Best Credit Card Machine Deals - Advice Please!

buglawton

For Up to £200,000 turnover the annual rate was 173.90 per year to join BSSA. Not sure if the benefits of using their HSBC system outweigh this as you have to be a member even to see the BSSA e-payments scheme details.

There is a real gap in the market for seamless secure online AND offline processing of cards to one single system, that suits small businesses.

If anyone is already a member, can they spill the beans - what is the pricing of the e-payments via BSSA?

[Deleted User]

yes we are members.

What is it that you want to know? E-payments?

I can find details of their HSBC charges for credit card and current account if that is what you want.

Regards

Graham

buglawton

Yes the e-payments bit that integrates with an online shop

trogette

old thread I know, wondered if anyone had more current thoughts/info? We're already FSB and NMTF members so I'm going to look into those first. A word of caution for people with oscommerce shops and looking at HSBC accounts, it's notoriously awkward to integrate the two.

Thanks for your thoughts

gingerkirsty

As this is an old post I'm not sure what a good deal is looking at charges now.

If any of you guys are still using the services could you tell me if this is a good deal please, it's the Adelante MobilePOS through the NMTF-

(normally) (market trader)
Merchant Account if required £150.00 Free
Set-up fee
(one-off payment) £109.00 £90.00
Annual phone licence fee £15.00 £12
Cost per transaction 40p 30p
Browser based admin facility £500 free

charges- credit card 2.2% debit card 30p


Many thanks

buglawton

The above is a brilliantly cost-effective scheme if you do small-ish transactions at, say, market stalls or fairs where you will not miss the full chip'n'pin security. You would be entering mobile transactions in via your mobile's WAP browser (or maybe by text message). In the deal you also get a secure web browser based control panel where you could put through larger transactions as you do have the opportunity to call the Bank to verify that the delivery address is the cardholder's - though some cards have disallowed this. You can also view all mobile and web transactions in a handy report.

One catch is that market customers don't look too favourably on you entering their card details on a mobile (even though this is basically a secure method). So you could do the imprint version (you get supplied a machine for this) and put small transactions through after the customer has departed.

buglawton

Not quite sure what you mean by off line terminals. The above deal does not offer online payment by customers that can be linked to your online shopping basket: All card payments have to be entered manually via Web Browser / your Admin Account with Adelante.

trogette

have just been looking again at this and the Mobile Chip and Pin deal from Adelante looks relatively good value too.

buglawton

Yes they were proposing it to me but I can stick with their cheaper mobile phone wap browser method for now. Adelante mentioned that the chip'n'pin machine contract can be very short duration unlike other co's.

windswept

buglawton wrote: »

Thiis is the route I took - result is £6/month standing fee including Merchant Service, Virtual Terminal (for Customer not Present transactions) + mobile terminal via WAP Browser for fairs & markets. Transaction fees are reasonable:

- Join the NMTF http://www.nmtf.co.uk/
- Apply to Adelante via their deal thru the NMTF, who in turn does a deal with Bank of Ireland for you to give you the Merchant Service.

I am using this Merchant service and can vouch that your Credit Card receipts clear into your Bank account in 4-5 working days (which is better than what I have heard about others).

NMTF gives a discount on Adelante setup, Adelante gives a discount on BOI setup. The accrued discounts pay for your NMTF membership and you get permanent discounts on transactions plus NMTF membership = proper traders insurance for occasional fairs, exhibitions etc (legal requirement anyway).

We have the Adelante mobile set-up, I haven't used it yet, apart from testing it all with our own cards, Our merchant account was set up through them with Lloyds TSB and I found that the payments went through quickly.
We have our first big event at Easter the festival of transport at Weston park and I just wonder if it will all work properly, I can visualise standing in a field with no signal:o , so in that case I presume we just swipe the cards with the imprinting machine and input the details at home later?
We have had problems with Adelante in terms of customer service, they just have never got back to us and we have had to chase them up for everything, I have also had to ring lloyds a few times and we STILL haven't got our merchants handbook!
Another gripe is that we cant get our phones set up for the java pos, we will have to use the texting system, I just hope that not too many customers want to pay by card, I am not a fast texter:p , perhaps I should employ my dd, who can text at the speed of light without even looking!
Are there any potential pitfalls, or problems that we should be on the lookout for when out and about, as opposed to using the virtual terminal - which is simplicity itself? thanks.