When we first started our Retail Store in 1993 we applied for a merchant account with Visa, MC and Amex.
We not only had to pay a fee for the terminal (we bought it) but we also paid $ 750.00 for setup and a yearly recurring fee to keep the credit cards. Our charge back rate is a lot higher 7% for retail.
When we first started in 96 to accept credit cards online we didn't have to pay a fee to Visa etc, but had to live with a 15% charge for the third party billing.
We accepted this since there was no yearly fee.
The $ 500.00 setup fee for CCbill is a bit steep. I can see Visa charging online Merchants the same as they do their retail Merchants. (Our Merchant account retail is with EFS and we had to jump hoops and prove our credit worthiness just to get a Merchant account) however I just don't see why excisting customers have to pay a setup fee. We are already setup, have already been doing business with 3rd party billing.
We have a backup billing company on all of our paysites. So far CCbill is the only one charging a setup fee for existing customers. Some other companies are eating the $ 250.00 yearly fee for existing merchants and not charge us.
Not much we can do about it.
If you close your account with CCbill and not pay the fee you will loose all your recurring. So there, we have to pay it.
However, Merchant accounts are not part of it. Even if we switch to our Merchant status now with ccbill, which we are able to do, we still have to pay that fee.
No way to get out, just have to pay it. The only solution
Make CCbill secondary on your paysites
Start a Merchant Account and use it as a primary
Use a billing company who does not charge the fee as a primary.
My feeling is that sooner or later Visa International will pull along with it and charge a fee. We have a swiss Visa account and after talking to my rep there yesterday he told me that Visa Europe is thinking about doing something similar like that.
It comes down to money. If Visa can get it and knows it CAN get it, it will get it
No way to run! We might as well pay our fee and suck it!
Make Paypal your primary!
bTW, Hi Catalina!