cases read through the agreement and T&C to make sure what you are entering into. Upon glancing the papers most business owners don’t bother to read through and then later they tend to have a lot of turnoffs with the processor about simple things that we mentioned in the agreement and terms of use etc. 

·         Be extra sure of all rates, downgrades and extra charges

Business owners are concerned about the pricing and payment before taking up a merchant account. Cost is the main concern that plays an important role in credit card processor’s selection. Yet, due to their lack of knowledge and deceptiveness, merchants end up facing issues  - they do not end up receiving the pricing they were promised. The merchant industry is full of fraudulent terms, sales persons will quote you all kinds of misleading pric which will sound really lucrative to you, so when you get a price quote which sounds too good to be true, then follow your instinct and confirm thoroughly for its authenticity, As a merchant to avoid unexpected surcharges on cost, merchants need to possess a good instinct and basic understanding of the interchange table.

·         Signing long-term contract with really high early termination fees

 

Almost all the credit card processors out there will have some sort of a contractual term agreement, which usually in 2 to 3 years. The contract is not unreasonable because some processors make all efforts (right and wrong) to retain merchants for longer times against their will. There are long term contracts also which come with really high early termination fee, sometimes as high as $2000 plus.