New game plan from Bob hits the scene – quote the customer cost plus a low percentage like .20%, but don’t tell the customer that debit cards, airline rewards cards, and corporate cards will be billed back at a higher rate than cost plus .20%, which most of the cards end up being! Hardly anyone ever receives just a plain old credit card anymore. Now

I actually met a guy on a shuttle bus to a marketing seminar. Get this! His first job at 14 was with a telemarketing company that sold credit card terminal paper! He actually worked for and earned commissions selling $300 cases of paper for terminals to unsuspecting employees and owners. His script was to say he was with their credit card company and they knew

Here’s a new gimmick from Bob. He calls a prospect and says that he is with their credit card processing company and noticed they were being overcharged for fees. If they send him the last two months’ statements, he can work on a refund for them. It is all a lie.

Let’s say Bob comes in and quotes you COST for all retail swiped personal credit cards. You’re thinking, “Man this is great, I’m getting cost!” But the fact is that you only take one or two retail swiped personal credit cards each month. Most of your swiped cards are debit cards and Bob is now marking them up a ton. So Bob isn’t saving you

It is amazing to me how many new tricks there are to fool merchants into paying higher rates. Here is a new one. Give the retail swiped rate for personal credit cards below cost at 1.49% knowing full well that hardly any cards will come in at that rate. Then jack up the price for rewards cards, corporate cards, and even debit cards. Bob makes

Recently a merchant told me how they had just switched their processing through Bob, who told them they were going to save 50% on their processing fees. Processors all work off the same cost, which is interchange. Interchange is the money the banks make for extending credit with the credit cards they issue. Visa and MasterCard add approximately a tenth of a percent on top

We have a client who switched over to us a few months ago. We heard from them last week that they are still having trouble cancelling their old merchant account. We explained that the best way to do that is in writing and by getting confirmation via fax machine that the fax was sent. We also advised her to keep a copy of that fax

Bob From Brand X – Bob is going around town telling people he can do debit transactions for $.10. What he is not telling people is all the other charges for debit. Each different network has different rates and transaction fees for their cost. He is adding $.10 onto those costs and perhaps onto some other non-disclosed fees. The problem is that some merchants still

Sometimes Bob works for the bank. His boss, the bank, is interested in getting businesses to deposit their money. Merchant services are an add-on bonus for the bank. In reality, the bank outsources their merchant services and bumps up the margins in exchange for acting as a middleman. The bank doesn’t really know or want to understand the industry, much less take the time to

Let’s talk about PCI compliance. We have recently heard from a potential client that Bob from Brand X told them he didn’t have a PCI compliance fee. It just ain’t so. PCI compliance is now mandatory for all processors. All processors have to pass on the cost of surveying merchants to make sure they understand how to protect cardholder data. PCI compliance is for everyone’s