PCI DSS Card Payments Requirement

trafficisland

Hi, does anyone else have experience of being PCI DSS compliant? I've recently had a letter fom my card processing company to tell me that they want to start charging me £3.50 +VAT per month for PCI DSS compliance, or £3 + VAT per month if I choose a different compliance scheme. If I fail to do so they'll charge me £50 + VAT per month.

I've taken card payments for over 10 years and this is the first I've ever heard of PCI DSS. I've got the gist of what it is from research, but it seems like yet another overhead that I've now got to account for so I want to find out if there are cheaper ways of becoming compliant, or if it even applies to me at all. I have a retail shop so most card transactions are over the counter. I don't hold any card details on our systems other than the data that goes through the card machine. Occasionally one of our customers will phone us to make a payment but the data is entered straight into the card machine and not stored anywhere. I take maybe 1-5 phone payments per month, so a £3.50 monthly fee would be a hefty percentage of my profit gone, but I don't want to lose customers by refusing to take phone payments.

Has anyone else been in a similar boat and what was the outcome? Has anyone found a cheaper method of becoming compliant?

greyteam1959

Old thread here.....might help.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1415097

Best thing you can do is what I did, use another card processing company !!!
I was with Barclays Merchant Services until they started this PCI DSS rip off.
Oh & dont be tempted to try & do the PCI DSS paperwork yourself !!! Talk about pages & pages of absolute nightmare bullsh*t !!

trafficisland

Thanks for the link, now I'm even more confused with the number of different levels etc! It's soundng more and more like yet another uneccessary overhead levied by the card companies to squeeze yet more money out of me, as if inventing new cards every few months and charging higher fees to accept them wasn't enough.

Can I ask who you switched to and if you accept phone payments?

greyteam1959

Yes I hoped it would confuse you as much as it did me !!!!!!!
The bit that annoyed & concerned me most was that ALL my company data was to be given to an 'unknown' company in the USA.
Just did not like it at all.
I went with www.acceptcards.co.uk .
They set me up with Allied Irish Bank ( AIB ) as the merchant services & 123send for the terminal supply.
I did actually get a much better deal than BMS.
£22.50 + VAT per month for wireless card terminal
17p per debit card transaction
1.25% per credit card transaction
The charges are based on what you turnover on the cards so you might get a better or worse rate.
I accept payments over the phone but only maybe 10 per month.
95% of my transactions are retail sales on the shop floor.
My terminal asks for 'House Number' thens asks for 'Postcode Numerics' then checks for a match.
You could look at acceptcards website then give them a ring for a quote, they were very helpful when they set me up about 4 years ago after I took the hump with BMS.
Ask if you want to know anything else.