Pay at the table...  With Pocket Verifier Pro! 

WiFi, or 802.11 can provide coverage for dozens of units in house!

 
According to the Direct Marketing Association, overall telemarketing sales, both business-to-consumer and business-to-business, reached $585 billion in 2000. There are many legitimate, law-abiding companies offering their products and services over the phone. But the problem is that not all telemarketers work for legitimate companies—some are crooks to whom the law means nothing.

To protect yourself from telemarketing fraud, it's a good rule not to do business over the phone with any company you don't know. Crooks are skilled in manipulating you. They sound professional and convincing. You do not have to listen to any sales pitch over the phone—you can always say you are not interested and hang up.

If a telemarketing offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t fall for these common tricks:

• Prizes. If a caller says you’ve won something, it might signal fraud. “Winners” often are asked to send an inflated shipping and handling fee for their “free” prize, which turns out to be worthless. In other cases, crooks mail millions of postcards promising people that they’ve won prizes. So-called winners are asked to call a 900 number (which costs money) and are subjected to a lengthy sales pitch.
• Free trial offers. So-called “no obligation” offers to try a new product or service end up costing consumers as much as $100 million per year because they fail to tell you that you’ll be billed for the full price of the service if you don’t cancel by a certain deadline. Even if you never gave the company your credit card number, you might be charged for a free offer because telemarketers often obtain your credit card information illegally.
• Travel deals. Some telemarketers offer travel deals that sound great. Not every deal is fraudulent, but even legitimate travel offers can have significant conditions or catches. Many such offers require you to sit through a lengthy sales pitch for “time share” resorts, a type of vacation real estate ownership that has been the subject of many complaints.
• Credit cards. The telemarketer offers a “guaranteed” credit card if you pay a hefty fee in advance. It is illegal for telemarketers to require up front payment for credit.
• Credit protection. Swindlers may call saying they are from MasterCard or Visa, hoping to fool you into paying for phony credit protection. The callers warn that if you don’t purchase their protection services you will be held liable for any unauthorized charges made on your credit card. But existing federal law limits your loss to $50 if your card is used without your permission.
• Investment fraud. You are promised a “guaranteed risk-free investment.” There is no such thing. The scam artists who pitch the investments are good at sounding as if they represent legitimate businesses. They may have lots of information about you—such as your age, income and net worth. This information is available from marketing lists that anyone can buy. Many people have lost their life savings after only a phone conversation, and despite their best efforts, law enforcement and regulatory agencies usually can’t get the victims’ money back.
• Responding to ads. It’s common for swindlers to send direct mailings or advertise in reputable publications or on the Internet to entice you to call them. The ads offer easy loans, credit cards, investments or work-at-home opportunities. Even if you are the one to place the call, be very cautious about giving out bank account and credit card numbers to unfamiliar businesses.

  DID YOU KNOW? Scam artists compile and sell “sucker lists” of people who are easy to trick because they’ve fallen for telemarketing pitches in the past.

There are still reports of high volumes of counterfeit Postal Money Orders and Cashier's checks being circulated.  Treat Money Orders and Cashier's checks like personal checks..  Wait for them to clear prior to shipment!

With the increase in credit card fraud and theft, customers are more reluctant to give their credit card to a server to take in the back room.  As the readers of our Fraud Watch column know, this is the leading method of "skimming".  Skimming is the process where someone runs a credit card through a "bandit" reader before or after running the customer's legitimate charge.  The card info is either used for fraud, or sold to professionals over the Internet.

More and more businesses that service customers in house, like retailers, fine dining, fast food, bars, car washes and many others are turning to in order to restore customer confidence, keep their employees honest, and increase productivity and service.

How does it work?  If the business already has an Internet connection, it's simple.  All they need to do is put a Wireless Access Point, like the Linksys WAP 11, available for around $49.. somewhere near the area they wish to cover.  This will give them about 100 meters of coverage in all directions, although some installations may need an extra unit to cover "dead spots"

Once you have wireless installed, all you need to do is add the handheld terminals.  These can be WiFi-capable PDA's like Tungsten C, Palm LifeDrive, Dell Axim, HP iPAQ's and others, along with our Pocket Merchant or Pocket Spectrum card reader/Printer combination units. Making all the parts work together is our Award winning Pocket Verifier Professional Software!

Restaurateurs will especially appreciate our "Service Receipt" feature.  This allows the waitress to enter the amount of the bill, and print a receipt that allows the customer to fill in the tip, total and signature.  The owner can program up to 3 lines of customizable text at the top and bottom of the receipt [1]. When they return the receipt with tip and total [2], just enter it, press CHARGE, and the entire transaction is approved!  If "Show Tip Suggestion" is checked, the receipt will show pre-calculated tip suggestions of 15%, 18% and 20% [3] for your customer's convenience!

If one or more of your units are also capable of wireless via Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T or Cingular (PDA Phone), you can send them on deliveries, and swipe at the door as well!  This flexibility is what makes the Pocket Verifier technology so powerful, along with a powerful, integrated, web-based reporting system that can access transactions as they happen from the back office or management center!

Make sure that you change your Wireless Access Point's password!  All Linksys units ship with the password set to "Admin", and that makes it just TOO easy for hackers!

Supermodel and Fitness celebrity Jennifer Nicole Lee selected MerchantAnywhere for our integrated Merchant account and gateway services.  Her website is now offering her 2005-2006 swimsuit calendar.

Her web site, JenniferNicoleLee.com is a perfect example of interactive Macromedia Flash programming, and we are really looking forward to seeing the calendar!  Yes folks, it's true... we will never be so "politically correct" that we cannot support one of our merchants! 

Take a peek at A Path to Wholeness .com  where, in the Gemstones & Crystals section, you'll enter a "Crystal Cove" to find a variety of gemstones & crystals to enhance your healing experience.  You can click on the photos to  enlarge them in order to better appreciate the stone's beauty and detail. Stones vary in size, markings, coloration and availability. 

Their Services include information about Body-Mind-Spirit focused healing modalities: Reiki, Transpersonal Hypnotherapy, and Craniosacral Therapy. 

Sue Dallmann, owner of A Path to Wholeness says: "[I] Just wanted to tell you (again) how pleased I am with your company. I just finished exhibiting at the International Gem & Jewelry Show in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend & witnessed several other vendors taking their larger & cumbersome credit card machines over to the windows trying to chase a signal while I sat there in my booth with my Palm & Verifier Pro processing payments without a glitch. What a relief that was." 

Susan Dallmann is a Registered Nurse, Reiki Master Teacher, Craniosacral Therapist and Certified Hypnotherapist with more than 38 years experience in the healthcare field also incorporating Body Talk (tm), Acupressure, & Crystal Healing into her  healing practice located  in LaGrange, IL.

Susan started using our wireless technology back in 2003, with our original Palm VIIx system.  She upgraded to our Treo 300 system when Palm deactivated it's network, Palm.net back in August 2004. 

Like our example above, your business can be featured in our weekly newsletter!  We are going to offer this for FREE as an evaluation for a possible service.  All you need to do is to send a description of how you use our service (Mobile or Internet), in 25 to 50 words- along with a description of your product or services (again in 25 to 50 words) to: Dennis@MerchantAnywhere.com with "FREE AD SPACE" as the subject line. You can also include a graphic (max width 280 Pixels) and a link to go to when clicked on!  We can re-size your logo or graphic here, so just send what you have, and we can fix it up for you.

ORDER FREE MERCHANT MATERIALS HERE!!!

Copyright (c) 2004 Advanced Merchant Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Merchant Information is a newsletter that is available to all members of MerchantAnywhere.com and Advanced Merchant Solutions, Inc. This newsletter is provided as an informational tool designed to keep you up-to-date on the latest news and tools available for mobile commerce and merchant processing. As with all user information, we do not give or sell your personal information to any outside company for its use in marketing or solicitation. To unsubscribe from this newsletter, please reply with “REMOVE” in the subject line.  All of our merchant applicants should be receiving this email newsletter.  If you would like to subscribe, send an email with "SUBSCRIBE" in the subject to: merchantapp@merchantanywhere.com.  If you are currently receiving the newsletter, and would like to be removed from the mailing list, send an email with the word "REMOVE' in the subject to: inform@merchantanywhere.com . Once removed, we cannot reinstate that email address, you must re-subscribe with another.