Fees, Fees, and more Fees. What are all of these *&%# Fees?

• In my previous post, I discussed the inflated rates which are charged by the majority of the Merchant Card Services companies.  What I will go through here is the ridiculous and completely unnecessary fees that you see added on to the end of your statement.

I have looked at literary thousands of merchant card statements from scores of merchant card service companies all of them have fees added and hidden within their statements, these fees certainly look official, most merchants think they must pay them, and they are just a cost of doing business.  NEWS FLASH it doesn’t have to be, these fees are unnessacary.

With Enablepay, merchants process at the true Visa/MasterCard/Discover interchange rate.  No inflated tier, or cost plus pricing and NO creep fees!  If you would like to see these fees exposed, please submit you merchant statement for a FREE no obligation Cost Analysis.

Why do I call them creep fees?  Because they slowly over time creep into your statement, costing you hundreds of dollars each year.  Some fees start off from the beginning like Statement fees, or Batch fees.  Others creep in over time…

• Statement fees ( have to love this one.  Who else do you deal with charges for this? Ridiculous)Annual fees (for what? customer service, with the rates they charge this should be free, with reputable companies it is)
• PCI Compliance fees (your processor should keep you compliant, don’t pay for this, it is their requirement)
• Membership fees  (for what, free rolls of paper!!  The shipping cost is more than you will pay for the same rolls at Staples)
• Batch fees (This is done electronically!  There is no reason for this fee considering the infalted rates they already charge)
• Equipment fees or Warranty fees (a reputable merchant service provider should only charge cost for equipment, and the equipment is under warranty from the manufacture.)
• Complaince Insurance (Now this one gets the blue ribbon for sheer audacity. Charging an insurance premium for something that they are responsible for, talk about passing the buck!)

If your current Merchant Card Processor is tacking on these creep fees, taking this money from your bottom line, as an added profit margin for itself!  You can do better. 

One more area that I want to cover when it comes to excessive fees and charges…LEASING OF EQUIPMENT  Never Never Ever lease your credit card terminal or software.  This is a colossal rip-off.  They want to lease you a terminal for $39.99 a month for 48 months (total of $1920) for a terminal that should only cost between $300 to $500.  Then read the fine print, at the end of 48 months you still must pay the lease payment or buy the equipment at an inflated cost, or get this, you can return the equipment to them.  If the equipment is not in good condition (read by their standards) you may still have to pay them.  Plus for all of the shipping and handling.   See what I mean Please don’t lease your equipment.

Obviously this list doesn’t cover all the fees I, or you have seen tacked on to your statements.  If you have seen some wild ones please let me know in the comments below.

Tagged as: merchant card fees, merchant card processing