Accepting Credit Cards

[Tigertron]

What CC service do small shops use? I'm looking to accept major credit cards and debit cards on site. Right now I'm leaning toward GoPayment from Intuit. Anyone use this service? Or can you recommend another similar service.

Thanks

 

[TwoNine]

Get a square. They sound like they would fit your business perfect. They plug in to your smart phone. You can swipe (or key in) the information, take a picture or type in the description of the item, and then have your customer sign. It'll send you and your customer a receipt. Terms are good too - 2.75% for swipe / 3.25 + .15 per transaction for keyed entries. No setup fee, no annual fee, etc. Money posted every 24 hours...Even for AMEX.

We love ours - cancelled our Chase Merchant Services after we got this...Works well..

www.squareup.com

 

[briankb]

+1 for squareup.com

It's as cheap or probably cheaper for you to use than setting up a full merchant account. I used it recently to convert a hand full of rebate cards (from newegg) and dumbed them straight into my square up account. Only cost me their fee and I didn't loose the cards or not use the entire amount from the rebate.

I've run into a lot of people using this for personal services like massage as well. If you don't have an iphone or android phone I think you can use an iPad or iPod Touch. And again even a new iPod Touch will be cheaper than buying a credit card rig from a bank.

 

[tsgstl]

Check out of state credit card key ins (if you do anything outside of Cali)
Check key ins vs swipes
And ask if there is holding time on larger amounts

Those are the things we have had issues with
Out of state key ins vs swipes on large amounts ran on business cards sometimes are pains.

 

[john1]

Get a square. They sound like they would fit your business perfect. They plug in to your smart phone. You can swipe (or key in) the information, take a picture or type in the description of the item, and then have your customer sign. It'll send you and your customer a receipt. Terms are good too - 2.75% for swipe / 3.25 + .15 per transaction for keyed entries. No setup fee, no annual fee, etc. Money posted every 24 hours...Even for AMEX.

We love ours - cancelled our Chase Merchant Services after we got this...Works well..

www.squareup.com

x3

 

[tattoo.dan]

I use the square as well...love it.

 

[2B]

We use intuit within quickbooks, very easy and to have it automatically link everything together is NICE!

Plus intuit has a rate matching program from competitors.

 

[Kevin-shopVOX]

Personally I use square. Its cheap with swipes on all major cards little pricier on key ins. If you do a larger volume on startup they will verify sales over a thousand but once you get past their verification deposits are essentially next day.

Extremely convenient way to take credit cards.

 

[john1]

I simply asked for a limit increase and mines now $3000 a month I beleive. I love square

 

[OldPaint]

i got a card swipe machine for sale.

 

[TwoNine]

Yeah - they just up'd our to 5000 per week. Only took about 3 emails to get it set up and running....

 

[John L]

Ask for the limit increase before you start accepting large amounts. They will hold keyins over 1000. Had a scary moment... We just had to raise ours to get the hold released on a very large deposit. They were going to hold it a month and I wasn't about to tell the customer that. It ended up taking about three days to substantially raise our limit after we submitted copies of our contractors licenses, blank project contract, and an invoice sample. Apparently Square has NO answered telephone number.

 

[Tigertron]

Great! I will look into square. Thanks

 

[wolf]

paymate.com

 

[Tigertron]

It looks like squared will be what I use. The fees are the same as GoPayment except for the extra .15 for manual entered transactions but they do take Amex where as GoPayment does but seems vague on the fees. I also like the smaller reader.

Paymate seems like it may be for folks who need to take international payments and checks. Their fees are quite higher.

Thanks for all the input.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

It's hip to be square.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Call me crazy if you want but I'm not letting somebody swipe my credit card info through a cell phone. I know, I know, paranoia.....I'm just not doing it. Just seems really sketchy to me, like retail businesses that don't have a land line and business cards with no physical address on them.

But that's just me.

 

[tsgstl]

Call me crazy if you want but I'm not letting somebody swipe my credit card info through a cell phone. I know, I know, paranoia.....I'm just not doing it. Just seems really sketchy to me, like retail businesses that don't have a land line and business cards with no physical address on them.

But that's just me.

I agree with this 100%
paying a tiny bit more on a transaction is worth looking secure and professional. I am sure taking a picture or "scan" with a phone is usefull, safe and the direction things are going. But as a consumer I don't want to worry about who's hands your phone ends up in with my info on it. And I don't want to learn, not yet.

 

[briankb]

I'm not sure what technology you are talking about but Square uses a small white square device that plugs into your phone's headphone jack to swipe credit cards. There are no photos taken.

As popular as Square is I doubt many will find it so objectionable. In fact my experience most people want to know how they can get one for their garage sale...

 

[mnapuran]

Whilie I agree that Square is a cool service and great for someone that doesn't do tons of transactions, keep a few things in mind:

- Rates are more then a regular processing account (duh)
- If you take a lot of debit cards, rates are MUCH higher then a regular processing account
- Pretty poor rated customer service
- Does not do fraud detection (no AVS, history, etc checks)
- Not PCI Compliant (BIG NEGATIVE!)

I'm not against Square.. just want people to understand the issues and risks.