Creek Financial Services — Explaining the payments industry so you can manage costs and risks

Are you responding to a special invitation?

Enter your password below to access the special promotion

EIRF: A nasty four-letter word for merchants

June 16, 2009

In this economy, nobody wants to pay more than necessary for credit card processing. But don’t waste time yet looking for a new processor (unless you plan to try me) just to save a few basis points. Stay put for now, and keep reading. I’m going to tell you about a simple policy change you [...]

The purpose of various terminal prompts (and why you shouldn’t skip them)

June 9, 2009

If you use a credit card terminal, and you’ve had it reprogrammed in the past year or two, you may have noticed some new steps were added to the checkout process. In these steps, the terminal may prompt you to enter additional information about the card or transaction. Unless you understand the purpose of these [...]

Guard your business against reloaded credit cards

June 2, 2009

With the abundance of stolen credit card data, it had to happen sooner or later… The thugs who purchase these numbers grew tired of only being able to use them online. They perfected a trick that allows them to use stolen CC numbers in respectable brick-and-mortar retail businesses. They only needed a source [...]

Notify customers about possible delays, and keep them happy.

May 26, 2009

I have a client who sells boats online- lots and lots of boats. He has drop-shipping arrangements with all his suppliers, so he maintains almost no inventory. Typically, his customers must wait at least 6 weeks for their boat AFTER they’ve paid for it. In fact, most of the boats he sells haven’t [...]

Can a second merchant account save your business money?

May 19, 2009

If you operate a traditional brick-and-mortar business, then you’re probably well-served by your retail merchant account with pricing based on “card present and swiped” transactions. You may receive a few telephone orders, but that small number of transactions can be easily entered by hand.
On the other hand, if you operate an e-commerce business that receives [...]

Don’t be an unwilling accomplice to credit card fraud

May 12, 2009

A few years ago, my business partner and I learned a hard lesson about how crooks operate and what they’ll do to validate stolen credit card numbers. I was a co-owner of www.2BigFeet.com, an e-commerce business specializing in extreme size men’s shoes. Like most e-commerce businesses, we used a payment gateway to gather authorizations. And [...]

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →

Explaining the payments industry so you can manage costs and risks

Are you responding to a special invitation?

EIRF: A nasty four-letter word for merchants

The purpose of various terminal prompts (and why you shouldn’t skip them)

Guard your business against reloaded credit cards

Notify customers about possible delays, and keep them happy.

Can a second merchant account save your business money?

Don’t be an unwilling accomplice to credit card fraud

Search Me

Connect WIth Me

Readers’ Comments

The Archives

Pick My Next Post

Categories