[Paul Heath]

Wondered what was involved in accepting cards, so rang the bank and what a rip off. They want £250 one off for some one to come round and plug the machine in, then almost £40 per month in other charges,before any transation has been completed. I was under the understanding i would be offering customers another option to pay and the bank, for a small charge, would be only too pleased to assist in this. Not closed this door completly i just wondered if any one else already takes cards and has it improved turn over and not just added to the banks huge profit. As i would have to sign up for 3 years, this makes £1440.00 for the bank without me taking a penny on the machine.

[Bertie Boo]

Paul

Without knowing the over-all running and repair costs of these terminals it is probably going to be hard to accertain whether it is a 'rip-off' or not.

I suppose like anything you have to evaluate how much business you are loosing by not having the terminal fitted. If it's less than the cost of having a terminal then only you can decide whether or not it's worth it.

Also, you may want to evaluate how much you are paying for cheque clearance at the moment and find out if, should these cheque-payers  change to paying by debit card, if this will be cheaper for you?

It would be a shame to find out that having a terminal worked in your favour and yet you'd ruled it out immediatly as you thought it was a 'rip-off'.

I know where you are coming from, I COULD feel the same about insurance if i allowed myself to...


Cheers m8

Stephen

[Paul Heath]

Thanks for reply i also offercustomers the chance to pay by Bac's more of them are taking me up on this. It saves time waiting for cheques to arrive and get to the bank before they close with no charge involved. Even national companys we deal with are going over to this. I felt by offering credit cards we might pick up more one off cleans and you never know where they lead to!!

[drivewasher]

my son takes card payments for his mini bus business, I dont think it cost him very much as he wouldn't do it.
He has no termnal as such it's done through tinternet either via pc from home/office or via tinternet conection on his mobile phone.
The operator of the system has sent him the old roller machine and carbonated slips to roll the card through in the bus purley a a reciept as the money is debited via tinternet phone (wap I think it is)

I have even "cashed" an amount off my credit card out of his takings in cash as it's less cost than getting cash off the card at a hole in the wall

[dg-cleaning]

I cant remember the exact details or prices but natwest advised me on taking cred cards and it was quite reasonable.Perhaps the bank you use uses a different company for this.I think it was something like a high user or low user account tailored for each business.Worked out something like £100 one off fee then a small percent of every transaction.

[window pain]

I have a merchant account with the bank of ireland, they have branches in london, i only use the manual system, to be honest i have never used it much as i don't usually deal in large amounts as far as i remember it cost me around £75 to open the account and around 2per cent commission on every transaction. 

[mk1]

google streamline 

[mike peters]

try a paypal account.... if client is on tinternet its a great way of funding

[LWC]

try a paypal account.... if client is on tinternet its a great way of funding

yeh i was gonna suggest this, or nochex is another interent based site, slightly cheaper than paypal

20p per transaction plus 2.9%

so £10 - 20p+2.9% = 49p

so for £10 you would get £9.51

[LWC]

take a look at my site under payments to get a idea 

[Paul Heath]

Thanks for the ideas its given me food for thought, busy checking them all out