Plug Atlas to no cost or low costs merchant Services

[Nima M]

Greeting,

TSYS takes a big cut out of credit card payment transactions. Last year we paid 130K between 3 locations. That is way too much. It is a new era and Many companies have started by passing expensive credit card fees. Please plug Atlas to lower transaction cost merchants or by pass them. We have been encouraging our customers to pay by check and we give them 2% discounts to by pas TSYS but still many prefer credit cards and we lose our hard earning money to credit card and merchant companies. I still pay between 4k to 6k per month for CC transactions. It doesn’t make sense. Thanks!

[Master Toby Milroy]

Yes.

We are already working on new and more sophisticated merchant solution for our clients.

However, there are some issues with ‘fee forwarding’ and some of these payment ‘aggregators’ that you should be aware of, and cautious of.

For example, some states’ attorneys general are pushing back with court cases and legislation against the ‘fee forwarding’ concept. So depending on what state you’re in, you want to be on the lookout for that. In addition, you can ONLY forward fees to Credit Cards ONLY, and NOT debit cards…even if the debit card is being used as a credit card for that transaction. (We know of schools who have been doing this inappropriately, and are putting themselves at GREAT risk).

However, even with some of these challenges, there are some solutions and options we’re integrating.

We’ll keep you in the loop on where we are with them!

[Nima M]

Thanks! Atlas Ubill doesn’t give option to run a card as debit so all cards run as credit. As of now I know that we get charged up to 6%, although the cap is 3 on the rate chart. We have been trying to by pass these fees. We paid around $130k CC Fees between 3 locations last year. If you have any suggestions other than increasing the rates and putting it on customers please let us know.

[Master Toby Milroy]

I’m going to have Sean reach out to you, and drill into details on this.
We are building new systems for this, but I can’t give you a specific timeline on it’s completion.
In addition, it’s important to note that there is ‘always’ some fee(s) for processing CCD payments.

Services like Venmo, PayPal or Zell are amazing innovations in consumer to consumer transactions, and even in some business use cases, but, these are ‘push’ only, meaning you can’t ‘draft’ a payment from someone’s account automatically, they can only ‘send’ money at their own will.

Anytime you are drafting ‘against’ a Credit Card (or bank account), there are several ‘middle men’ involved in the transaction, and all charge a fee. There really are no ways ‘around’ that at this time.

The other alternative is to ‘pass the fee’ on to the consumer (fee forwarding), as I described earlier. For example, people who pay with a CCD will pay 3% more etc. However this too, does have some issues, but we are working on solutions for our clients.

Let’s get you together with Sean, and see if we can help with some strategies in the short term.

Thanks again for the feedback!!

Speak soon!

[Nima M]

Thanks!

[Nima M]

I have been giving 2% additional discount to customers if they pay by check rather than charging them more. They save and we pay less but I still pay around $4k per month which is better than $6.5k per month last year.

[Author]

Posts