Three Signs You Should Upgrade to a Better Credit Card Processing Company
Any business owner who accepts credit cards probably does business with a credit card processing company. This much needed middle man is there to aid business owners with billing procedures. It is important to know the business owner is the customer of the processing company and not the other way around. If a business owner is unhappy with a processing company, they should start planning an exit strategy in order to protect their bottom line. Below are three reasons a business owner may want to start considering taking their credit card processing business someplace else.
1. Credit card processing companies must be paid for what they do, there is no disputing this. Be cautious when rates start to rise for no explainable reason. The contract a business owner and processing company agree too has a section on rate inflation. Processing companies may have to raise their rates in order to keep pace with the issuing credit card companies. When rate hikes start to appear for no other reason than to increase the processing companies profit, a business owner should start considering how much they are willing to pay.
2. Business owners should be scrutinizing every bill they receive, especially from their credit card processing company. These companies are notorious for adding hidden fees, surprise fees, standard fees; you name it, they’ll add it onto your bill. These fees appear with a standard annotation on the billing statement such as: “assessment fee”. As soon as a business owner sees such a fee, they should call the processing company for an explanation. If the explanation is not to your liking, realize this is probably only the beginning of these so called “assessment fees”.
3. Lastly, business owners should always be on the lookout they are being charged the proper transaction rate per card swipe. There are multiple types of transaction rates per the different ways a credit card transaction can take place. The most common rates are: swiped rate, keyed-in rate, surcharged rate, etc. Of course each rate fee is different than the other so make sure you are being charged the proper fee. If the credit card processing seems to continually miss-charge you, it might not be a coincidence.
One of the most important things to remember when dealing with a credit card processing company is that you are customer. If they are continuously making mistakes, or not living up to their end of their contract, cut ties with them. There are plenty of other processing companies which will take your business.
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