NBS Agents >> Merchant Account Agent and ISO Programs

Hi.

What is the difference between Yahoo Web Hosting and Yahoo Merchant Solutions (Ecommerce).

What I’d like to do is, sell items online, i.e., start my own business and I’m looking around for a site to host my webpage at and would like to know the best option. Does one lack the capability to sell online with or something?

Thank you.

Hi,
I would recommend "IX WebHosting" because it’s very cheap and reliable. Their support service is awesome. This company offers site building tools, application vault, web mail, antivirus, Php, MysQL and hosts unlimited websites in one plan. Don’t go for free web hosting.They are not reliable. Check it out here:
http://top50webhosting.ez-mart.biz

Apparently they sell terminals to businesses so that they can accept credit cards as payment. I answered an ad on Craigslist about the position and it’s apparently an at-home position where I would be calling 3 different states trying to set appointments and the guy I would be working for, would then do the selling. Apparently whatever he sells, I would get half of. I apparently also have to obtain a business license and in doing so, I would then be able to hire my own employees. Is this legitimate? Does anyone have any information on Total Merchant Services? It sounds almost too good to be true and seems slightly scammish but perhaps I’m just paranoid. Any info would be great!

Total Merchant Services is a legitimate business. However you won’t be working for them. You will be working for a sales agent of theirs and that means it is the sales agent you need to learn more about. The sales agent doesn’t actually work for Total Merchant Services and is responsible for their own employees which is what you would be. If you decide to work for this sales agent you should get a signed contract specifying what you’ll be paid and you’ll have to very clearly state that they must provide documentation of their revenue they generate from the merchants they acquire through your efforts.

I am an artist and do trade shows. I currently use a Nurit 3010 credit card swipe machine with a wireless merchant service. At my last show, another merchant told me that she thought there is now a product called a "cell phone dock" that would allow me to do credit card transactions with my cell phone. Normally these docks are for connecting your cell phone to your home or office wired phones. If this is true it would save me tremendous "$" as the merchant service is NOT cheap. Does anybody know if this would work?
bigboy: what in the world are you talking about?
chrisgalv : could you please explain why you don’t think it will work? My swipe machine will dial out using my phone line at home. Also, I have heard from another merchant that they are doing this…
Also, if this wont work, if somebody invents a gadget that will do this they will make a fortune! There are thousands of mobile merchants who are on systems like mine.

You will not be able use a cell phone dock on many networks for data applications including modems, fax machines and credit card terminals. The issue is that digital cellular networks compress the traffic that is passed over them so any advanced service applications will be degraded beyond use unless they specifically recognize and support the service. The service may work on an analog network, but these are very slow (and rarer every day).

There are new services that will work on a regular cellular network that are being launched, but as you can imagine, this will require $$$, too.

Have you considered a dial-pay account? This would require you to pay a slightly higher key-entered rate for each transaction instead of the lower swipe fee, but if you are paying as much as you imply for the wireless service, this should save you quite a bit of money. It would depend greatly on your average transaction and how many transactions you process.

If you have specific questions, contact me at jbordeaux@windriverfinancial.com or cal me at (920)-993-9433.

Is there any other processor out there besides First Data whom I may go thru to become an ISO and not need to pay $10,000?

I currently have a merchant account with them thru card services, but I can muster the $10,000 for the fee.
I cannot muster the $10,000 fee for registration

You can’t become an ISO/MSP without paying the fee. That $10,000 fee is a requirement and is in place to keep the barrier of entry high. Basically it exists to keep fraudsters out. Regardless of which member bank or sponsoring bank you choose that fee will be in place as it is charged directly by Visa and MasterCard.

In case you didn’t already know. That is just the initial fee. You have to pay $5,000 every year after that to maintain your status.

If you don’t want to pay that fee the best you can do is be a registered sales agent. This means:

1) You cannot operate under your own name. You MUST operate/advertise yourself as the company you are an agent for.

2) Your costs are higher which means much lower profits for the merchant you sign up.

3) The merchants you sign up are THEIRS not yours. This means they can stop paying you at any time and if you leave them you lose them.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is being misleading.

I’m gonna attend a seminar banking trends, and merchant accounts are included in the topics. just wanna get an idea beforehand. thanks!

Well, first of all, your business must have a registered Doing Business As (DBA) , your driver’s license, your business license, a clean voided check, at least your 3 last recent monthly processing and bank statements, your tax returns for the last two years (optional), your business phone number or your phone number, if you already have a website, you need to print a black and white copy of the website.

do they mean the business credit card or the person’s personal credit card?

The business is charged for the credit card transaction. The business should not charge you extra when you use your credit card. The merchant may add an extra charge to the merchandise, but you should only pay the price for the merchandise plus sales tax.

I’ve been tasked with researching the health of the merchant services industry and how to be competitive in it. I am not a good researcher and need some help. Can anyone suggest any business or news sites that can give me the info I need? Thanks!

quickbooks offers merchant services. They even have merchant accounts. www.intuit.com

Hi, I work for a registered MSP for Visa and MasterCard (five and a half years now) and have done sales so I speak from experience.

You can make good money but it won’t happen right away. The real money comes from residual income on the merchants you acquire. Although you can make money from selling credit card terminals that will only be enough to put food on your plate while you build up your portfolio.

As you build your portfolio your monthly income will grow accordingly. On average a typical merchant will make you about $25 per month. So when you are first starting off the residual income won’t be enough to support you. But as your portfolio grows to about 100 merchants that residual income will now be $2500 a month or more which, when combined with your terminal sales, is enough to make a living. The average sales agent brings in 5 – 8 merchants per month.

Of course, your goal is to have as many merchants as possible in your portfolio and to land as many "big fish" as you can. Landing high volume merchants will make you much more money then landing start-up ecommerce websites as they tend to perform poorly. You also need to make sure you bring on enough new merchants to help offset the ones that leave you. Just like you will be stealing merchants from other sales agents, they will be doing the same to you.

A work week is never less then 40 hours if you hope to keep generating leads. You’ll be spending half of your time generating leads and the other half making your sales pitch to the leads you have generated. Competition is fierce and merchants are reluctant to switch so don’t be surprised to be turned down frequently.

This question is not very direct and it is hard to answer. Are you an ISO of a company? If so many people start off with a 50/50 residual and the company may move them up as there portfolio grows. If you are just an affiliate, they usually earn anywhere from 5% to 20% of the residual. If you are just a salesmen then you usually receive anywhere form 50% to 100% of the commission after you pay off all the costs. You can email me at sales@firstbankcardprocessing. com if you want to ask more questions or look into our company.

lets be real, i’m sure there are a lot of high risk countries for ecommerce merchants, question is, and i don’t mean to anger people from these countries, what countries are they and how do i tell i wont be doing business with them without offending them?

lets not start something here, but you can read more about the high risk countries in this article:

http://www.freemerchantaccount.biz/confessions_of_a_first_rate_fraudster.html

Visa and MasterCard also regularly sends out information on countries you should avoid doing business with – I know, unfair for the citizens of that country but until security measures get better, they won’t be off the list.