NBS Agents >> Merchant Account Agent and ISO Programs

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.

Which merchant service company would you use if you operated a small business and why?

It’s hard to say since both use independent sales agents to establish accounts. These agents can set their rates to whatever they want them to be so they’ll fluctuate from agent to agent even within the same company. You’ll have to get rates from several agents from each company to see which is better.

As far as EVO , Heartland, and any other company goes they’re all really just about the same as far as services go. Once you’re signed up and running it all just works.

We own a small pizzeria and are looking for a merchant account to accept credit cards. I went to our local bank and they gave me some information. I have an appointment with the serv agent tomorrow to discuss our possibilities. Any information I should look closely at? or any important questions I should ask?

Indeed there are some very important questions you should ask, assuming you haven’t already had the meeting… choosing a payment provider to accept credit cards is very important as I’m sure your aware, and signing up with a local bank can be great, although is typically more expensive.

Questions to ask:

1. What are your rates going to be, on swiped cards, over the phone, and etc.
A. Ask about gateway fee’s, service fee’s, equipment fee’s and etc.
Merchant providers like to charge people for tons of little fee’s that can add up to hundreds per month.

2. Ask them how and when your batch will be settled. For instance will they pay you every 2-3 days, will it be at the end of the week/month? And will they have a rolling reserve (Hold 10-30% of your profits in reserve for chargebacks/refunds and etc.)

3. What are your processing terms, and how do you handle chargebacks and refunds?
Chargebacks can be a huge risk for any business, if people are disputing credit card charges it really cuts into your profits. Most providers handle them differently, and it’s good to know exactly what your going to be paying per-chargeback, and how you can fight the chargeback if the transaction was valid or if someone used a stolen credit card.

PS. In retail chargebacks usually aren’t such a big deal, however when accepting payments via phone and internet it’s much more common.

Well hopefully I didn’t overwhelm you with information, as a business owner myself I find it extremely important to educate others and make sure others don’t have the same problems I did initially. Accepting credit cards is exciting for your business, however it can also be very dangerous.

If your looking for other solutions I would definitely check around before committing to your local bank.

I can personally recommend Prosper Merchant Services ( http://www.prosperms.com ) and if you want a big time processor Merchant Express (http://www.merchantexpress.com/) are great but won’t provide very good service and won’t get to know you on a first name basis.

Best of luck to you, I hope everything works out and my advice was useful.

ACH stands for Automated Clearing House and is a fancy way of saying electronically transferring money to and from bank accounts. So a merchant services provider offering ACH services is offering you the ability to accept payments by checks electronically which in effect makes them very similar to accepting check cards. The money comes directly from the user’s checking account and goes into yours.

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I am looking at an inside sales position with a Card Processor. They have a ENDLESS supply of leads…and the preference is phone vs. face to face. They are looking for their superstars to get up to 30 or more new accounts per month. I am told that the average merchant is approx $10,000 per month in volume…but of course there will be larger ones.

My question here is whether or not this is reasonable? Can a superstar sales person really do well?

I am currently in a sales position, medical recruiting, and I do very well there, but do not enjoy the work.

Please respond if you HAVE done this kind of work

Hi, I worked for a registered ISO/MSP for Visa and MasterCard (six years) and have done sales so I speak from experience. The company I worked for operated in the same manner as the company you are describing.

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.

If you plan on soliciting merchants directly 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.

I run the site below if you need to verify my knowledge.

Does anyone have personal business experience with paypal? I have heard mixed reviews, but am searching for a reliable and CHEAP merchant account for my yahoo internet business.

It would be fine! I have an account with them that I use for Ebay and have never had a problem. Every question I’ve Ever had they’re quick to ans by email even very very quick and will bend over double to help ya! go for it!

Christians,this IS a serious Question.

I am referring to a situation where you are seeking the services of a Merchant (a Service Provider, Salesman, Repairman, etc.) via a Billboard advertisement, business vehicle advertisement, and/or the Yellow Pages, and note that the merchant’s Business telephone # contains the numbers "666", probably issued inadvertently & innocently by the Telephone Company.

DOES this in any way influence your decision to use or NOT to use the merchant’s services ?

I will appreciate your answering this Question honestly & seriously, as I am engaged in a debate concerning this very issue with a business associate.

I don’t worry about what numbers come up where, that’s just silly.

However, I do make a concerted effort to NOT use the services of businesses who advertise themselves as "christian" or "christian-based" companies. Anyone who has to advertise their religion is not living it any way.

You are able to buy a PDQ but the merchants that operate the card transations make it very difficult to get them programmed for your merchant number and phone number that the pdq dials. I personally brought two from viking, the stationary suppliers, but my merchant services would not programme them to work on their system. i gave up in the end and rented from them, installed and working within 48 hours. They have a monopoly on the pdq’s. The only benefit to renting is that you will get the support you need if they go wrong, although i have never had one go wrong in 12 years. If you are unable to agree a good rental deal with barclays then try another provider, all the banks offer this not just barclays.