A Guide To Understanding Merchant Account Rates & Fees

Written by Bobi Michaelson


A Guide To Understanding Merchant Account Rates & Fees

By understandingrepparttar true costs associated with merchant account pricing, you can make an educated decision as to which merchant account is really best for your needs.

You have opened your business and realize that accepting credit cards will increase your sales dramatically. It is now time to chooserepparttar 112275 merchant account that will be best for you.

You’ve received emails, postcards and have surfedrepparttar 112276 Internet and have seen some great promotions. Which of these merchant account providers will give you a good deal? Before signing any merchant account agreement it is important to understand all ofrepparttar 112277 rates and fees that will be associated with your account.

Qualified Discount Rate – This isrepparttar 112278 percentage that will be charge on all of your credit card sales.

Swiped credit cards will have a lower discount rate due to repparttar 112279 fact thatrepparttar 112280 cardholder is present andrepparttar 112281 risk is lower.

Keyed credit cards will have a higher discount rate due to repparttar 112282 fact that there is more risk involved in acceptingrepparttar 112283 credit card due torepparttar 112284 fact thatrepparttar 112285 cardholder is not present.

Mid & Non-Qualified Surcharge – These surcharges are very important to understand, as some Visa/Mastercard transactions will have an additional surcharge applied to repparttar 112286 qualified discount rate.

Mid-Qualified Surcharge applies to swiped merchants only. When a credit card is swiped andrepparttar 112287 magnetic strip cannot be read inrepparttar 112288 terminal, you will key inrepparttar 112289 transaction. When you have a telephone order, mail order or Internet order, you will key inrepparttar 112290 transaction. A surcharge will be applied torepparttar 112291 transaction. In other words, if your qualified rate is 1.66% and your Mid-Qualified surcharge is .85%, you will pay 1.66% + .85% = 2.51% for that transaction.

Non-Qualified Surcharge applies to both swiped and keyed merchants. Whenever a corporate or foreign card is used, or you do not utilizerepparttar 112292 Address Verification System when keying in a credit card,repparttar 112293 Non-Qualified Surcharge will apply. In other words, if your qualified rate is 2.39% and your Non Qualified surcharge is 1.95%, you will pay 2.39% + 1.95% = 4.34% for that transaction.

Transaction Fee – Merchant providers will also charge a per transaction fee on each of your sales. Some providers will also include a per item fee, or a watts fee in addition to repparttar 112294 transaction fee. Make sure you understandrepparttar 112295 true cost ofrepparttar 112296 transaction fee structure.

Address Verification System (AVS) – Address Verification applies to keyed transactions. The AVS determines whether repparttar 112297 street address and zip code is actually a match forrepparttar 112298 cardholder. AVS does not work for foreign transactions. The AVS fee is a separate fee charged for each transaction.

Travel & Entertainment Cards – American Express, Discover, Diners and JCB are considered non-bank cards. The transaction fee for these cards is normally called a T&E fee, or a non-bankcard transaction fee. You will incur this transaction fee each time one of these cards is processed, in addition torepparttar 112299 discount rate set by these individual companies.

OVERBOUGHT/OVERSOLD

Written by Al Thomas


THE ALCHEMIST by AL THOMAS OVERBOUGHT/OVERSOLD

Has your broker ever told you that a stock is “overbought” or “oversold”? He probably went on to explain thatrepparttar stock you own (I hope you didn’t) had gone down so far that it now was oversold and due for a rally. He might also have encouraged you to buy an equal amount to “dollar cost average” your position so that when (“if”- he didn’t say that, I did)) it did go back up you could “get out even”. He might even say you “could make a fortune”. Waiting to get out even isrepparttar 112274 great trap that is preached by allrepparttar 112275 big Maul Street brokerage houses. What is even worse is most brokers and financial planners believe it. What happened to all those beautiful company reports sent to you telling how wonderful this stock was before you bought it. Maybe you better read those back to him. Brokerage companies do not want you to sell. When any stock is going either up or down for any extended period of time it does seem logical that it can become overbought or oversold, but let’s examine what that means to your ownership. The reason a stock started up is becauserepparttar 112276 underlying profit projection is going to produce

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