VISA/MC Merchants

[Drew_W]

I'm currently with Moneris and they are quite pricey. I may switch to Costco within the next few months as they seem pretty good. When I spoke with them they said that they do offer virtual terminals as well (which is perfect for online/phone in sales). One thing that I love about Moneris is that the money is in your bank account within 2 business days and I'm not sure about Costco but I'm definitely going to check into it further. Best of luck

Depending on your volume and the breakdown of card present to card not present transactions, Moneris can easily match Nova/Costco.....you just have to have the VOLUME.

[sledbc]

Well, what are you looking for? The Costco deal is good, but depending on how you do business you might be able to do better.

My wife will have a small amount of transactions between 20-100 dollars. All card in hand (Scanned) no phone orders or internet.
Called around today this is what i found:

collectivepos:
u pay for terminal ~$1000 1.9% discount rate and minimum $30/month for credit/debit fees.....will deposit to Any cdn account

so this will cost us 1000 up front and around 30 a month

paymentech:

omni 3750 $30
$23 for unit plus $7 for the keypad per month
Setup fee $25
$50 enrollment fee can be waived with membership in certain programs
Debit transaction $.015
Visa Mastercard between 2-4.5% (can be reduced with memberships as well)
Minimum $8 + $8
no extra charge for high speed connection
will deposit to any cdn account

so basically will cost us little up front and $46 per month

Costco:
will deposit to any cdn acct
1.66% visa/mastercard/discover
8c per debit transaction
if costco executive member no $25 setup fee and no $5 monthly statement fee
$10 monthly minimum
2 year contract $125 closure fee
ip/dial $25 per month
ingenico 5100 w pinpad

so basically this will cost us 35/month and nothing up front. Im trying to see if the pinpad is necessary with this unit, as the scanner has a pinpad already so that would be $7 less each month. If this is the case we will go with costco.

One question i asked which might be helpful.....If you have a costco membership to sign up then cancel it after they have no idea and will not start charging you the statement fee later on.

[Drew_W]

One of my merchant providers is Costco/Nova. I let my membership lapse for a few months and it had no effect on anything with Nova.

You should verify that they'll deposit to a business account. My merchant application clearly reads "Voided Business Cheque (reflecting the name of your business)".

The Ingenico terminal is extremely rare. It's more likely you'll get a Lipman/Nurit 8320 which is dial only and no built in pinpad. However, I bought my two terminals (both 8320s) on eBay for about $100US each. Free reprogramming to work on Nova network. When I did this with my second terminal they told me they don't do it as much anymore (so YMMV), but with a little convincing and a day to generate the application for me, we were good to go. If you tell them you were referred by a friend who did this with his terminal and chose Nova because of this they might be willing to do the same, but I don't think they're happy on losing out on a $1000 terminal sale.

What do you anticipate your annual volume to be?

[sledbc]

Annual volume will be small, a few hundred a month for now. This is the terminal they specified for me and said it would be LAN enabled which is great so it wont tie up a phone line and we have high speed already setup.
Who re-programmed your terminal for you, nova? or the terminal manufacturer/supplier?

[Drew_W]

Annual volume will be small, a few hundred a month for now. This is the terminal they specified for me and said it would be LAN enabled which is great so it wont tie up a phone line and we have high speed already setup.
Who re-programmed your terminal for you, nova? or the terminal manufacturer/supplier?

Ahh, then stick with Nova. With small volume, you won't see rates like this (1.66% for swipe is ludicrously low).

I reprogrammed the terminal myself in about a half hour - Nova tells you what buttons to push and then the terminal downloads the new software it needs. Not major surgery by any means, but this does require you to get the 8320 as the Ingenico 5100 NEVER appears on eBay.

[sledbc]

Drew W you have been very helpful thank you. I puchased a Nurit 8320 on ebay, it is as far as i know, a canadian version and came with the 292 pinpad. I called Nova and at first was told this couldnt be used, after informing them that I knew it could be she talked to her manager and came back saying that the terminal can be re-programmed over the phone but the pinpad cannot be reprogrammed even if it is sent in to them, and that it has to be either rented or purchased new for $7/month or $250 from them.

My question to you is, with your experience, to do interac transactions can the customer not type his pin directly on the unit? Is the pinpad necessary? I would assume not from what i can find online.....

found here: http://www.merchantwarehouse.com/Pro...rit-8320.shtml

As a compact, all-in-one countertop POS, the NURIT 8320 is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. Exceptionally secure, reliable and easy-to-handle, this flexible unit includes a secure internal PIN Pad, high speed modem, and quiet fast thermal printer, as well as magnetic card swipe, Smart Card reader, and privacy shield. Retailers with frequent PIN transactions may prefer the convenient option of a terminal plus external PIN Pad.

[Drew_W]

I answered this already via e-mail.

The pinpad is NOT integrated into the unit and must be separate, and you MUST get it from Nova directly as it cannot be reprogrammed.

[sledbc]

sorry I did not receive any emails from you just the 2 PM's.

The model I purchased is a Nurit 8320L and the description is as follows:

All-In-One terminal & printer
Handles all major credit & check cards, swiped & keyed
Internal PIN pad with DES and triple DES

but you're saying that the internal pinpad is not compatible with interac transactions.

Did you end up renting or purchasing pin pads for your units?

[Drew_W]

Yes I know it has the CAPABILITY, but not with the Nova software. I don't take debit, so I didn't buy the pinpad.

[sledbc]

Ahhh, ok. I think my wife can get by without debit for the time being anyways. If it looks like she will need it in the future we'll just rent/buy one at that time.

This looks like it will be a very inexpensive way for her to accept CC. $10/month total and that goes towards her fees.

[sledbc]

Done as of today, pinpad activated with nurit 8320 unit on the Costco/Nova account. $100 for terminal, $100 for costco account, no charges for anything other than a minimum of $10/month in CC fees at 1.6%.

I challenge anyone to find a better deal on a POS merchant account than this. Thanks Drew_W for your help.

[gravespinner]

The Costo service (Nova) just sent an update where they will be doing daily deposits (used to miss weekends). Their rates are good, but you do pay a premium (about 1/2%?) for manually entered transactions

[Statikkk]

Does anyone know if Costco's NOVA can handle electronic batch processing in large volumes? We would want to pass them hundreds of transactions at a time, totalling tens of thousands per year, via secure nightly feed. Moneris does this, but they charge $500 setup fee, $50/month on top of our regular service fees, and $0.25 per transaction. That's pretty high.

[Drew_W]

Does anyone know if Costco's NOVA can handle electronic batch processing in large volumes? We would want to pass them hundreds of transactions at a time, totalling tens of thousands per year, via secure nightly feed. Moneris does this, but they charge $500 setup fee, $50/month on top of our regular service fees, and $0.25 per transaction. That's pretty high.

Call them and find out? I don't think the service is intended for that kind of stuff though, at least not what Costco offers.

What Moneris is charging actually doesn't seem all that high, considering you pay $30-50 to rent a terminal anyways (I'm assuming you won't need one). Tens of thousands a year isn't a lot of volume though. Hundreds of thousands, then you can start negotiating.

[tkyoshi]

I need a similar solution as sledbc, my monthly/annual volume will be about the same.

However I will have much more Card Not Present transactions, is Costco/Nova still the best choice for this situation? Alternately would you reccomend Paymentech IVR over this then?