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What a Merchant Account is.

A merchant account is the ability for a business owner to accept credit cards or checks at his/her place of business in a retail atmosphere or online, over the Internet. The merchant account allows a merchant to accept the credit card transactions and check transactions which get processed and deposited into the merchants' bank account.

• PayNet Merchant Services, Inc.
  
• United Bank Card Merchant Services
  
• Credit Card Processing Services / Equipment
  
• Credit Card Processing & Merchant Accounts
  
• Merchant Express -Free Credit Card Processing
  
• Charge.com Online Credit Card Processing

Merchant Account Info
Ultimately only a bank can provide a merchant account but processors can sell via agents by a sponsoring bank and under the umbrella of that processing bank. The agents are acting on the processors behalf on signing up merchants. The agent may represent themselves as their own payment processing company but are selling merchant services from a processing bank.

You need to have a business license as a merchant through the city even if you are a sole proprietor.
If you do not have a tax id you can use your Social Security. Once you have obtained your business license you can go to your local bank and open a business account and get started in accepting credit cards and checks.

Legitimacy
The next step would be proving to the bank that you have a retail store to sell your product or service. If you do not have a retail store you need an online store or some type of marketing or selling material to present to the bank for legitimacy amongst other things.

The processor will be looking for what you are selling, how much you are selling it for and what your refund policy and service policy, this is a requirement of Visa and MasterCard.

Chargebacks
You as a merchant must be careful of what type of marketing techniques are being used due to charge backs. You are usually allowed up to 1% of sales for a charge back or dispute of charge. A charge back is not a refund or return. Visa and MasterCard has a right to terminate your account and you need to practice good business, whether it be online or in a retail atmosphere.

Many payment processing companies make themselves look bigger than they are on the Internet, yet are really just advertisers and high pressure sales people who are not really a payment processing company at all. They sell processing for whoever pays them the most commission. Beware!

It is a known fact within the processing industry that more than 75% of new Internet businesses have a slow start or fail altogether. Avoid companies who's high monthly fees will drain your resources. Remember that many of them are depending on those monthly fees to compensate their sales and marketing efforts.

More tomorrow on Credit Card Processing and Merchant Accounts!

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Labels: How to Accept Credit Cards Oline

posted by The MBD  # 7:35 PM