merchant account for online services

[MikeFisher]

www.mikesmarina.info
yes, it is a sportfishing charter business.
it is the branded forum of the east coast section here on the bord, usually not hard to find.
at least Robert sold me that AD b/c everybody will find me right away, ha ha ha.
just kidding.
i've been reading throu their whole website and from the first sight i like what i see, so i dropped them a detailled note by their contact form to request more detailled info specifically for my website/business with an offer including rates/fees aso.
will let you know right away when i get an answer.
i am up in the mountains again tomorrow and tuesday,
so hpefully i receive an answer when back down here.

Robert,
their Dominican Main office is in Santo Domingo,
do you know some of those people in person?

on such cases i would prefer a personal meeting of course over a e-mail chat, on such service sales with online payments involved which run throu many different countries/jurisdictions before the money reaches it's destin are always many questions involved, considering fees/taxes/currencies! aso.
i.e. i had formerly my physically(not online) credit card processing with Visanet Dominicana connected with a dominican based US$ account, such has huge advances due to no need for currency exchanges b/c my customers nearly all pay in US$ currency. but that service been stopped a long while ago, since then my credit card processing(physically, not online) is connected to my dominican Pesos business account (BHD bank), which provides me with more pesos than i would like to have and more important, the billing voucher for the customer who buys a product priced in US$ currency has to sign a voucher in dominican pesos currency, often with the illegally low hotel exchange rates in mind.
the clear credit card billing in US$ for a service sold in US$ looks much more serious/professional and is of course confusion free.
Mike

[Robert]

Mike, the person you need to speak with is "Robert Galvez Botero", he's Colombian, but knows the business very well.

Notes from some of our past email exchanges that might help.

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Unfortunately, the D.R. isn’t actually a high transactional market in order to handle lower fees (It’ll be in a couple of years); although we strongly believe that over time we would be able to considerably lower these fees for the good of the market.

Something to take into account is that we cannot compare merchant fees in USA or Europe with local ones. Unfortunately VisaNet is charging higher fees for online transactions (close to 3.8%) and CardNet is charging a crazy fee close to 6%, with the argumentation of “cost covers security risks”.

If you ask me about the difference of cost between VisaNet and AvisorTech, for example, if you take transactions over RD3.000, you would have to pay us a difference of approximately 1.35% over VisaNet’s overall fees, including taxes. Now, if your transaction is around RD10.000, the difference between VisaNet and Avisortech goes down to 0.40% and if the transaction is over RD20.000, difference lowers to 0.21%. Now, for transactions under RD3000, the difference is much higher and I would definitely recommend VisaNet directly.

[TheHun]

" If you ask me about the difference of cost between VisaNet and AvisorTech, for example, if you take transactions over RD3.000, you would have to pay us a difference of approximately 1.35% over VisaNet’s overall fees, including taxes. Now, if your transaction is around RD10.000, the difference between VisaNet and Avisortech goes down to 0.40% and if the transaction is over RD20.000, difference lowers to 0.21%. Now, for transactions under RD3000, the difference is much higher and I would definitely recommend VisaNet directly. "

Great information!
Yes, they are a bit higher than VisaNet, but still lower than CardNet. Over DR$ 20.000 the difference is not even significant,
and if someone makes a living off of an online store- which has only CC processing- it has to have many thousands of US$ transaction. The most important thing is with them we can process CC through the web.

The Hun

[MikeFisher]

great info Robert, very appreciated.
right TheHun,
transactions in my case would always be over 3.000.- pesos b/c the most common transaction for my business is the one where customers pay a deposit for their charter, minimum deposit amounts are $100.-US.
and the other point is that VisaNet and CardNet both DO NOT have online cardprocessing running, that means the needed service is NOT AVAILABLE. they are just good to accept credit cards(Amex excluded) for the rest payments right here on board of my boats.

btw,
the actual processing fees which i pay are for VisaNet 4% of the transaction amount including that they provide the Verifone of course, that VeriFone is a landline based one, not wireless, so only good to use at the office.
on CardNet i pay 5% of the transaction amount plus a monthly fixed fee of 1.350.- pesos which includes the rent of the wireless VeriFone to process customers credit cards right on board of my boats, a service well worth those few monthly pesos.

the huge difference between VisaNet and CardNet is that VisaNet since january 16th 2009 can only accept Visa Cards, nothing else,
while CardNet allows me to accept the whole crowd of credit and debit cards(exception is Amex, but that one i don't need anyways), so for that the 1% higher rate on CardNet is reasonable because they provide a much higher service, i also prefer their customers service much over the very slow VisaNet service provided.

what i need and also TheHun who started the thread is to accept customers payment by credit/debit cards online,
VisaNet and CardNet do not offer those services.
both tell me since a long time they soon will do so, but till today none of them offered me to start such services.
i will wait for the answer of the Colombians.
if their services are in the reasonable range i sure will get in closer touch with them. an overall fee of 0.5-1.5% over the CardNet fees would be a reasonable difference for me to calculate in my customers rates without raisng the rates for my services.
hopefully i can get back here with more news soon.
thanks for all the provided info
Mike

[MikeFisher]

something new???
i dropped 2 e-mails throu their website's contact form but did not get any answer til now.
Mike

[TheHun]

Originally Posted by MikeFisher

something new???
i dropped 2 e-mails throu their website's contact form but did not get any answer til now.
Mike

Mike,

Send me your e-mail to: info@bayernmotorworks.com
I'll send you what I got from Roberto.
I thought you have the info already since you have contacted to them earlier.
It seems to be the way to go.
BTW, the transactions will go trough your regular merchant services VisaNet, CardNet, they just sublet out the online processing to them.
It's so new, that even my merchant acc. reps didn't know the availability of the online service.
They seems to be a very reputable company and doing business in various countries in Central and South America. You will see their references in the mail that I'll forward.

The Hun

[TheHun]

Mike,

I got your e-mail from your website. I'm forwarding it now.

[MikeFisher]

great,
will search for the e-mail right now.
i am still answering e-mails from yesterday morning, behind shedule due to tournament preparations this week.
thanks a lot
Mike

[Chip]

If it's worth anything, many Dominicans buy online goods in the US and have them shipped here. Amazon is a big favorite. It would lead one to believe that maybe these Dominicans some how are obtaining US credit cards possible. It appears to be a thriving business from what I have seen. I would expect this would be the target audience you would be going after, as very few Dominicans other than the relatively affluent have computers with internet access in their homes.

[Stuart Polkinghorne]

I read this back in May but have just come back to it. Thank you for the info guys, great help.