Taking Credit Cards? You owe it to yourself!

its LEGAL to do it that way! if you straight up say "oh you want to use a card, thats going to be 3.5% extra," then its illegal.



Talked to a business owner who had to go to court over it and he won. He had his lawyer tell him its right.



Is it morally right, maybe not, but why is it ok then for the customer NOT to pay the fee making my profit less....just playing devils advocate here, I dont take cards actually, I have the means to, but people dont mind a check or cash.
 
Shiny Lil Detlr said:
I don't really agree with that; to me if you're going to offer credit card payment you should figure that into your administrative costs across the board. That way if someone does pay with a card, you aren't negatively impacting your bottom line and at the same time, every cash sale means you're getting 3% above the rate of margin you originally set out to make. The customer never even has to know that's happening behind the scenes.
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but then you are "overcharging" the client if you do it that way....just devil advocate



There really is a grey area here, obviously
 
toyotaguy said:
but then you are "overcharging" the client if you do it that way....just devil advocate



There really is a grey area here, obviously
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No you're not. Who is the client to tell you how to set up the cost structure of your business? You don't need to disclose that to them.
 
Thats the devils advocate part.



obviously you never need to disclose that info. But, you know what you are doing.



At the end of the day though, if you book a $300 detail JUST because you take CC and your competitor doesnt, what is $8-10 bucks to make that sale??? (if you eat it, not charge it behind the scenes)
 
toyotaguy said:
Thats the devils advocate part.



obviously you never need to disclose that info. But, you know what you are doing.



At the end of the day though, if you book a $300 detail JUST because you take CC and your competitor doesnt, what is $8-10 bucks to make that sale??? (if you eat it, not charge it behind the scenes)
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I have been known in the past to eat that cost (mostly because it is VERY infrequent that I get a credit card customer) but in the grand scheme of things, especially if we're talking about an operation that sees a high volume of credit card sales 2-3% of revenue can add up pretty quick. You're running a business, not a charity.
 
yeah I see that, if I were a high volume shop, absolutely. but I am not, so I would eat it. heck, ONE time a guy wanted to give me cash but only had $10 less than what I quoted. He offered to write me a check...I said its cool, I like cash! LOL That way I dont have to waste time going to the bank!



Never again though!
 
I use Square. When the client signs on my phone...there is an option to leave a tip. I say "On this screen just go ahead and sign with your finger. Right below that you have the option to leave a tip if you would like to". A few days ago I had a client hit 20% on a $499.99 Opticoat. Tipping me $100. My point is....to leave a tip clients just hit one of three buttons. 5% 15% or 20%. It's that easy...no need to fiddle for extra cash or think how much to tip. That alone increases my bottom line and makes the 3% negligible.
 
toyotaguy said:
Thats the devils advocate part.



obviously you never need to disclose that info. But, you know what you are doing.



At the end of the day though, if you book a $300 detail JUST because you take CC and your competitor doesnt, what is $8-10 bucks to make that sale??? (if you eat it, not charge it behind the scenes)
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This is a good point, and once a customer is educated on how the maintenance services are cheaper, its worth it to you(for the future work and ease of maintenance) and to them because they can rest assured that future stuff is cheaper and will even out.
 
MaksimumAuto said:
I use Square. When the client signs on my phone...there is an option to leave a tip. I say "On this screen just go ahead and sign with your finger. Right below that you have the option to leave a tip if you would like to". A few days ago I had a client hit 20% on a $499.99 Opticoat. Tipping me $100. My point is....to leave a tip clients just hit one of three buttons. 5% 15% or 20%. It's that easy...no need to fiddle for extra cash or think how much to tip. That alone increases my bottom line and makes the 3% negligible.
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OMG, I never noticed that before....:frusty:
 
toyotaguy said:
its LEGAL to do it that way! if you straight up say "oh you want to use a card, thats going to be 3.5% extra," then its illegal.



Talked to a business owner who had to go to court over it and he won. He had his lawyer tell him its right.



Is it morally right, maybe not, but why is it ok then for the customer NOT to pay the fee making my profit less....just playing devils advocate here, I dont take cards actually, I have the means to, but people dont mind a check or cash.
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K, well in your state then it's OK, but I can guarantee you that here, you'd get screwed if you got caught with that. Same like refusing to accept plastic for small transaction amounts. Even if it's $0.50, you HAVE to accept the plastic, otherwise, large fine again.
 
damn, that sucks. Maybe thats why a lot of places around me charge .50 for transactions under 10 bucks.



why do they have to make it so complicated, I mean, we (the business) are enabling them (CC company) to make interest off non-full payments from the CC user...lol
 
I will be frank about it.



I have been accepting credit cards for like 3+ years and it is a necessity in my opinion. About 6 months ago I started this whole, "I automatically reduce cash discounts as listed on my site...yadda yadda yadda" which basically says I am charging you for using credit card. As of the last month I have stopped bothering. I just tell people I charge 5% if I process your card and I am happy to accept a check if they would like. I am tired of giving up $40+ on a $1,000+ job for nothing. No one cares and no one will report me. Like I said, just shooting straight....just don't care. I won't pay for having the service, I charge for it. No one else cares either.



On top of that clients respond much better to me outright saying I charge for it. I used to get looks when I justified the charge, circumventing just saying it outright.
 
One thing to note between square and intuit is intuit will give you a SLIGHTLY better rate than square. However, that comes as a cost. Intuit runs a hard credit check on your credit report, square on the other hand does not check your credit. I believe it's only a matter of .05%. Not much to bite on for side businessers but if you don't mind the credit check if you think you'll be doing tons of card processing intuit would probably be the route to go. I've also heard that squares customer service is almost as good as non existent. Myself, I rolled the dice and took square on. I don't need another credit check. I do not take checks though I've seen way too many NSF's in my previous job and don't need to have that as a headache again. These days if you have a checking account you most likely have a debit card. What my question is, do any of you charge a processing fee for card acceptance? I've heard a few people say no way and others say yes, the customer doesn't mind a small fee for the added convenience of being able to accept card payments at the door and actually think its cool that us mobile retailers can/do.
 
A customer of mine told me about Sq. and now I'll have to really check it out after viewing this thread. I use Authorize.net but that sounds ol' school at this point. I have to manually do the transaction from home and the fees are $20 per month no matter what and then they take a cut- along with NOVA. Time to rethink this one. :)
 
OK, so my $20 phone that I LOVE and show my students how you can still talk and text for only $20 IS available for an upgrade. I can get an Iphone 3GS for $32 out the door. Square is 2.75% per transaction with NO fees and a bit more if you enter a manual event. The credit reader is free (because they will get your 2.75%), and that seems to be it.

My Authorize.net is about $20 per month and 3% + there is NOVA as well. Therefore, the new phone is going to cut WAY down on expenses and be a better service to my customer.



Getting the phone this weekend!



Rob



Oh, and they take AMEX while I would have to pay extra to Authorize to do this.
 
why not get the 4s? probably only $100 more. more features and do-dads



or go with an android phone from verizon and get better service, at least in my area its like that!
 
Jean-Claude said:
I will be frank about it.



I have been accepting credit cards for like 3+ years and it is a necessity in my opinion. About 6 months ago I started this whole, "I automatically reduce cash discounts as listed on my site...yadda yadda yadda" which basically says I am charging you for using credit card. As of the last month I have stopped bothering. I just tell people I charge 5% if I process your card and I am happy to accept a check if they would like. I am tired of giving up $40+ on a $1,000+ job for nothing. No one cares and no one will report me. Like I said, just shooting straight....just don't care. I won't pay for having the service, I charge for it. No one else cares either.



On top of that clients respond much better to me outright saying I charge for it. I used to get looks when I justified the charge, circumventing just saying it outright.
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It's cool as long as you don't get caught. All it takes is ONE bad customer, someone who's pissed off at something you did or didn't do (we all get them). They report you and you're done, either a huge fine (from my merchant account provider it's $2500) or they turf your merchant account. Not trying to slag you for the choice you made though, trust me when I say that I notice every single month the amount the merchant provider takes from the bank account.
 
There was a Shell gas station near my house in AK that advertised their gas prices on the sign, however it was at a 10% markup at the pump if you paid at the pump with credit card instead of paying inside with cash (which is what the advertised price showed). Just say there's an x% (what you're being charged) discount for paying with cash; simple, honest, and legal. It's ridiculous how easy it is to word it in order for it to be legal (that it's ridiculous that it is illegal to say it's a service charge for processing a CC).
 
SpoolinNoMore said:
(that it's ridiculous that it is illegal to say it's a service charge for processing a CC).
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Be careful here. It's not "illegal" to charge a service charge for those paying with a credit card. What you are doing is breaking a legally binding contract. You agreed to that contract when you signed up for a merchant account, you had the choice to say no, you had the choice to voice your concern regarding the prohibition on such service charges. By you signing your merchant account agreement, you agreed, in a legally binding manner, that you would not charge service charges when accepting credit card payments.



Also, you need to be careful about giving a "cash discount". Many merchant providers have caught onto this, and have included it in their contracts. Check your agreement's fine print. It may very well state that you are also not allowed to offer a cash discount.
 
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