[thelist] Re: Shopping Sites, Credit Cards

[Keith]

At 10:28 AM Monday 7/1/2002, Kathy wrote:

>B of A to get the facts.

>They do NOT make cc numbers available to their vendors.
>They are NOT visible or available in the sales history screen - the only
>thing the merchant can see there is the type of credit card number used.
>They DO keep credit card numbers in THEIR system accessible by B of A only.

Interesting. I checked with three associates who run their own gateways and
have merchant accounts with 3 different acquirer banks. Their response was
that they always get the numbers on their merchant account statements from
the banks. So this is something else to look for.

>I hope you don't mind me using them. PayPal is sometimes the only affordable
>solution for small vendors (though I often tell my clients you probably can
>NOT afford to get a merchant account),

Merchant accounts can very greatly in price. If you're in good standing
with your bank and if they offer moto accounts for the web, it's almost
always cheapest to deal with your bank. We just got one for a new web
business for cheap by agreeing to let the cashflow set for 6 days. 2%, no
set up fee, no per-transaction fees or statement fees. I also was just
introduced to a new gateway today that supposedly does not charge anything
for the merchant account and has Authorize-net comparable fees and
percentages. So it does pay to shop around, and to dicker. Many web
merchant accounts are sold from the peak of a multi-level marketing pyramid
so there's mucho fat built-in to the prices.



Keith
====================
cache at dowebscentral.com