You Get What You Pay For?
Keep up with Elise and her story of becoming a successful entrepreneur:
- What do you Know?
- Education
- Just Notes
- Golden Numbers
- How Much?
- Neither Borrower nor Lender Be
- Walking Many Paths
- Horse Trading
- Three Card Monty
- It is All Shelly’s Idea
- The Party Line
- The Big Meeting
“Wait a minute, two and a half percent?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Elise had never in her life been called ma’am before she started comparison-shopping credit card services. In the last two hours, seven different customer service reps had called her ma’am.
“What about monthly fees?
“None.”
“Equipment costs?”
“Free for as long as you keep our service.”
“Installations, signup, up-front, or first-and-last fees?”
“Just the $35.95 due when we set up the card scanner. Our technician will do his best to integrate it into any standard POS station software.”
“POS?”
“Point of Sale station. Your cash registers if you are using any computerized sales or inventory tracking.”
“Oh. Um…I haven’t decided what I am doing for that yet. I am just shopping around right now.”
“Well, if you have one, our technician can usually integrate the credit card scanner in a couple of minutes, but if you choose to use paper invoicing, the our unit can stand alone just as easily.”
“Awesome. Thanks so much for your information.”
“You too, ma’am. Thank you for calling…”
Elise hung up the phone and checked her notes. Dave had strongly recommended she do some serious compare/contrasts on the credit card verification service she chose. His advice was obviously well founded. In two hours of call she had been quoted service charges ranging from 0.45% to over 6% of sales, with installation, equipment and signup charges ranging from absolutely free to over $600. Each service promised to work directly with her bank, depositing charges anywhere from 20 minutes to 48 hours after verification.
This was something Elise was not used to in consumer commerce. As an end user, competing pressures and lots of advertising ensures that companies offering similar services offer them at roughly the same prices, or at least within the ballpark of the same prices. Enterprise services however, especially within banking, seemed like another world. Even when she was setting up her checking account for the business she found that the range of charges and services between banks varied erratically, with no clear relationship between pricing and features.
Some of the companies she just called would end up costing her business literally hundreds of dollars more a year for the exact same service. Elise felt she was likely to be spending a lot of time on the phone in the next few weeks.
Next week: Very Real
One Comment
William
November 17th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Hey Evan, you know speaking as a person who had a brief stinch as an account executive in the payment processing industry; I know a lot of the tricks these companies use.
Those companies giving those real low end quotes are fake and Elise needs to run as fast as she can. These companies usually offer very poor service and also have TONS of hidden fees!
You have to always look below the surface when seeking service, because a lot of times unfortunately, there is a huge catch. Good job.
Leave a Comment