Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

[ilovemuffins235]

I was wondering if anyone else who accepts credit cards is being hit up with PCI compliance fees? I just received notification that I will be paying an additional $130.00 annual PCI compliance fee at the end of this month (ouch) . Seems excessive to me, but I thought I would check in with others and see if this is the norm or not? Thanks for any input you all may have!

 

[Jack 890]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

What on Earth is PCI compliance? I've never heard of that.

 

[Hanna]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

Ok, I looked it up- it means whether or not you're complying with keeping your clients' credit card info secure or not. We don't even keep their info on hand- we use a knucklebuster, record the authorization code for each transaction, and shred the copy (the client keeps their copy). We don't even put the CC info on the computer here.

I looked it up, and level 4 merchants (those who process under a certain number of cc transactions in a year, like 20,000 I think- that would be us, I don't know how many you do) have different requirements than levels 1, 2, and 3 do. I would recommend calling your CC processing company and ask about this. From what I've seen, if you're a solo practitioner, unless you sell a LOT of product, you're considered a level 4 merchant. I'd check into ANY additional fees you didn't already know about and sign up for.

 

[Gaby E]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

There are a lot of scams going around regarding PCI compliance. The typical scenario starts with a phone call or letter telling you that you must allow onsite inspectors to check your compliance. If you need to be brought up to date there is a fee. If you fall for it, their "compliance" check switches your merchant account to their carrier and they charge you a fraudulent fee on top of that.

If you get any calls regarding compliance, call to confirm it with your processor. If you processor is trying to charge you some kind of exorbitant fee for compliance, look into switching processors if you can.

If you are processing online, that is a different story. You will need to have compliance verification on whatever computer/server is processing the transactions. One of my clients owns a company that does online reservations, and he has been dealing with merchants who, while the information was secure on his end, their computers that they were using for processing - well you could just log right on and read whatever information they had on client bookings. In some cases internet merchants will need to use a 3rd party certification process - for a fee.

If you are just doing card-swipe transactions on a terminal though, it should already have been handled by your processor.

 

[Arslan]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

Thanks for the info - this fee is listed on my merchant account statement, so directly from my processor. Am going to look to switch as I think that this is excessively high.

 

[deek]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

I think that is excessive, as well. I just checked our statement from the month of April from our processor, and absolutely no such thing was mentioned at all. I'm going to call them on Monday (or Tuesday, or Wednesday- we'll be off of Monday, and out of the office "on location [barn call, yeah!] all day Tuesday) and ask them about this, just to be on the safe side. But I, too, smell something not-quite-right.

 

[Desert Flame]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

I'm not sure I understand this whole PCI thng. I do know that my account was hit for $90.00 for the year. It's supposed to protect us for instance if there was theft or fraud from a cc# that was stored at your place of business it would protect you. Some sort of insurance. I'm not sure I totally understand it, but apparently it's something that we;re supposed to have.
Fine! What I don know is that you can shop around for who you choose to use. My merchant people charged me $90.00 but I found out there was other people out there that would do the samething they did but for only $20.00 a year. Hmmmm....

 

[viet mixed girl]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

Hello bodyworker! I don't think that this is really and *insurance* thing, but more of a cost of doing business, on the credit card processors side of things, and the PCI fee is a way of passing their fees onto (us) the merchants.

 

[ducky14528]

Credit Card Fees (PCI Compliance?)

I guess what I should have focused on was the fact that if this is indeed something you have to have or that you choose to have that you can shop around, you don't have to settle for what your CC merchant tells you.
I'm no expert, this is just what I've come across as far as the costs is involved.

We don't even keep their info on hand- we use a knucklebuster, record the authorization code for each transaction, and shred the copy (the client keeps their copy). We don't even put the CC info on the computer here.

What is this "knucklebuster" that your talking about?

Thanks,