REAL-TIME HARDWARE SOFTWARE RATES / FEES EFT CHECK APPLY HERE NON U.S. MERCHANTS MERCHANT LIBRARY WEB HOSTING CLIENTS COMPANY CHARITY COMPANY SITE MAP TRICKS OF THE TRADE Continued. . . MONTHLY AND HIDDEN FEES THAT INFLATE YOUR BOTTOM-LINE COST Following is a partial list of various fees used by banks and processors in our industry.  While some of these fees may be legitimate, the vast majority are mere inventions used to pad deep pockets at the expense of unsuspecting merchants. . . 1) APPLICATION FEE:  This fee should be added to the bottom-line cost of your processing equipment.  Application fees are merely invented extra fees to inflate your overall cost.  Companies selling you equipment have no legitimate reason whatsoever to charge you an additional application or set-up fee; why not just add it to their quoted equipment prices and save you the trouble of adding up the total yourself? 2) STATEMENT FEE:  In our opinion, this is the only legitimate monthly fee that a merchant should be charged except for what they actually process.  Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to find a good processor for "D" credit merchants who does not either charge a monthly minimum fee or a large annual fee, which is no better when divided by twelve.  Fortunately, our company has contracted with a bank processor who allows us to offer our same low posted rates even to merchants with negative credit.  There are several merchant account companies, including ours, that require no monthly minimum amount for retail accounts.  Although most charge $25 monthly minimum for mail order and internet accounts, our company charges only a low $10 minimum for this type of account. 3) MID/NON QUALIFIED BAIT & SWITCH:  One of the biggest tricks in the merchant account industry is to charge a low 'front' rate while raising other rates higher.  For example, a mail order or internet processing merchant being charged 2.30% for "keyed" sales and 2.90% for "non-qualified" sales will pay less at the monthly bottom-line than the same merchant being charged 2.20% for "keyed" and 3.75% for non-qualified.  Likewise, a retail "card-swipe" merchant being charged 1.62% for "qualified", 2.5% for "keyed" sales (partial or mid-qualified) and 3.0% for non-qualified sales will pay less at the bottom-line than a merchant being charged 1.59% for card swiped while the other two rate categories are raised considerably higher.  If the merchant in either of these examples is marketing to a lot of business and corporate clients, then this unsuspecting merchant will pay significantly more at the monthly bottom-line.  ALL processors charge more for non-qualified transactions; for more information about non-qualified rates and when they apply, please see the explanation located towards the bottom of our rates/fees page.  Click for Non-Qual Explanation (green box near bottom of page). 4) BATCH HEADER FEES:  Most processors charge the merchant a transaction fee each time the batch is settled.  If this is every day, then the added cost to your monthly bottom-line will be seven to nine dollars more.  Ask your agent if the processing bank he or she is encouraging you to sign with charges a batch fee--if you do not ask, many agents simply will not tell you. 5) AVS & OTHER ADDITIONAL TRANSACTION FEES:  Many processors charge the merchant a 5 to 10 cent fee each time the merchant performs address verification (which is all the time if processing through an internet gateway).  This additional cost should be added to the transaction fee; for example, a transaction fee of 20 cents with an AVS fee of 10 cents is more expensive than a transaction fee of 25 cents with no AVS fee.  Most processors charge an additional 5 to 10 cents per transaction for manually keyed sales.  For example, a retail rate of 1.65% + 25 cents per transaction often becomes +35 cents when performing a manual-key entry. 6) TERMINAL MAINTANENCE FEE:  Several processors automatically deduct from $7.50 to $15.00 per month for "maintaining" your terminal, though the cost of this over four years can be as much or more than the cost of purchasing a new terminal; most new terminals if taken care of properly will last longer than this without any necessary repair.  It is far wiser for the merchant to set aside $10.00 per month in a savings account for eventual replacement of the existing terminal.  And it should be noted that most processors who charge this fee have a poor record of taking care of malfunctioning terminals anyway. 7) MERCHANT CLUB CHARGE:  Some processors have added miscellaneous fees such as a "merchant club charge", inventing a mythical club that supposedly enables the merchant to receive a "wholesale" processing rate.  There is no such club that will obtain better rates for you than what other legitimate processors will charge you without any such added merchant club fee. 8) ANNUAL FEES:  Annual fees, which many processors charge, should be divided by twelve and added to the cost of your monthly statement fee.  Our premium processor charges a small annual fee but this is greatly offset by lower mid and non-qualified rates, zero batch fee, zero AVS fees and other lower costs. 9) DEBIT CARD STATEMENT FEE:  Many processors charge an extra statement fee for accepting debit cards.  This fee should simply be added to the Statement Fee (above) when trying to obtain a legitimate comparison of your bottom-line cost. 10) OTHER FEES:  There are also several other hidden fees with various important sounding names that have been invented by processors to inflate a merchant's bottom-line monthly cost. . . AGAIN, BUYER BEWARE! MONTHLY MINIMUM FEES Most processors charge monthly minimum fees for retail accounts and virtually all processors charge minimum fees for Mail Order and Internet Accounts.  There is obviously no advantage in obtaining a 1.27% retail rate, instead of a 1.62% retail rate, if the monthly minimum is $25 and the average volume is only $1,200.  As simple as this seems, it is surprising how many merchants are talked into this kind of mathematical trick.  Sometimes also, a 1.79% rate with a $5.00 statement fee is better than a 1.49% rate with a $12.00 statement fee, that is, if the monthly volume is going to remain small. Compounding the problem are some agents who conveniently leave out the fact that there is a monthly minimum requirement when making their polished sales presentation.  In the competitive world of today, there is no legitimate reason for the merchant to pay a monthly minimum for a retail account, nor should he or she be talked into paying more than a $10.00 minimum for a Mail Order or Internet Account. CLICK HERE FOR MORE VALUABLE INNINSIDE INDUSTRY INFORMATION [ Real-Time ] [ Hardware ] [ Software ] [ Rates/Fees ] [ NationCart ] [ EFT Check ] [ Apply ] [ Library ] [ Hosting ] [ Clients ] [ Tricks ] [ Charity ] [ Company ] [ Site Map ] [ eMail ] Site Designed & Developed by Richard N. Johnson Miva, Miva Engine, Miva Mia, Miva Empresa, Miva Merchant & the Miva Corp. Blade logo are trademarks of Miva Corporation.