Which credit card provider do you use?

[hkw100]

Hello,

I have a one-bed self-catering cottage which I've been operating for about 10 months now. So far, everyone has been happy to pay by cheque. I've only had one overseas visitor (American) who paid by bank transfer, which was tricky and expensive for both is us, but it worked.

However, I'd like to introduce a credit and debit card payment facility this year. (Also because we're acquiring a second, larger, cottage to launch as a holiday let this spring!)

My membership to SouthWest Tourism means I can get a reduced rate with Streamline - 1.38% for Mastercard and 1.36% for Visa credit, plus 18p for Visa Debit. The terminal rental is £11.00 + vat per month and there are no monthly minimum service charges or joining fee.

Is this a good deal, do you think? What other providers should I try?

Any advice gratefully received!

Many thanks.

Harriet

[Sue: White Horse Walking Holidays]

I'm now on that tarrif (or very similar). When I started I wasn't a member and was also paying a minimum fee of £10 per month. Since some months I don't take any card payments, I was getting fed up with that so am much happier with this deal. And I paid £250 for the terminal - God I was ignorant! Wish I'd done more research.
To be honest, I haven;t had as many people as I'd expected wanting to pay by card, possibly because a lot of my walking guests are older people and are creatures of habit, the habit being cheques. But short-stay B&B guests tend to pay by card and it makes life much easier when taking bookings.

[hkw100]

Have you heard of Cardsave's "Virtual Terminal"? I was reading about it on their website. I quite like this idea, as I only ever take bookings by phone or by post anyway, so I can't really see the need for an actual "terminal" as such. Virtual Terminal seems to let you do it all via your computer, without the need for renting a terminal.

Anyone doing this...?

[Der Alte Fritz]

Have you heard of Cardsave's "Virtual Terminal"? I was reading about it on their website. I quite like this idea, as I only ever take bookings by phone or by post anyway, so I can't really see the need for an actual "terminal" as such. Virtual Terminal seems to let you do it all via your computer, without the need for renting a terminal.

Anyone doing this...?

You deal sounds excellent, for instance other deals I have seen: Federation of Small Businesses, 1.66%, Eviivio trade, 1.48% Cardsave 1.38%. If you are processing small amounts of transactions, I would not bother with a physical terminal or PDQ machine but would go with the virtual terminal. CardSave or Streamline will provide one free of charge with an online merchant account or for about £10 a month without. You just log onto a website and you can do all the things that you can do on a PDQ machine.
The main advantage with a PDQ machine is that when a guest leaves and wants to pay a bill, you can use the chip and pin cards on the machine but the virtual terminal is just as good if you computer is near your check out area.

So I would go with the Virtual Terminal for any small number of transactions, saves a lot of fuss and wires!

[_Sharpe]

Since reading this thread, I've been trying to get my credit card charges reduced. We're with Barclay Merchant services and they've dropped them a bit but I'm still paying 1.56 % on Visa and Mastercard. I called Streamline and asked about their deal for Tourism SouthWest members and they said that they didn't have an agreement with them. Is anyone else with Streamline and can give me some advice?

[Martin]

Our experience of Cardsave to date means that we would advise people to give them a wide berth. Pretty much every aspect of our account so far has been riddled with mistakes on their part.

Martin.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Our experience of Cardsave to date means that we would advise people to give them a wide berth. Pretty much every aspect of our account so far has been riddled with mistakes on their part.

Martin.

Sorry to hear this. CardSave run their service through Streamline. Is the problem with the former or the latter? If the former, you should be able to switch to another Streamline service and still get a good deal from someone. Federation of Small Businesses have a Streamline deal which is pretty close in rates to CardSave. I find CardSave Head Office maddening to deal with but we have a good local rep who can usually sort out problems for us.

What was the nature of the problem? We use a book keeper who reconciles each transaction against what went through the machine and what appeared in the bank and we have seen no problems to date. But will check again if we know the nature of the problem.

[Jacquie]

I've just had a quote from NatWest to set up a facility to accept visa/debit payments: Setup fee £100.00 / Rent £19.99 per month / Charge per transaction 2.3%.
They wouldn't even consider any reductions. Weren't at all helpful. Said, that's that price. And I bank with them!
After reading the above prices, I will certainly be shopping around!!

[hkw100]

South West Tourism certainly DO have an agreement with Streamline! So whoever you spoke to at Streamline obviously wasn't very well informed. You should get in touch with South West Tourism direct and ask them to send you the rate sheet which they sent me, which details Streamline's reduced rates for South West Tourism members. The person I spoke to was Louisa King at Bath Tourism (louisa_king@bathtourism.co.uk Tel: 01225 477445) who emailed me all the Streamline rates information.

It seems like its really worth it, because I've just had a quote from another credit card provider (Elavon), whose rates were more than TWICE the Streamline rates which you get with South West Tourism membership.

[hkw100]

Martin - what are your rates like with Cardsave, if you don't mind me asking...? And do you have a Virtual Terminal, or a hand-held one?

[Martin]

Sorry to hear this. CardSave run their service through Streamline. Is the problem with the former or the latter? If the former, you should be able to switch to another Streamline service and still get a good deal from someone. Federation of Small Businesses have a Streamline deal which is pretty close in rates to CardSave. I find CardSave Head Office maddening to deal with but we have a good local rep who can usually sort out problems for us.

What was the nature of the problem? We use a book keeper who reconciles each transaction against what went through the machine and what appeared in the bank and we have seen no problems to date. But will check again if we know the nature of the problem.
Cardsave. On the one occasion I spoke to Streamline (when Cardsave told me to), they sounded very exasperated with Cardsave, and immediately explained that Cardsave would need to deal with the issue.

Where do we start? They started billing us before we had even received the equipment. The promised 'training' never arrived until we pushed very hard (we have never taken cards before in any capacity). Our 'account manager' didn't return calls or emails until we suggested he might like to come and collect the equipment. We discovered that the promised 'cardholder not present' facility had not been set up. We later discovered that the pre-auth facility had also not been set up. The agreed 1 month free rental was not applied. They have tried to overcharge us for taking corporate/business cards.

It seems that they have a policy of tackling one random issue per letter/email sent to them. On more than one occasion we have listed for them the outstanding issues, then we get a call resolving one of them (the easiest), then a very clear attempt to close the call after that - which obviously we do not let them get away with.

All in all it has been like pulling teeth.

We do all of our own bookkeeping here, and that side has been fine.

Cheers,

Martin.

[Martin]

Martin - what are your rates like with Cardsave, if you don't mind me asking...? And do you have a Virtual Terminal, or a hand-held one?

Sorry, I don't think it's right to divulge contractual details between us and them, even though they have been a nightmare to deal with.

Suffice to say they are the cheapest we found, and you seemingly get what you pay for...

We have a wired terminal.

Cheers,

Martin.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Does not sound good - life is too short so try switching to another deal, like FSB one mentioned above.

[Martin]

We're probably going to stick it out, now that everything seems to be in order. It's been a bit like dealing with BT - everything they touch they mess up.

Cheers,

Martin.

[hkw100]

Crikey Martin - it sounds like you're having a Cardsave nightmare!! I definitely won't be calling them, after the experience you've had - I think that might just send me over the edge...I'm glad I asked on this forum, otherwise I might have been caught out. Their website looks quite attractive and professional, but if that's your experience then I'm giving them a wide berth....Anything even remotely like dealing with BT gives me raised blood pressure...

I'll try Streamline.

Thanks for sharing!!

Harriet

[The_Sanctuary]

From the charges being made, it sounds like we're all in the wrong business! :-)

Has anyone any experience of FastCart/WorldPay?
http://www.fastcart.co.uk/worldpay-fees.html
Setup= £75, Monthly = £15
Their fees sounds a bit lower

RBS Worldpay is £20 a month.
SagePay = £19.95 a month
CardSave = ?
The CardSave website seems shy about mentioning costs.

[Martin]

We've just received a letter from Streamline outlining an increase in charges.

Mastercard 'World' and 'Signia' cards will carry an additional fee of 0.7%. I've written to Cardsave to ask them how we can identify these cards on a CNP transaction (as it's pretty obvious to me that as soon as these cardholders have to pay additional fees they will not divulge the correct card type).

There will also be a 1% point increase in the fees applied to overseas cards. For us, that's almost a 50% increase in the charges for those cards.

As far as I'm concerned increases of the this magnitude are fundamental and invalidate whatever contract I've got with them.

Notwithstanding that, I will amend our T&C's to reflect these additional charges, and they will be passed straight back to the customer.

Has anyone else had this letter, and if so, what are your plans?

Cheers,

Martin.

[mrsdorisbrenke]

HI,

We run a small B&B and take online bookings via eviivo. I have been thinking of having a Streamline merchant account and also have CC facilities here, to deal with payments in person and over the phone.

What is people's experience with the Virtual Terminal systems that have been mentioned ? Any particular one that people can recommend ?

The Old School

[The_Sanctuary]

Because the percentage of our guests who want to pay by card is so tiny, I'm only just sticking a toe in the water, so to speak, and I'm going to try a NoChex Seller Account, mainly to take deposits by credit card. They say there are no monthly fees, transaction charges are 2.8% + 20p. I know the % is higher than some schemes, but the absence of a monthly charge is a better deal for us (I hope)

[The_Sanctuary]

Belay that vote for Nochex!

That had worked fine through the spring, summer and autumn while we had a regular flow of visitors. But as soons as this winter and its weather arrived, our booking did its seasonal decline, and we had a few weeks with no deposits taken via Nochex. At which point, Nochex closed our account without any warning to us.

The first we knew was after a potential customer got an error message on our website payment page. They kindly let us know about that problem. To add insult to injury, we have had to chase Nochex to get the credit in our account refunded to us.

Is that SWT scheme still running?

[_Sharpe]

After the latest edition of Quality Edge, I telephoned Barclay Merchant Services to notify them that I was a member of VisitEngland and would like to apply for the cheaper rates negotiated through them. That was about two weeks ago and today I got my confirmation of the new rates:

no minimum charge (it was £20 per month)
0.15 p per debit transaction (I was paying 28p)
1.25% on credit cards (I was paying 1.56%)
1.75% on commercial cards (I was paying 2.14%)

I'm very happy with these rates. I've never had a problem with Barclay Merchant Services and would reccommend them to anyone.