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| Merchant Newsletter - April 23, 2005 | ||
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Processing Volume and Ticket Size |
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 The Pfishers are getting more and more tricky every day! Take a look at an email we received under the guise of Charter One Bank. The plot thickens, there is a virus involved as well! Using a special machine that we keep insulated for testing scams, we find that clicking on the link invokes the JS.Trojan.Blinder virus, which is an embedded JavaScript Trojan horse that spoofs the URL displayed in the browser address bar. The moral of the story is: NEVER, EVER click on en email requesting any type of financial or personal information! If you think it might be legit, DO NOT USE THE EMAIL, go directly to the company website YOURSELF. If you do not know the URL (address) of the company, go to GOOGLE, and type in the company name.
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When you applied for
your merchant account, you declared your ticket size, and requested a
monthly dollar volume. What many merchants do not realize- is that
the banks employ underwriters to insure them against defaults. When
your account was approved, it was approved for a specific monthly maximum,
much like your consumer credit card has a specific spending limit. What happens if I go over my limit? Just like your consumer credit card, if you go over your limit without asking first, things can get nasty. When they approved you for a specific amount, they entered that amount in a computer, and when you go over that limit, all sorts of bells, whistles, and alarms go off. Why are there limits, aren't they making more money when I accept more cards? When you became a merchant, you gained the ability to enter numbers in a PC, PDA, or Terminal, and funds appear in your checking account. The cardholder is not formally advised of this until the end of the month. This has an obvious potential for abuse. Or, if a merchant suffers large chargebacks and does not have the funds to cover them, the underwriter must repay the bank. These and other scenarios can result in a potential risk of up to 6 to 12 times the merchants monthly volume to the underwriters! In order to protect themselves, the underwriter needs to verify that each merchant is financially responsible to a level commensurate to the risk. Credit and processing history are among the factors used to make this determination. How do I prevent running into a problem? If you find yourself approaching the limit, simply call. Make sure you give yourself a few days, so that the underwriters have time to pull your file, and make sure you can qualify for a higher monthly volume. Since you have established a history with the underwriters, this is usually not a problem. Even if you have stellar credit, the computers do not know that, all they know is that you exceeded an agreed-upon amount, and that is not a good thing. This is easily preventable just by keeping an eye on your on-line reports at: www.EnterTransactions.com and making a phone call when your growth brings you close to your limit!
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Large ticket Transactions. If you run a transaction that is larger than normal, (like a $500 transaction and your average is $50 or a $2000 transaction and your average is $400), you can prevent delays in it's processing by calling the Risk department right after you run the transaction. They may (or may not) request additional information about the sale, but this can prevent additional delays. Why would a large transaction cause a delay? People who are trying to rip off merchants are not going to bother (generally) with small change. When they use a stolen card, they buy BIG. For a merchant who usually sells $49 at a time, presenting a $5000 sale is either very fortunate, or the impending victim of fraud. In order to protect both you and themselves, this type of transaction is reviewed prior to release, and your call can expedite this release of funds (and keep you much safer as well). A
number of new merchants have called to ask what CVV2 stands for, in
Transaction Central. CVV2 stands for Card Verification Value, and it
is the three numbers on the back of the card, in the right-hand side of
the signature panel on Visa, MasterCard, and Discover as seen below: Free
Merchant Toolbar! Our Toolbar will take you directly to the
Merchant Control center, as well as provide many other powerful web
searching and information features. To
see all of the powerful features of our toolbar, or to download your own
free copy, click here.
Use our Toolbar to Enter Sales, Void a Sale, Issue Credits, Get Reports and more! You also get access to our Free Software Upgrades, Weekly Newsletter Library, New Products, Bargain Basement, and to Order Supplies! |
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Copyright (c) 2004 Advanced Merchant Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
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