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Sometimes it can be easy to fall into credit card debt. There may be various reasons why we do this. It can be anything from job layoffs to hospitalizations or other types of emergencies. There are many ways to get out of such debt. You can stop using your bank cards and transfer your balances to one card, get a loan to pay off your bank card debt or seek help from a counseling agency. Before seeking help from those counseling service you need to understand the purpose of them and the services they provide. A credit debt counseling service is a group or organization of people that have counselors available to educate you and help you to get rid of their debt. They will also educate you with services to help you manage your current budget and remain debt free once your debts are paid off.
Steps to follow when choosing a credit card debt counseling agency
* Find out what services the counseling agency provides. Do they provide personalized debt consolidation and budget analysis? What other services do they provide?
* Track record- What is their reputation like? Ask around; do research on the company. Check the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to see if they have had any complaints. If they have how many of them have been resolved? You may also want to find out how many clients they have served with credit card debt and find out what their success rate has been.
* Experience- How long have they been in business? It is totally up to you however if you want to do business with a credit card debt counseling service that has not been in business very long.
* Education- What type of education have the counselors have? If you want help with your bank card debt it is wise to get help from some who has been educated themselves and has expertise in that area.
* Educational Resources- Will the credit card debt counseling service provide you with educational resources? Most of these counseling services have articles you can view online, pamphlets or classes and seminars that you can attend.
* Non-Profit or Not- Non-Profit Organizations will assist you with such kind of debt counseling services on a pro-bono (free) basis if you meet their qualifications. However there are some companies that charge a membership fee or upfront fee for credit card counseling services.
Most Americans own at least one credit card. And of the seven in ten who do, an amazing 34 percent do not know the interest rate of the credit card they use most often. It is very easy to get a credit card. But it's very difficult to pay back your bills in full. Our expenses are increasing month after month. Whereas our income increases only year after year. So, it's very important for us to understand what credit card means to us today. Visit our Website to get all facts and Information about Credit and Credit Card
Ilango Chokalingam is an expert in search engine optimization. He is an article writer since 2003. In 2005, he understood the importance of site optimization to get quality visitors & better ranking in Google. Since then, he started doing SEO for his own sites & others too. He is the founder of the Internet Portal: Bigarticlepool.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ilango_Chokalingam
Monday, March 30, 2009
How Can I Evaluate Credit Card Processing Companies?
Are you confused by the array of merchant service providers offering to process your business' credit cards? That's understandable; it's a very competitive business these days! This article will help to familiarize you with some of the industry terminology and practices and help you better evaluate which company may be the right fit for your business model.
If you operate a small business based out of your home, or do mail order or sales via the Internet, there are some things to be aware of and questions you will want to ask.
First be aware that many banks will not provide a merchant account to a home-based business or even a start-up business. Second, if you are not selling a product or service directly face-to-face to your customer, banks are wary, because by paying you today for a product or service the customer has not yet received, they are essentially extending you a line of credit and if you do not fulfill the sale there will be a chargeback and they will want to know that there is money in your business checking account for them to access and debit back. Otherwise, they still will have to issue a refund to the dissatisfied customer but will be unable to recoup those funds from you, the merchant.
If you are running a website and taking sales online, you will want to have set up a secure shopping cart for your customers. There are a number of shopping cart software packages out there so you want to be sure that the package you choose is going to be compatible with your credit card processor's "payment gateway." Usually the best way to ensure this is to purchase your shopping cart software directly from your credit card processor. That way they will usually assist you in setting up the software to function properly, saving you the additional expense of hiring an outside web programmer to do the installation.
Transaction rates and fees
There are a lot of factors your processor will use to determine the rates you are charged to accept and process credit cards. There is not a set rate they offer to everyone. They are going to look at what type of business you are in - certain business categories are considered "high risk" such as telemarketing, adult, overseas, etc. How long you have been in business. If you ever had a merchant account before, did that relationship end satisfactorily or were you terminated? How much of your sales are not face-to-face: mail, telephone and Internet. What is the average dollar sales ticket, what is your monthly sales volume. And your personal credit rating.
Rates can range from about 1.5% up to 3% depending upon the processor's assessment of their risk in extending you a merchant account. Be sure to also ask about other service fees that may be added on every month, such as a statement fee, cost to process transactions with a hand held wireless terminal if you have one, annual fees, etc. The account executive should sit down with you at the time you apply and go over each and every fee you will be paying.
Don't think of these fees as necessarily being unwarranted, unfair or a rip-off. Accepting credit cards has really become a necessity in today's increasingly cashless society and your costs for doing so are something you just have to factor in to your cost of doing business and the prices you charge your customers.
Be comforted as well that the fee and rate schedule you start off with is something that can be renegotiated down the road when you have established more of a track record with your processor.
Another issue to visit is the cost of any equipment you will need to process cards. Will you have customers present with you, handing you their card? If so, you will need either a credit terminal or a credit card swipe block connected to your PC so you can run the sales through a "virtual terminal". If your sales are going to be done remotely by phone or mail, you will not need a terminal, just the ability to have that Virtual Terminal on your PC. If your business is strictly Internet-based all you will need is shopping cart software for your website and most processors sell that and will set it up for you.
If you can afford to but your equipment outright, do so. Leases are usually for 48 months and non-cancellable and in the end you spend a lot more money to acquire your equipment, although these lease payments are tax deductible.
An advantage to using a PC virtual terminal is that the transactions are all stored and can be downloaded in formats for your particular accounting software. Additionally, you can set up recurring transactions, such as monthly membership payments, to occur automatically, or if a customer does repeat business, pull them up and run their card for them without again having to ask them for that information.
Be sure to ask your processor when you will have funds available. 24 to 72 hours is normal, usually the longer waiting period is for start-up businesses, non-face-to-face transactions or less than perfect personal credit ratings. Some processors will even require you to have your business checking account at their bank. All processors will require that they have 2-way access to credit and debit from your account.
When you finally decide upon a processor and apply, you will need to provide your business license, a voided business check and perhaps financial statement such as Profit & Loss with Balance Sheet for at least one year, and also severl months
James Hussher is a national Account Executive for a major bankcard processor, a registered merchant services provider (MSP) for Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase banks. Contact James at http://creditcardmerchantnews.com, a site James maintains to inform his credit card merchant clients.
Wherever you are in the USA, I offer a free analysis of your current merchant account statement. I will provide a report showing you exactly how much you are paying to accept cards in each tier, plus monthly fees; I will also propose the rates we can give you, for a clear side-by-side comparison.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Hussher
If you operate a small business based out of your home, or do mail order or sales via the Internet, there are some things to be aware of and questions you will want to ask.
First be aware that many banks will not provide a merchant account to a home-based business or even a start-up business. Second, if you are not selling a product or service directly face-to-face to your customer, banks are wary, because by paying you today for a product or service the customer has not yet received, they are essentially extending you a line of credit and if you do not fulfill the sale there will be a chargeback and they will want to know that there is money in your business checking account for them to access and debit back. Otherwise, they still will have to issue a refund to the dissatisfied customer but will be unable to recoup those funds from you, the merchant.
If you are running a website and taking sales online, you will want to have set up a secure shopping cart for your customers. There are a number of shopping cart software packages out there so you want to be sure that the package you choose is going to be compatible with your credit card processor's "payment gateway." Usually the best way to ensure this is to purchase your shopping cart software directly from your credit card processor. That way they will usually assist you in setting up the software to function properly, saving you the additional expense of hiring an outside web programmer to do the installation.
Transaction rates and fees
There are a lot of factors your processor will use to determine the rates you are charged to accept and process credit cards. There is not a set rate they offer to everyone. They are going to look at what type of business you are in - certain business categories are considered "high risk" such as telemarketing, adult, overseas, etc. How long you have been in business. If you ever had a merchant account before, did that relationship end satisfactorily or were you terminated? How much of your sales are not face-to-face: mail, telephone and Internet. What is the average dollar sales ticket, what is your monthly sales volume. And your personal credit rating.
Rates can range from about 1.5% up to 3% depending upon the processor's assessment of their risk in extending you a merchant account. Be sure to also ask about other service fees that may be added on every month, such as a statement fee, cost to process transactions with a hand held wireless terminal if you have one, annual fees, etc. The account executive should sit down with you at the time you apply and go over each and every fee you will be paying.
Don't think of these fees as necessarily being unwarranted, unfair or a rip-off. Accepting credit cards has really become a necessity in today's increasingly cashless society and your costs for doing so are something you just have to factor in to your cost of doing business and the prices you charge your customers.
Be comforted as well that the fee and rate schedule you start off with is something that can be renegotiated down the road when you have established more of a track record with your processor.
Another issue to visit is the cost of any equipment you will need to process cards. Will you have customers present with you, handing you their card? If so, you will need either a credit terminal or a credit card swipe block connected to your PC so you can run the sales through a "virtual terminal". If your sales are going to be done remotely by phone or mail, you will not need a terminal, just the ability to have that Virtual Terminal on your PC. If your business is strictly Internet-based all you will need is shopping cart software for your website and most processors sell that and will set it up for you.
If you can afford to but your equipment outright, do so. Leases are usually for 48 months and non-cancellable and in the end you spend a lot more money to acquire your equipment, although these lease payments are tax deductible.
An advantage to using a PC virtual terminal is that the transactions are all stored and can be downloaded in formats for your particular accounting software. Additionally, you can set up recurring transactions, such as monthly membership payments, to occur automatically, or if a customer does repeat business, pull them up and run their card for them without again having to ask them for that information.
Be sure to ask your processor when you will have funds available. 24 to 72 hours is normal, usually the longer waiting period is for start-up businesses, non-face-to-face transactions or less than perfect personal credit ratings. Some processors will even require you to have your business checking account at their bank. All processors will require that they have 2-way access to credit and debit from your account.
When you finally decide upon a processor and apply, you will need to provide your business license, a voided business check and perhaps financial statement such as Profit & Loss with Balance Sheet for at least one year, and also severl months
James Hussher is a national Account Executive for a major bankcard processor, a registered merchant services provider (MSP) for Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase banks. Contact James at http://creditcardmerchantnews.com, a site James maintains to inform his credit card merchant clients.
Wherever you are in the USA, I offer a free analysis of your current merchant account statement. I will provide a report showing you exactly how much you are paying to accept cards in each tier, plus monthly fees; I will also propose the rates we can give you, for a clear side-by-side comparison.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Hussher
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