Financial Information
I have a credit card terminal… now what?
Question : I have a credit card terminal… now what?
I have built several e-commerce websites for clients but I am trying one myself. I have the web site created and when orders are placed, I receive a PGP encrypted email with the necessary information to process the card. I ordered an Omni 3200 credit card terminal off Ebay and it seems to work okay but I need some help. I plan on getting a merchant account at my local bank so will they help set me up to use my terminal? I have been playing with my terminal and it says something about downloading an application but I have no idea what it’s talking about. This is my first time. Please help!
credit card processing terminal
Best answer:
Answer by imisidro
Once you are approved for a merchant account, the provider (bank or a merchant account services) will ask you to connect your credit card terminal to the phone line and someone will assist you or give you instructions on how to download the software application. This application that you will download will connect your terminal to your merchant account – and to your bank so any transactions keyed into the terminal will be processed and in 3-5 business days can be credited to your account.
Just check if the merchant account provider will support the credit card terminal. Some have preferred machines, so there is always a possibility that they will not support the machine that you purchased. If it’s the wrong one, you can always sell that on ebay and buy a new one.
The good news is that the Omni 3200 is Class-A certified by TSYS (the old VisaNet) so you should be able to use it with pretty much any processor. Many of the terminals on Ebay are old proprietary machines that can only be used with certain processors. The 3200 is a good terminal that will be able to process cards with qualifying info to achieve the lowest rates. The download will be performed by the processor who you decide on when you set up your merchant account.
Technically, you will be considered a mail order merchant instead of a e-commerce merchant since you do not process directly over the internet. As you probably know, this makes a big difference in regards to the setup costs. It does, however, also add a manual step in processing that will need to be properly managed.
Your bank may seem like a very easy choice for processing. Unless it is a very large bank, though, they do not actually perform merchant processing services. It is more likely that they have been solicited by a merchant processor that won the bid for your banks customer leads and a certain portion of your fees will now go to your bank. The service and support, though, will be handled by the processor and your bank will not be involved.
Be sure to consider the following:
1.) As you are processing mail order exclusively, be very aware of the retail “card not present” rates that your processor assesses.
2.) Be sure to know all of the different card rates. You will most likely receive debit cards, personal MC and Visa, Visa Rewards, MC World, and MC & Visa Corporate cards. Many processors sneak in a “nonqualified” rate for the Rewards, World and Corporate cards that can be upwards of 3%.
3.) Make sure that your processor and the service provider that shares your customer’s card info are on the same page to assure your qualification levels. Anytime that you do not enter the required “Level 2″ info for a mail order, you will be downgraded to a higher cost transaction.
4.) Lastly, ask the service provider that sends you your orders for their PCI Data Security compliance information. This should protect you against any penalties should there be a breach of cardholder information. For more about PCI, see the Visa webpage at: http://usa.visa.com/business/accepting_visa/ops_risk_management/cisp.html
If you would like more information about merchant processing, feel free to contact me at jbordeaux@windriverfinancial.com or at (920)993-9433. Wind River is a merchant processor that specializes in offering well supported, competitively priced, custom processing services.