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View Full Version : Taking credit cards for sales at craft shows etc.



TerryT
06-18-2011, 07:42 PM
Several companies are offering a service that allows you to take credit cards and swipe them on your cell phone. This sounds like a perfect solution to a familiar problem. Between our two business, we attend many trade shows, home and garden shows, koi shows, etc. Often a customer wants to use a credit card and we would have to write the number down and run it through our land line CC machine when we got back to the shop. Too late if the card was no good. We applied to both Square and Intuit. We got accounts from both and decided to use intuit as it seemed difficult to reach anyone at Square. WOW, what a mistake!!

If you choose to use a service like this contact me for the horror story about using Intuit go-payment.

easybuilt
06-18-2011, 08:39 PM
Hi Terry, Sorry to hear you had such problems. I would suggest Frontstream payments. Their charges are reasonable and they disclose everything upfront. My contact is Jonathan Milligan a friend of mine and a great guy his cell # 253-226-7350, office # 360-357-1400. He is there if you have any issues and based out of Lacey, WA.

TerryT
06-18-2011, 09:13 PM
Thanks Tom,
It's great that we can come here and get good advice from each other!

unitedcases
06-18-2011, 10:06 PM
When you say swipe on your cell do you mean like actually "swipe"? Do they give you hardware or a number to use?

jaroot
06-19-2011, 12:01 AM
I recently got "square" never tried to get a hold of anyone. Used it a couple of times mostly for testing purposes, seems to work fine. We will be using it for my wife's business.

Yeah it plugs into the headphone jack of my iphone. Its about 1/2" square and you swipe the card through it. You can also do it without the swipe.

percentage is a little high but there are no monthly fees and no equipment fees.

Jeff_Birt
06-19-2011, 08:37 AM
You will pay about 3% for any credit card transaction, it will go down if your volume of transactions go up.

I have a merchant account through PayPal and use the 'virtual terminal' to manually process credit card transactions. You just go to the web page, type in the info and you done. If you phone has a browser than your set, no additional hardware required.

robboz4
06-19-2011, 12:09 PM
I saw the Square in action last week at a street fair. Seemed simple and the receipt was emailed directly. So I signed up and got the gadget. Haven't it tried it yet but the whole effort of getting the reader and account was painless. There is a new feature for the iPad. You can set up your wares with prices and then just click the item to fill out the invoice. Haven't set that up yet, but I like to tinker.

TerryT
06-19-2011, 12:14 PM
You will pay about 3% for any credit card transaction, it will go down if your volume of transactions go up.

I have a merchant account through PayPal and use the 'virtual terminal' to manually process credit card transactions. You just go to the web page, type in the info and you done. If you phone has a browser than your set, no additional hardware required.

Jeff that may the best way to go. We have been using the same CC processing company for years with our land line credit card machine but the mobile stuff is new to us. I probably trust paypal more than any of them.

jaroot
06-19-2011, 12:30 PM
Square charges 2.75 percent for swiped cards.

Paypal is also a good choice though I have had problems with them in the past particularly with Amex.

TerryT
06-19-2011, 01:51 PM
We stopped taking Amex. They have the highest rates of any. Got a call from them awhile back asking what they could do to get us back. When we signed up with Square I did a $1 test just to see how it worked. I swiped one of my credit cards on my wifes phone and the buck went to her account the next day. It seemed to work well but I could find little in the way of contact info if there ever was a problem.

Intuit is a big company that we have been dealing with for years since we use Quick books. So when the opportunity to use one came up I decided to go with Intuit. It was the one and only time I ever used it. It was for a training class for the CW.
I got a call the next day demanding to know what the charge was for. They said they were from intuit but all caller id showed was a phone number. I hesitated when they asked because it took me by surprise. The caller said "well can you tell me what this charge is for or not?" I'm thinking this is gotta be some kind of scam so I hung up and called the number back. The lady told me it was her home phone, she did not call me, it was NOT intuit and I was the third person to call that day asking for intuit. Ok, now I know it was some kind of scam. Until I got the email from intuit telling me they were holding the funds pending an investigation. Of course in the email they give me a real phone number to call which is directed to their "fraud detection team" and of course no one answers. I call back and the receptionist tries the same stunt. I say no I want to talk to a live person. In short I sent them a fax of the invoice with the customers name and address so they can contact him to make sure the charge is legit. It's a good thing the class isn't until next week hopefully they will have satisfied their needs by then. I think if I ever use one of these services again it probably won't be INTUIT. Oh and this was all at about 4pm on a Friday afternoon. Have a nice weekend! LOL