Archive for May, 2009

When I get contacted by people that read my articles, receive emails from us or that hear about us, the MAIN thing many city and county managers and treasurers don’t realize is that they can now accept credit cards for people that walk in to their offices, and have the transaction fee assessed back so accepting credit cards in their offices will cost them nothing. This is the bigest new component of the credit card company convenience fee program changes of last year.

Third Party Service Providers are not promoting these changes to their customers, because for the most part, their solutions are “awkward” at best and usually noncompliant with new credit card company rules for in-office transactions.

Credit card companies require a signed receipt for in-office transactions. Visa also requires the convenience fee and the city/county fees be submitted and processed as separate transactions and Visa has a special rate for Visa debit transactions.

Because Third Party Service Providers designed their systems for unsecured online transactions and 10 year old convenience fee rules, you will want to make sure wahtever solution you decide to use is compliant.