With 80% of online shoppers using credit cards, you can’t afford NOT to take credit cards. Did you know that merchants offering credit cards as a payment option increase their profitability by estimated 50%? With the inherent advantages involving credit card processing, should you really go with your initial instinct and choose the cheapest option? […]
Payment Gateway
What are Non-Qualified Transactions and How Can Merchants Avoid Them
Non-Qualified I frequently get calls from merchants who say they were quoted one rate, but claim different rates are showing up on their statements. Unfortunately, merchants can experience a rate increase or surcharge because of the type of card your customers are using, such as sky miles cards and rewards cards. Another cause of increased […]
Validating Credit Cards
Credit Cards Fraud Risks With fraud on the rise, online merchants face increasing risks. In card-not-present transactions, there are two basic levels of credit card validation used to validate that credit cards presented for payment actually belong to the person initiating the transaction. The first involves using the Luhn algorithm (also called the “Mod 10 Method […]
Does Your Payment Gateway Measure Up?
Online Shopping On The Rise online shopping Online shopping is at an all-time high. According to, Statista Portal over 1.66 Billion consumers have shopped online. This is up 40% in the last two years. The most purchased items are books, clothes, accessories, video games, airline tickets and electronic equipment. Purchasing goods and services online has […]
Is Your Online Payment Gateway Secure?
Back in 2005, many of us in the merchant services industry were in the thick of the CardSystems security breach. The Federal Trade commission claims “this is the largest known compromise to financial data to date”. Millions of dollars in fraudulent purchases were made with the stolen data. Processors, like the one I was working […]