NBS Agents >> Merchant Account Agent and ISO Programs

If you want to take credit card orders (or pre-orders), what is the best merchant processing solution?
I’ve heard the PayPal and Google Checkout will freeze your funds if even a single person complains about your service to them.

Hi I am new here and I am starting with your answerer. If you don’t care about the customer leaving your site:
Amazon Payments (underrated in my opinion)
PayPal
Google Checkout
If you need to seamlessly integrate a payment form in your site:
-PayPal Payments Pro ($30/month for a virtual terminal and API integration, no contracts, 2.9% transaction, it’s really hard to find a merchant company that can beat this unless you’re talking in volumes).
-Authorize.net coupled with the merchant company of your choice.
When evaluating a merchant company, beware of contract stipulations, transaction fees, and monthly fees. My first provider was Cardservice International (one of the largest) and I used LinkPoint for the online gateway. I was paying $60-80/month just for the service! (transaction fees excluded) AND I was locked in a 2-year contract with an insanely high cancellation fee. One of their fees was a mandatory $20 "customer service fee" for access to their 24/7 customer service team. (WTF?)
Just be careful when evaluating merchant companies. Try starting at your bank (as long as it’s not Chase, BoA, or Wells Fargo). Generally, local community banks or credit unions will have fair pricing and good customer service for merchants.

Very best rates on all type of cards – Reward, mid-qualified, and corporate? PNC, Costco any others?

Costco. Check them out at http://www.elavon.com/acquiring/costco/

I have a merchant website and a credit card processing service. However, online sales are not coming as I expected. How can I improve my merchant website’s visibility?

Are you sure you have good products ( if you are dealing with product items) or excellent type of service (if you are into services)? You see, people will generally flock to merchant websites which sell hot commodities.
Be sure you deal only with saleable product items.
Also, try to improve on your marketing strategies. You should inform people about your merchant website. There are many ways to improve your website visibility on the Net.
If you want to know more, just visit the link below.

How can a merchant give me a slip to sign for one amount, I don’t include a tip on the charge, but the point of service swipe on my card is for the purchase PLUS the tip? Again, this was done at point of service, not after the fact. (NOTE: This was corrected when VISA received the signed slip)

next time you draw a neat line in the Tips field and confirm by rewriting the Total amount at the bottom of the slip.
If you just sign and leave the fields blank is like signing a blank cheque.

It doesnt matter if you left tips separately, the credit card payment in restaurants and services like Blue Van supershuttle allows for a tip to be added every time a c/card is used. It is up to you to protect your own S by drawing the —-across line on the Tips field and rewriting clearly the total amount at the bottom.
If your tip was not appropriate or you were a pain in the S or left no tips the waiters will take care of you

I have a question about how POS or point of sale applications work.
I would do a pre authorization of a customers card and give it to them to add a tip to it.
Then I process it again as a credit card transaction so that it now includes the tip.
Then I do the force at the end of the day to drop the preauthorization?
Is that the normal way it works.

The pre-auth converts to a sale when you finalize the transaction

Hi,
I have a website hosted and working that I would like to transfer into an ecommerce site.

The site is www.tattecookies.com, I would like to keep the same css (same look and feel) when someone will buy via the internet.

What are the steps I need to do in order to achieve something like that (creating an ecommerce site from the one I already have)?

What are the cost associated with it? Can I keep my merchant cc processing company? what other cost will I have to set it up and maintain it?

I am new to the ecommerce site, so any insight would help.

Thank you

Your website is using Windows based CMS(contents management system). Contact your web designer and ask him what it is. And find out if this CMS has ecommerce plugin or component.

A clients merchant account was frozen by First Data and is claiming they are freezing his funds and thus can not pay my invoice. Months have gone by, same excuse. Before I simply just take him to court for non-payment how much validity is there in his story? How long can a merchant freeze an account and hold his funds?

Funds can be held for a short period of time to verify them.

Someone called me after I complied to an ad about making money at home. They claim that they can take contact information and such from businesses I provide. I’m talking to a "compliance officer" from VISA right now.
Help?

I’ve never heard of them. Usually merchant services providers don’t do referral but do a commission based program where they have sales agents who sign up the deals for them and then make a cut of the processing fees. This usually turns out to be a much better deal.