Rates
You’ve seen the blogs on processing rates, including what adds to your overall rate and how interchange fees work. We talk about how we don’t raise rates; it’s part of our core. In a typical year, Visa and MasterCard rates will increase in April and October. It’s on their own accord; as long as they notify you in the teeny tiny terms and conditions, processors have no say in any of the changes.
But here’s the thing, if you didn’t read the notice and kept accepting transactions, it would be considered you agree to the terms. Who knows if they upped your cancellation fee or kept the rates creeping up over time, and now you’re stuck with a 7% effective rate and a 5-year contract holding you responsible for the lost processing margin as the penalty for canceling.
Rationalizing rate increase
You will need to watch your statements each month and compare the published interchange rates with the rates listed on Visa and MasterCard’s websites. Many business owners are under the impression that they were showing the current company that new bid to match it. Unfortunately, they are also usually successful. Here you think you are saving yourself some hassle, but you are adding another task to your monthly business duties – babysitting your rate. You also should make sure you have snacks close by for those long wait times in hopes of customer service.
Resolve
When you get down to it, if doing a cross-comparison with your statements and line item by line item on the Visa Mastercard website sounds like fun, then by all means, do what you love. Just remember it bought a few more weeks of the lower rater until it starts to creep up again. But, if that sounds like another level of hell, and you don’t jive with waiting, A real long-term solution is taking advantage of what our core and rate guarantee can do for your business. Payment professionals are ready to work with you and keep your costs at bay. We’re here for the long haul; we aren’t the fly-by-the-night type.