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Aite Group released a study that said that payment card fraud, also know as merchant services fraud costs the economy $8.6 billion dollars per year – that’s $8,600,000,000 dollars.  When you accept electronic payments from your clients you are opening yourself up to merchant services fraud. 

Here are some things you can do to keep yourself projected:

• If you are accepting payments via the Internet, or over the phone, or through mail get setup with Fraud Trak2 from PlugnPay.
• If you are accepting payments in person, do AVS, address verification for all merchant services transactions.  All that you have to do is get the zip code of the person at the point of check out.  This has been proven to substantially reduce your cost of credit card processing transitions by moving you from a mid or non-qualified rate to a lower cost qualified rate.  It has also been proven to substantially lower your risk of accepting a fraudulent merchant services payment.  This means that your chance of charge back is much lower and your overall company profits will be better.
• No matter what, make sure that you are using PCI/PED complaint merchant equipment

If you do all of the above – you will be doing what you need to do to protect yourself and your business from payment processing fraud.

The biggest problem with accepting payment online is credit card fraud.  Every company that relies on ecommerce merchant services processing knows this.   Before my days in credit card processing, I ran an online Internet marketing company which was a pay for service solution.  At this point in time about 10% of our attempted orders were fraudulent.  This was a major problem for our business as it cost us lost profits and we almost lost our merchant account because of our high charge back rates due to fraud.

We solved this solution by upgrading our ecommerce merchant account gateway to PlugnPay’s FraudTrak2. Overnight, our credit card fraud stopped.  This tool set is the best tool set to stop credit card fraud on your eCommerce website.  I highly, highly recommend it.

Accepting credit cards online comes with the increased risk of merchant services fraud against your company.  Wath this 4 mintue video to learn about the warning signs of credit card fraud, and how you can protect your company.

A New report by CreditorWeb published a study that found that by not accepting credit cards companies are losing at much as 70% of their potential revenue.  The article summarizing this data pointed out a few things about merchant services and why it is so important you set your business up for merchant service processing:

• In the past 20 years due to direct deposit, most people do not carry much cash on them anymore.
• Starbucks, a company that has an average transaction size of$4, does the bulk of their business with credit card and debit card transactions.
• The average American carries at least four credit cards and nearly all Americans own a debit card.
• Most consumers prefer to pay with a credit card due to reasons like security and convenience.
• If a company does not accept credit cards it is deemed less trustworthy.

Heartland Payment Systems, which found itself involved in a large class action law suit in 2009, recently released its Q4 earnings report for 2011 and it was strong.  The company is making a rebound.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc reported a Q4 2011, quarterly profit that topped Wall Street estimates as the payment processor’s card processing volume in its credit merchant services business increased and costs fell.  It seems that the Durban Amendment is helping them as it is helping out most of the credit merchant services industry.

So do you have a blog like the Merchant Services & Business Insider that you want to promote?  Blogs are a great way to grow your business so it makes sense that you would want to promote them. Go to Technorati.com to get started.

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Corporate Merchant Services, a firm engaged in the business of electronic payment processing, has agreed to acquire fifty-one percent of Northern Star Financial, the parent company of Northern Star Bank.

What does that mean to you?  Not much.  Want to get the best merchant services solutions for your company?  Find out how by getting the merchant services processing guide.

No matter what kind of in person, or over the phone, merchant services processing you are doing the First Data FD100 is a simple and productive merchant equipment solution.  Choice Merchant Services offers the First Data FD100 for free to our medical merchant services merchants as well as our retail merchant services merchants.

To read more about the First Data FD100 view the link to the left.  Here are some highlights:

• Retails for $349.00 but Choice Merchant Services offers it for free.
• Accepts credit cards as well as debit cards with built in pin pad
• Touch screen
• Same day batching of transactions.
• Build in thermal printer for fast printing
• PCI/PED complaint for top security.
• Connect with both broadband & dial-up with SSL encryption

To get the Frist Data FD100 for free get a best merchant services quote from Choice Merchant Services.

The credit card processing industry is not heavily regulated. This results in one simple fact: merchant services processing companies raise prices on their merchants without warning or agreement from their clients.

Just like a bank that offers a generous interest rate on a checking account to only a few months after you sign up for it have your interest rate lowered to be about one half of what it is now, merchant services processors jack up discount rates and fees without warning.

This is why too good to be true merchant services rates should be not taken seriously, essentially by signing with one of the to good to be true processors, you are signing up with an aggressive and unethical merchant services processing partner.

The Vivopay 4000 tap and go and swipe merchant services equipment in the merchant equipment of the future.  Why?

It has the ability to accept merchant services transactions via swipe methods as well as cutting-edge tap and go technology.  In the future all credit and debit card transactions will be done via tap-and-go.  Essentially a tiny chip will be put into most smart phones enabling people to tap their smart phone to a merchant equipment terminal such as the Vivopay 4000 and complete their merchant transaction in much less time than with a traditional swipe transaction.

Some merchant services experts are worried that technology like the Vivopay 4000 will enable an increase in credit card fraud.  This will be quite the opposite in that smart phones can be setup to instantly scan a thumbprint placed on the smart phone screen before allowing a tap and go transaction to transpire.

So if you are looking to get merchant equipment that will last you for the next 15+ years, get the merchant equipment of the future with the Vivopay 4000 terminal.