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    15 Replies Latest reply on Jan 28, 2009 7:19 AM by amspcs

    E-commerce business is looking for card payment processor

    jbheer Newbie
      Hi i am starting a new e-commerce business and looking for best credit card payment processors, i had done some research, but found out all merchant processor end up same monthly cost, are there any other companies that offer those services and wanted to know
        • Re: E-commerce business is looking for card payment processor
          blackmambo23 Newbie
          looking for a credit card processor can be dangerous,, Because their are a lot of sleazy companies that attempt to lock you into a 2 or 3 year contract by hiding it in the fine print... they will also incorporate hiden fees in there contracts as well READ CAREFULLY when looking, Good luck!
            amspcs Ranger
            We represent a processor with the following attributes you might be interested in:

            No setup or app fees

            No equipment or software to buy, lease or rent

            No contract or early termination fees--exit anytime on 30 days written notice

            Included internet gateway with merchant account--in other words, good to go for basic internet processing.
            Otherwise, you need to subscribe separately to or a similar gateway provider..

            No batch header fees, no annual fees, no AVS fees, etc. Entire fee structure clearly spelled out.

            Major Fortune 500 company, not a brand X solution.

            If you're interested in details, feel free to contact me at

            Happy Thanksgiving.

              Basket_Guy Adventurer

              As they stated be very careful on who you pick to be your payment processor. I also have an e-commerce business back when I first started I was with a company that I thought was good and about a couple of years down the road a person made a large purchase on my site with a stolen credit card. The payment processor approved the sale even though the only correct information that the person put in was the card number. Well needless to say I ended up eating the loss because the products had been shipped. So I changed companies because this company was not protecting me or the consumer and to top it off the company charged me $350.00 for dropping them and going with someone else. Word to the wise saving some bucks upfront may end up costing you in the long run.


              I highly recommend you thoroughly checkout anyone you are considering going with before you sign any papers. Look into the bank that has your business account it may be a little higher priced but at least they are reputable.

              Best of luck with your business.
              1 of 1 people found this helpful
                  jbheer Newbie
                  thanks for your valuable advise, it is good to know all these situations, before sigining up with any merchant services provider
                    amspcs Ranger
                    Dear Basket Guy: I read your post and feel your pain. I understand you have experienced a major monetary loss and are now very skeptical about credit card processing companies. However I have to tell you that, from the information you provided in your post, it is clear that your wounds are to a large extent self-inflicted, a result of of unrealistic and incorrect expectations you have regarding many areas of credit card processing. Allow me to clarify a few issues that might help you and other readers of this post save a lot of trouble and money in the future.

                    First , you appear to feel that since your processor approved the sale, you were home free and safe. Absoutely 100% _in_correct. Authorization means only (repeat: only) that the card being used has sufficient open to buy to cover the transaction authorization being requested. Authorization has nothing remotely to do with inferring that the sale is legitimate. This is entirely the responsibility of the merchant. Visa/MC regs and your processor agreement clearly state that all non face-to-face transactions are 100% at the risk of the merchant. So in the case of the $350 chargeback you suffered, the system worked perfectly and the chargeback was entirely justified per Regulation Z/Truth in Lending laws. In your case, the card was not reported as stolen because the owner probably didn't know he/she had been breached yet; had it been reported rest assured you would have received a 'decline' prompt. The bank did nothing wrong so they certainly aren't liable, and Reg Z protects the victimized card holder to a max $50 responsibility. That leaves the merchant on the hook. That's the law. There ARE ways for merchants to protect themselves of course, which all starts with having realistic expectations and undersandings of how processing works.

                    Let's talk about processors 'protecting' merchants. Most programs do offer security prompts such as AVS, CVV and so on which are the responsibllty of the merchant to use properly in conjunction with common sense mail/phone order processing procedures which should have been included in your training. These are designed to be 'red flags' to help the merchant protrect himself, which is a very far cry from the sort of guarantee protection I think you expected. If your processor failed to properly train you, you have a legimate beef with them as you were severely short-changed. Otherwise, however, again, the chargeback appears to be perfectly justified.

                    So mis-interpreting what your authorization meant was mistake #1, quickly followed up by mistake #2 which was changing processors and absorbing a $350 early termination fee for doing so. Fact is, you can change processors every day of the week and twice on Sunday, and you still would have eaten the chargeback. Obviously, V/MC regs as well as Reg Z/Truth in Lending laws apply exactly the same for all processors.

                    The $350 fee you refer to was apparently an early termination fee. These are fairly common in many processing contracts and are generally legitimate. It costs processors a lot of money to underwrite and board a merchant initially, and they have every right to protect their initial investment from losses resulting from merchants who quickly go out of business and/or change processors as often as they change their socks before that investment can be recouped, which is a problem in the industry. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, making a dollar is what business is all about after all. If the processor rep who signed you up verbally lied to you about such fees or intentionally denied you the opportunity to read your agreement before you signed off on it, then again, you have a legitimate beef. On the other hand, if the early termination fee verbage was included in the contract that you signed and you neglected to read it for whatever reason, then that is an entirely different story. Clearly, one should never never sign anything without reading it. I should also add that it is the responsibility and duty of the selling agent to sell his/her product and honestly answer all questions; it is NOT the duty of the rep to anticipate every possible question or sit there and read every word of a business contract as if it were a bedtime story; that is the responsibility of the merchant signer. Sorry to be so harsh on this subject, but this is how the world works.

                    I notice you have contacted me via email privately, which I will respond to separately. I'd also like to thank
                    Luckiest for the positive testimonial in his previous post. We DO try very hard to be straightforward and honest which isn't always easy since we understand that very often the truth isn't exactly what the merchant wants to hear. Nevertheless, we tell it like it is.

                        Basket_Guy Adventurer

                        I wanted to clarify something really quick and do not wish to Hijack Jbheer's post.


                        1. We as business owners are responsible for all that goes on with our businesses and we learn from our mistakes( or at least hope to). When we accept credit card purchases especially online, we are hoping that our processing company is assisting us to help us minimize the fraudulent purchases from the use of stolen credit cards. We as business owners do not know the billing address that the owners of credit card used when they applied for the card, so therefore we the business owners do not know if the billing address is correct or not. When I first started my business and signed on with this credit card processing company I assumed that they would assist me in the catching some fraudulent credit card transactions by verifying the correct billing address attached to the credit card used and decline the purchase if any of the information was incorrect or at least hold it for me to verify (as my current processor does) and not just approve it and send it through.


                        As I stated earlier we as business owners are responsible for our business and what goes on with them. I have chalked this up as a learning experience and moved on. My post was meant to help others to avoid my mistakes.


                        Thank you again for your post and the information you provided it was very informative and hopefully will help others have a better understanding before they sign the contract.
                            amspcs Ranger
                            Basket Guy,

                            Thanks for the clarification. You are sort of right in some respects. Most responsible processors DO help you
                            determine if the shipping address and billing address of a credit card match. They do this via a system called
                            AVS (Address Verification System). To learn more about AVS, including a link to review the meanings of the various AVS responses, go to*

                            However, AVS is meant to provide the merchant with a tool in the form of a red flag so he can take steps
                            to confirm the validity of a sale and avoid being victimized by fraud. AVS generally does NOT generate an automatic decline in the case of address mis-match (although some more sophisticated POS systems are able to set preferences to do just that). The bank generally will only decline the sale when they know the card is stolen or otherwise compromised--if they don't know this (and they usually don't when the owner of the card isn't even aware of the breach and hasn't reported it yet), then they have no reason to decline. Again, an authorization is NOT an indication that the transaction is legitimate or safe.

                            Beyond that, there are many effective and proven procedures that on face-to-face merchants can use to protect themselves against fraud. If your processor didn't train you in these techniques, then you were severely shortchanged by that processor.

                            But beyond that, the assumption that the responsibilities of the processor include providing assurance that a credit card transaction is legitimate is an erroneous assumption--confirmation of validity is always 100% the responsibility of the merchant, although processing programs do provide useful tools for this.

                        LUCKIEST Guide
                        E-commerce business, Welcome

                        Who are you??, Where are you?? How soon are you starting this new business.

                        You received a reply from "amspcs". Yes you are in GREAT hands with amspcs.
                        Barry is good to work with.

                        Good luck, LUCKIEST
                          queenofcredit Newbie
                          Hi: If you have not found a company that you would like to work with, then I'd like to invite you to email me at I will be able to answer your questions about setting up an online account to process credit card payments from Visa, Mastercard, Discover and if you like American Express.

                          I have experience working with small online merchants. Please include in your email what type of business you have or are planning, and how much you anticipate processing because that will help your rate (by that I mean what type of volume you plan to do each month). I work with one of the largest merchant processors in the industry and I think my strongest attribute is my ability to match the system with the needs of the individual.

                          If you have already signed on to process with someone, please disregard this email as it was meant as a reply to your request. Thanks, Cindy
                          • Re: Get the lowest rate possible at the US
                            MordechaiRose Newbie
                            go to to get the lowest rate possible at the US!
                            you cant get those rates anywhere else!
                              WannaDevelop Wayfarer
                              Well, obviously PayPal --- simple and easy to use.
                                ben786 Newbie
                                Please send your e-mail address to me.Are you having a provider now?
                                  ssrevare Newbie
                                  I'm a former partner with accenture, a large consulting firm. I left
                                  Accenture in 2003 with several other partners - a few of us jumped into
                                  the small business world and haven't looked back. Two of my former
                                  partners started a merchant credit card consulting business called
                                  leadership advocates ( I have used them
                                  to establish and guide me on merchant credit card processing since day
                                  one. They work directly with merchants or through referrals through several
                                  banks. There are several things I like about their business, but the
                                  primary things I like are 1. They have retained their consulting
                                  heritage and actually figure out what you need.. they apply business
                                  anlaysis to their customer interactions and are not what I would call pure sales
                                  guys. 2. They have a business model that keeps costs and their
                                  profits completely out in the open. They work directly with FirstData(through Chase/Paymentech - I think thats the name),
                                  the actual processor, so you aren't working through multilple levels of
                                  sales guys trying to make money off of you.

                                  Here is their website:

                                  My website is This year I fed $2MM in revenues through credit cards using their services.

                                  By the way, this is an honest endorsement.. these guys are friends of mine, but I have nothing to gain by recommending them.