Credit Cards at Fairs....in Canada

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Permalink Reply by S.L Meyer on November 22, 2011 at 4:37pm

Have you contacted Intuit Canada division? Intuit is best known as the Quicken Books people and they are a financial services company geared toward business large, med, small and micro. They have what's called GoPayment. I love it. It's the same principle as square, with a dongle that goes in your headphone jack on your smart phone (smart phones only, if you have a feature phone with internet access you have to go to the merchant site and key in).  I found this tidbit of info on their pages regarding Canada. I'd suggest you call them up and ask directly. It will be faster and easier than a web hunt.  

Yes, Intuit's GoPayment will cost a bit more per transaction. But Intuit is geared toward merchants and their payment security as well as the merchant's customers security.  Many of the new micro card reader payment systems are not. They are only set up to get payments and the merchant be damned, so to speak, if there's a problem  (and yes, there have been problems). These quickie merchant systems will side with the customer in a chargeback or dispute and the merchant is not only out of the money, but also out of their goods or services. 

Secondly, and even more importantly, the security issues in most of these new micro readers are still not being addressed, even after all this time. This blog post from a merchant services equipment company hit this nail on the head. And Verisign really goes at it.  And yes, while Verisign is one of the largest processing systems in the world, they have very valid points, and not just from a competitors view.  My first question when I started researching for new micro payment system was "What type of security is there for me and my customers? I put security way ahead of ease of use. "Think about it, the Square is being run by the Twitter guys and Twitter gets hacked how many times a month?  Another I bumped into just last week -based out of Iowa- is trying to do a Facebook tie-in platform and well gee, Fb got hacked a bit nastily last week.  Most of these are not financial people, these are social media people.  Now if they can't keep the base platfroms secure, do you really want to trust your business funds to them?  Their bank investors are just that, investors.  Not the ones setting it up or running it. Not saying Intuit, Verisign or some of the other more expensive processors won't ever have a problem. But, at least they acknowledge there are problems and big security issues out there and try to head them off before they happen, not after the fact with a  juvenile "Whoops, my bad" kind of apology.  Which is what is happening.

Btw, I have no stake in Intuit, I just like their services a lot and have not had any issues. Yet :) Hth.

 

Sandra

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Permalink Reply by Roxine Grant on November 22, 2011 at 5:08pm

Thanks for the heads up Sandra. Although Intuit has a Canadian arm, they do not offer the GoPayment product in Canada....yet

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Permalink Reply by colleen on December 13, 2011 at 10:57pm

Roxine,

Sorry to not reply sooner. i havent been on this site for awhile!.

I have lost a bit of business wiht my xmas shows in the last few years as many people wanted to use credit & debit. I cant justify paying a monthly fee for a card swipe when I only do a few seasonal shows a year and use Paypal for all of my other electronic transactions.

I just finished up using Kudos for my recent xmas show. You purchase a small card swipe for $99 & apply for the merchant account. The card swipe attaches to your Android or IPhone. You then download the App. So when a customer wants to use credit, you open the App, and swipe their card with the reader. There is no monthly fee just a fee for each transaction.

I charged my customers a .50 fee for each transaction. They sign their name on your phone screen and a receipt gets emailed to them!. My customers loved it!. The funds are deposited next day. Very fast!

www.kudospayments.com

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Permalink Reply by Roxine Grant on December 14, 2011 at 8:56am

Tahnks Colleen, I'll see if they are available in Canada

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Permalink Reply by Roxine Grant on December 14, 2011 at 8:58am

Just checked and it is!!! THis is awesome, thanks again Colleen!

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Permalink Reply by Deborah A Scanlan on December 21, 2011 at 7:54am

Hi Roxie,

 

Can you process standard credit cards through a merchant account.  If you want to research this, I have a store and forward machine that I can do a swap with you for.  Store and forward's are great.  It is a credit card machine that is battery operated, prints a receipt, etc.  When you arrive home you plug it into your phone line and upload your credit card payments.

 

We use square up now, however this machine was fabulous while we used it.  Credit cards account for about 40% of my sales.

If you can use this type of system I would be happy to chat about swapping my machine for a few of your products.  The machines are several hundred dollars to buy new, but we don't use it so why not send it along to another Indie

Deb

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