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Author: Subject: Taking credit and debit card payments
Thinking about it

posted on 5/7/12 at 09:57 AM Reply With Quote
Taking credit and debit card payments

Does anyone know any typical costs to a small business to do this. Hire or purchase of the terminal? Cost per swipe/commission fees? Does it dial up to a premium rate or 0800 etc?
Before I ask and get some waffle off the bank.

Cheers

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gremlin1234

posted on 5/7/12 at 10:10 AM Reply With Quote
for a very small company you may find accepting paypal does what you need, since users can pay them by credit card.
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mookaloid

posted on 5/7/12 at 10:26 AM Reply With Quote
Hi Ian,

I pay £20 per month for the machine and because I don't take credit cards - just debit cards the transaction charges are very low - about 10p per transaction if I recall. Typically I pay about £40 per month overall.

Obviously if you take credit cards it costs something like 1.5% of the transaction (you can recharge this to the customer) but also bear in mind that any purchases that are paid for in this way are covered by the consumer credit act and as such are subject to being clawed back if the customer for any reason decides he is unhappy with the product. The card company will claw back first and ask questions later!

I am with HSBC merchant services.

A colleague who is in the same business as me was with Barclays and he was paying over 10 times as much until I mentioned how much I was paying!

Cheers

Mark





"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."


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RK

posted on 5/7/12 at 10:33 AM Reply With Quote
The amounts I pay to put my own money in THEIR bank are the very definition of the banks' evil.
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designer

posted on 5/7/12 at 11:27 AM Reply With Quote
There are many variables. and it all depends upon how big your business is and how much money you take.
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Thinking about it

posted on 5/7/12 at 11:32 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by gremlin1234
for a very small company you may find accepting paypal does what you need, since users can pay them by credit card.


Sorry forgot to mention this is for customer face to face not on the interweb.

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Thinking about it

posted on 5/7/12 at 11:55 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
Hi Ian,

I pay £20 per month for the machine and because I don't take credit cards - just debit cards the transaction charges are very low - about 10p per transaction if I recall. Typically I pay about £40 per month overall.

Obviously if you take credit cards it costs something like 1.5% of the transaction (you can recharge this to the customer) but also bear in mind that any purchases that are paid for in this way are covered by the consumer credit act and as such are subject to being clawed back if the customer for any reason decides he is unhappy with the product. The card company will claw back first and ask questions later!

I am with HSBC merchant services.

A colleague who is in the same business as me was with Barclays and he was paying over 10 times as much until I mentioned how much I was paying!

Cheers

Mark


Cheers Mark. Your charges are what I had in mind. looks like with all things "Shop around".

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ChrisW

posted on 5/7/12 at 09:35 PM Reply With Quote
It'll cost you about £20-25 for a merchant account and the machine rental. After that debit card is typically 8-10p per transaction, credit card is ~1.5% or similar.

I'm yet to find out whether you MUST buy/rent the machine from the bank. They're available on eBay 'second hand', and I'd assume it's just a case of entering the phone number and merchant account number and off you go, but nobody has been able to confirm or deny that for me as yet.

I spoke to a couple of independant providers (card save are the ones that came to mind) and they were prepared to offer better deals than the banks. However, when I mentioned them back to the bank they were happy to match the prices, so as usual the advice I'd give is shop around and keep asking 'can you beat xyz's price', 'why should I go with you when abc is cheaper', etc.

Chris





My gaff my rules

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stephen_gusterson

posted on 5/7/12 at 10:56 PM Reply With Quote
As a comparison, paypal is approx 4%.

I was mailshot a while ago by Barclays as to if I wanted a machine, but at the costs (I was fairly costly) I wasnt impressed. For an online business only, it works, and you dont need a paypal account as a buyer to pay, you can do it by entering your card number etc, online, rather than starting a buyers full account.

But yeah, no good for face to face

atb

steve

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Jon Ison

posted on 5/7/12 at 11:01 PM Reply With Quote
We use cardsave, cant remember the exact figures but those above are about where we are at, 10p debit, 1.5% credit, anything taken chip and pin is 100% yours unlike paypal.

Still waiting for a £380 payment to show though from the 20th of last month, think you know which bank the card holder uses ? Apparently as we have the authorisation code we will see it eventually.

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Jasper

posted on 6/7/12 at 12:02 PM Reply With Quote
Try Elavon - I've just used my account there are 20 years with Streamline, very competitive rates and I pay £15 a month for the terminal.





If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.

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