| How can I get the lowest interchange rate? |
| In order for a merchant to qualify for the lowest processing fee for a particular transaction, the card's magnetic stripe must be read by the terminal (i.e. cardholder is present) and sales must be deposited and settled daily. The processing rate will be higher for a transaction manually keyed or not deposited and settled through the terminal until the next day.
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| How do I get started? |
| Simply call any customer service representative at any Alpine Bank or stop in. |
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| What is Interchange? |
| Visa®, MasterCard®, and Discover® charge a processing or "interchange" fee on every sale. Interchange is paid to the cardholder's issuing institution and reflects processing expenses, including the cost of credit and fraud losses. This fee is determined by the type of card presented (Visa®, MasterCard®, and Discover® Business Card, Purchasing Card, Corporate Card) and the type of business that is accepting the card (retail business, lodging, mail order, etc.), and the processing environment.
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| What is a merchant account? |
| A merchant account is the ability for a business of any kind to accept credit cards and debit cards for payment. It is sometimes referred to as credit card processing or merchant services. A merchant account or a business account is issued by Alpine Bank for the processing. The purpose of this account is to receive and disburse funds from credit card transactions. |
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| How long does it take to get set up? |
| Approval only takes a day or two depending on the level of difficulty for that particular account. The set up can happen as early as a week.
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| How do I pay for this service? |
| Fees are automatically debited from your Alpine account on the 10th of each month. No need to write a check or waste a stamp. |
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| Are my funds guaranteed? |
| Any customer has the right to dispute a credit card charge from the card's issuing bank. If a charge is challenged, a retrieval request will be sent to the merchant asking for proof that a sale had been made by the customer. In addition, the merchant's credit card processor has the right to discontinue service for many reasons. And finally, a merchant should take due diligence to protect against someone trying to order merchandise with stolen cards by becoming familiar with the process.
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| How quickly do I get paid for the credit card sales? |
| Alpine Bank realizes the importance of having working capital for any business to succeed, and our processing systems get those funds to you as quickly as possible. Once a transaction is processed and approved, the turn around is typically 24 hours or one banking day for VISA,or Mastercard, and Discover transactions. American Express transactions usually take 3-4 business days. |
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| I am a seasonal merchant, what can I do? |
| If you are a seasonal merchant and will only be running credit cards part of the year, we can put you on a seasonal status. This would allow you to avoid any charges while you are not running credit cards. It only takes a call to let us know when you are starting up again or closing for the season. |
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| Should I rent or purchase equipment? |
| Just tell us a little about your business and your situation. We are here to help determine what works best for your business and budget. We will take into account all the different variables and select an over all program that is best for you. There are many options available to you such as renting or purchasing equipment, or perhaps you may decide to call in your credit cards over the phone or even run software over your pc.
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| What if I have problems during nonbanking hours? |
| We have a 24 hour 7 day a week toll free help desk. That phone number is (800)552-8227.
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| What is a chargeback? |
| Occasionally, a cardholder will dispute a charge that appears on his/her monthly bankcard statement and/or it may be discovered that the proper bankcard acceptance and authorization procedures were not followed at the point of sale. If this happens, that credit card company will notify you of the dispute and debit the amount from your settlement/deposit account. This is called a "chargeback."
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| What is Address Verification Service? |
| AVS is a service that is built into the authorization process to help prevent fraudulent transactions. The numerical portion of a consumer's address is sent along with the transaction data and is matched against the address that is registered with the consumer's credit card from their issuer's bank. A response code is sent back with the approval (or decline)message that indicates a match or not. Currently, a match or mismatch is simply reported back to the merchant and does NOT result in a transaction decline. The merchant then has the option to contact their customer to confirm the correct address before they ship any goods. |
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