| Look here first for the
answers to the most frequently asked questions we
receive at Total Merchant Services. |
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A merchant account is a
special account that allows your business to
accept credit cards as payment in person,
over the telephone, by mail order, or over
the Internet. You must have a merchant
account if you want to be able to accept
credit cards as a form of payment from your customers.
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An acquiring bank is the
bank that holds your credit card merchant
account. It is also the bank that transfers
funds from your merchant account into your
local bank account. |
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It's easy to establish a
merchant account with Total Merchant
Services. You can submit an application
online, by fax, or by meeting with a sales
representative at your business location. Your application will be approved almost
immediately, your account will be activated,
and if you're buying or leasing new credit
card processing software or terminal
equipment, it will arrive in just days.
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You'll be able to accept
Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express
and Diners Club/Carte Blanche. In addition,
you'll be able to accept debit cards that
carry a Visa or MasterCard logo, purchase
cards, and online checks. |
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The discount rate is one
of the processing fees charged to your
merchant account. It is a percentage of your
gross sales. |
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The "per transaction fee"
is a nominal charge for processing each
transaction through your merchant account
service. |
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Charge backs occur when a
credit cardholder informs the credit card
company that the charge was not authorized,
or that goods or services were not delivered
as promised. Total Merchant Services along
with its credit card processors use a
sate-of-the-art fraud screening system to
help protect you from fraudulent charges. If
a customer claims that you did not deliver
the goods or services for which they paid,
you'll have seven days to provide evidence
that the goods or services were received
before the cardholder's account will be
credited. |
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Total Merchant Services
will transfer funds from your merchant
account to any checking account you
designate on a daily basis. |
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If you have a retail
storefront, restaurant, hotel, or service
business you can use either a hard-wired or
wireless point-of-sale (POS) credit card
terminal or a personal computer equipped
with credit card processing software. If you
have an Internet business, or a telephone
order or mail order business, you can use a
virtual terminal. With a virtual terminal,
you do not need to load any software onto
your computer. Since this is Internet-Based
software, you simply need access to the
internet. Other options include using
credit card processing software. This is
software that you load onto your computer.
Authorizations are obtained by dialing into
the credit card processor with your computer
modem. Or, you can hand enter (key in) data
into a point-of-sale (POS) credit card
terminal. |
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Total Merchant Services
provides competitive rates, world class
customer service, and fast and easy
enrollment.
- World Class Customer Service
- Total Merchant Services provides
customer service via telephone 24 hours
per day, seven days a week. Our
representatives will help you with
questions about transfers of money into
your designated checking account,
monthly statements, chargeback and
retrieval requests, and other issues
that face merchant account holders every
day.
- Fast & Easy Enrollment
- If you meet our liberal
approval
guidelines, your application can be
approved quickly and simply. In most
cases, we can tell you in minutes if
your application will be approved, and
can complete the entire process in a
matter of days. Applying for an account
is easy with our online application. Just complete the application online,
print it out, sign it and fax it in. There's no need for original signatures
and no expensive overnight deliveries. If you prefer, you can apply in person
or over the phone with one of our sales
representatives.
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Because you never take
physical possession of a credit card so that
you can swipe it through a magnetic strip
reader, both Visa and MasterCard use
different criteria for evaluating risk and
have different fee structures for
card-not-present transactions. |
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A payment gateway links
your web site to the credit card processing
companies and your merchant account. When
your customer enters his or her credit card
number on your web site, the payment gateway
obtains authorization for the charge and
later handles the transfer of funds into
your merchant account. Total Merchant
Services works with the industry's most
widely used and reliable gateways including; TotalPay
(powered by Authorize.Net), Plug
n' Pay, and VeriSign Payment Systems.
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No. To ensure that your
customers are protected when they enter
their credit card information on your web
site, Total Merchant Services and its
payment gateway partners use Secure Socket
Layers (SSL) to encrypt sensitive personal
information, including credit card numbers.
There is no need for you to have SSL on your
web site. |
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