Opening a merchant account, gives you a lot of power. Hence it becomes imperative that you exercise utmost care in all dealings and follow rules set by the credit card associations. Failure to understand and execute your responsibilities, apart from giving you problems may also end in the termination of your merchant account.
When you accept credit cards from your clients, y ou store their credit card numbers in your database, and have the power to access their wealth. Hence you need to take care that you conduct your business ethically and maintain security of your client’s data. You may use the credit card numbers from the database only to verify the facts.
That said, there may however, be many cases where in the client tries to outsmart you and gives you fraudulent credit card numbers. In a retail environment, the presence of credit card machines makes it possible for the credit cards to be inspected and swiped, which in turn ensures that no fraudulent payments are made. But in a complete online environment, it becomes impossible to inspect the card, swipe the magnetic strip or compare signatures. This sometimes results in the delivery of goods without payments being made by the clients. And that means incurring financial loss for your business. This usually happens when the site is new and the business owner doesn’t understand the intricacies of e-commerce.
To guard against frauds, you need to ensure that payments are credited to your account before deliveries are made, especially in the case of high value products such as jewelry or electronic goods. You also need to ensure that you receive a confirmation of delivery, so that there is no scope left for false claims by clients.
Ensure that credit card processing or transactions are never done for another merchant. Although it may seem harmless, this can complicate transactions. Also buying your own goods or obtaining cash from one of your own credit cards, through your credit card processing system, is not a good idea. Avoid charging fee or surcharge for purchases paid by credit card and any tax that is required to be collected on a sale must be included in the credit card transaction rather than separately. It’s best not to establish a minimum or maximum transaction amounts for credit card purchases.
Once you understand your responsibilities and take necessary precautions, you truly unravel the power of your merchant account. There’s surely nothing to beat it, in speed, efficiency and convenience.
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