Merchant account switching help please!

HiMyNameIsLauren

Hi all, I hope someone can help my on this quite stressful Friday night, but I'm having one of those nights where I want to put some additional work in (as I feel in the mood :rotfl:) and I ended up getting distracted earlier in the evening. I'm going to say sorry now on behalf of my fingers for if this turns in to a rant.

I think my current merchant account provider has taken me for a ride. Or should I say, the salesmen has. I've been with a company for several years now and tonight I think I've just had it highlighted to me exactly how expensive they are.

Long story short, I'm being charged well over 2% for processing of card transactions (with a mobile terminal). I *tested* izettle recently and picked up the card reader to connect to my phone from EE shop recently. What a waste of money as I thought I'd save money as no contract and no other fees, other than 2.75% transaction fee. Steeper than current provider, but here's the problem. The majority of my current clients, who I've built a rapport up with, actually ALL have looked at me like I've turned in to a fraudster overnight as I wanted to use the izettle system. Slight oversight on my behalf, but this didn't even cross my mind as a problem so really gutted that I'm back to square one with current provider. :-/

Anyway, stupidly, after a few weeks of customers groaning that they were having to connect their CC to my phone, I thought I'd research to see if others had similar issues. Think I Googled something like 'izettle review' and came across an article on another merchant providers website. It was no big deal of an article but this annoying woman popped up bottom right mentioning that I can get a quote online. At that point I realised it was time to shop around.

The company now in question is http://www.cardprocessing.co.uk I'm more than happy with the quote I've been given, but that's the problem. Now I've been stung twice with high fees, I completed a quote online with these guys and I can actually get my fees down to 1.25%. So 2 things; a) I'm skeptical about being able to get this quote online. Everyone else I'm now trying to get a quote from want me to have a sales person call me/come to my location. I cannot emphasis how much I detest salesmen! Can it really be as low as 1.25%? Or, am I going to expect a sales call Monday? and b) the cost of their portable card machine is cheaper per month than current too, but do you think it's actually possible to buy my own card machine, thus not have this additional cost? Hate monthly costs, so where I can cut them, I want too! This then makes it a way better deal than izettle and current supplier.

Would really appreciate any advice from anyone who takes card payments and if you can answer these 2 questions. I don't want to be tied in to another 2+ year contract and regret it.

greyteam1959

You could get 1.25% on credit cards, it will depend on your turnover on the cards.
There may be some hidden charges in the 'small print' ie minimum monthly spend etc
I get 1.25% on credit cards on a turnover of approx 35 000 per year.
Debit cards are charged at .17p per transaction in my case.
My bluetooth 'walkabout' terminal costs me 22.50 per month plus VAT rental.
I use www.acceptcards.co.uk
Purchase of a terminal will probably cost you around 300 to 400 pounds.
HTH

HiMyNameIsLauren

Cost of a card machine seems quite high, but then again, if it costs me £16.99 PCM with Cardprocessing.co.uk, I'd make this money back in a couple of years. Never had a machine break down on me yet, but I guess that would be my main concern with buying now. And of course, if the service provider allows me to use my own (not sure if that's even a worry?)

HiMyNameIsLauren

Well, I can say safely that with a bit of kerfuffle before Xmas trying to get quotes from other merchant service providers I ended up with CardProcessing.co.uk. Received everything needed by start of Jan and had a good month of usage now and I am more than happy! Why are the other businesses so keen on getting a salesmen to come to mine? Really annoying, so I hope others take note to get something online so sign up process is easy.

Will update here again in future if I start to see any problems with the service and need to vent, but fingers x-ed for smooth sailing.

terra_ferma

HiMyNameIsLauren wrote: »

Well, I can say safely that with a bit of kerfuffle before Xmas trying to get quotes from other merchant service providers I ended up with CardProcessing.co.uk. Received everything needed by start of Jan and had a good month of usage now and I am more than happy! Why are the other businesses so keen on getting a salesmen to come to mine? Really annoying, so I hope others take note to get something online so sign up process is easy.

Will update here again in future if I start to see any problems with the service and need to vent, but fingers x-ed for smooth sailing.

thanks for coming back to this thread to tell us what happened