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TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Conclusion
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ROBBING PETER TO
PAY PAUL
Many professional salespeople work under the following sales theory:
Charge as much as possible, regardless of how much, but
nevertheless, some money is better than no money. Under this
theory, they may normally charge $40 to $60 per month for card processing
equipment and then offer $20 for the same equipment if they come in
behind a much more legitimate agent who quotes $22 to every merchant for
the exact same product. Many companies train their agents to follow
this type of sales theory religiously; i.e., charge whatever you can get
away with, but do not come back without the sale, regardless of
price you may ultimately need to drop to in order to 'ink' the deal.
These same agents and the bosses they work for treat rates and
monthly fees in much the same manner.
It is very advisable, therefore, for the merchant to treat each
offer individually, not discussing any previous offer--let the agent put
his or her best foot forward first before trying to bargain. Agents
who have been around for a while know how to take advantage of a merchant
who is looking to squeeze 50 cents from a legitimate offer. Some
agents will lower the equipment price and raise your keyed rates or
statement fee to compensate. Then again, they may do just the opposite;
lowering your rates and raising your equipment cost or application and
set-up cost. Whatever rates, fees and equipment prices they offer are
situational, dictated in each presentation based upon where the merchant's
main objection seems to lie.
ALWAYS WATCH THE BOTTOM-LINE: Seems
simply enough, yet in our experience, we have witnessed large corporations,
high volume independent merchants and on down to very small volume
single-location merchants, talked into a very bad deal that has been made
to appear slightly better than a previous legitimate offer. Which
product and service organizations you as a merchant ultimately choose
should be dictated in part by the ethics, honesty and integrity of the
salespeople and company you are dealing with, not just by the least
expensive offer. What kind of ongoing service and fair treatment
regarding a continuing low rate would you expect to receive from a company
that allows their agent to lower the initial cost to you by more than 50%?
Remember that when you set up for a merchant account, your long-term
cost and quality of service should also be major considerations.
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UNETHICAL AND POORLY
TRAINED SALES
AGENTS
Some companies in the card processing industry go to great lengths to
NOT train their sales representatives very well, the theory being that if
their agents do not know much about keyed rates, business and commercial
card rates, batch-header fees and other hidden charges, then they will
appear honest and ethical to the unsuspecting merchant, meanwhile signing
them into an expensive, oversimplified, program accordingly. In the
processing industry, simplified programs are almost always considerably
more expensive at the bottom-line than programs set up correctly, based
according to actual industry costs. Other companies train agents to
deceive merchants in every way possible--sometimes directly, but more
often as not, by omission; i.e., the agent will deliberately fail to
mention all of the types of charges and fees the merchant will ultimately
be billed for. Important considerations left out of the discussion most often
are failure to discuss non-qualified rates and failure to discuss the length of the
contract term agreement and penalties for early termination.
The former type of agent, one who hasn't been trained very well, may
sincerely insist that their company charges only one rate for all types of
transactions (which no processing bank does) and will just as sincerely,
fail to mention several hidden charges, such as batch-header fees, annual fees and
the cost of getting out of a lengthy term agreement. The latter type of
agent will deliberately omit discussing what he or she is not
specifically asked. All processing banks charge more if the
transaction is "keyed-in" rather than physically swiped and all charge
more if the card is a commercial card, foreign card, business or corporate
card. They also charge more if a transaction is carried over longer
than 24-48 hours (cutoff time varies), such as pre/post authorization
transactions and in the case of Visa charges, if the address and zip code entered
do not match the national database. The reason ALL processing banks
charge more for these type transactions is because Visa and MasterCard charge them
more.
If an agent does not discuss "Qualified", "Partial-Non Qualified" and
"Non-Qualified" category rate charges, then you are dealing with either a
poorly trained agent or a highly unethical one. In either case, you
should quickly show them the door. A legitimate sales presentation
for merchant accounts should include discussion of all of these rate
categories, the term agreement of your contract, equipment service &
guarantee issues, monthly fees such as statement fee, minimum fee,
batch-header fee, annual fee, voice authorization fee, terminal
maintenance, debit statement fee and long-term rate expectations.
The merchant should specifically ask if there are any
other costs not discussed and should know that there may be charges
that an inexperienced or poorly trained agent is not even aware of.
Remember, if you do not ask, chances are very good that the agent
representative will not tell you. . . Even if you do ask, an inexperienced
agent, though honest in their own mind, may fail to answer correctly. AS ALWAYS, BUYER BEWARE!
 APPLY HERE FOR A
MERCHANT ACCOUNT
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