The Painful Truth About Signing Up...

OK, so maybe you signed up for a merchant account a year ago and your business is already taking credit cards or you are just now looking into it. Either way, learn for the next sign up or the first one. Sit down, and oh... you may want a drink.

First and foremost one of the worst things about the industry is the salesmen. Chuck, Alicia, whomever I'm sorry but it's true. 99% of merchant account sales people give the rest a bad name. Why? They make money by up~charging you the client. This is not always the case, just in 99.99999999% of all cases I have ever seen. After all, there has to be an incentive plan for keeping these guys and gals hitting the bricks.

Well here's an incentive: a sign-up fee. A sign-up fee? Are you kidding me? You want me, to pay you, in order for you to make money off me? I am supposed to pay you for that?!

...Anyhoo, this is a fee that goes one place and one place only: the saleman's pocket. Oh yes, make sure you know this. The only reason that it is on the contract is so that they can scratch through it with a pen and say, "but because it's you, we are going to waive that fee". How sweet. However, if they think they have a nice, fat fishy on the line they will charge it and simply put it in their pocket. Yay! Sushi's on me tonight!

This I cannot be clear enough about. If you have someone who wants to charge you a fee to get set up when their company will be getting a percentage of your hard earned money for the rest of the contract you need to introduce him and his plaid, reversible, polyester jacket to the door. Would you pay a fee to a car company in order to be able to pay them for a car? "OK, let's see... that Ford costs $26,000, but I will need you to pay us a $100 fee in order for us to be able to give you the privilege of buying from us." Goodbye and get out.

I have seen so many established businesses doing high sales that have paid this fee that I cannot imagine the level of salesperson that would actually charge it . Seriously, their bio would have to start, "Leaving a trail of slime wherever he goes..."

Bottom line: your business is worth something and there are fifty other companies out there willing to take very good care of you simply in order to beat out the other guy. My daddy always said, "Vote with your feet." In other words, if you don't like it, there are a lot of other choices out there.