A large number of businesses have recently received notices on their monthly merchant statements that indicate that beginning in the next month or 2 their processor will be charging a monthly compliance fee of $19.95 or some other random number. If you get one of these notices you need to run to your phone and call your processor and ask them to explain what it is. One merchant was told it was the cost that they were incurring to bring their systems into compliance with VISA and MasterCard’s data security standards.
It’s nice that they want to simply increase their charges but constantly updating systems is part of being in the card processing industry. How is it right for them to charge you extra for something that is just a cost of doing business? It isn’t!
Another version of this has them requiring businesses to subscribe to a third-party certification company to document that the merchant is in compliance. The cost for that service is usually around $350 or so and who knows how much of that goes back to the credit card processor.
You need to read the notices on every month’s statement for any notification that rates are going up. The costs from Visa and MasterCard are still essentially the same (with some minor modifications) as they were a couple of years ago. You should NOT be paying more than you were before. You can view the wholesale rates being charged by Visa and MasterCard on their websites and looking for the link to “Interchange Tables”. Compare those rates to the ones shown on your monthly statements. If you don’t see the same rates, you need to change processors to a company, like Heartland, that provides Interchange Plus pricing. For more information on Heartland’s commitment to fair pricing visit www.merchantbillofrights.com and see what you should be getting.
Remember, it is not your job to pay additional because your processor needs to update their systems!
Have a great day.
Michael Matfess
