What is Straight Pass Through - Video

If you would like to lower your merchant account fees by switching to a “straight pass through” account go here, fill out the short form and we’ll have you saving money in no time.
If you would like us to analyze your current merchant account and show you how much a “straight pass through” merchant account [...]

The Three Price Points of a Merchant Account

How challenging can managing a merchant account be? I review 5 – 10 merchant account statements each week and almost everyone one starts out looking like it is written in a foreign language!  Some statements have fees from three separate months!  Other statements are extremely vague and seem to be intentionally hiding information.  So the [...]

Let’s Get Rid of Your EIRF!

If you are seeing a Visa transaction category named “EIRF” on your merchant account statement you are probably paying much more in discount fees than you need to. If you do not know what EIRF is, read this post and then come back: What is EIRF?
So how do we get rid of EIRF? [...]

Interchange Compliance - Guidelines

Rules. It seems like we have more rules in our lives every day doesn’t it? I am writing this post to make you aware of some more rules. These rules are for merchant accounts and if you don’t follow them you will you will be fined! Well maybe [...]

April 2008 Interchange Changes

I have been seeing competing merchant account providers raising their rates because Visa and MasterCard are making some adjustments to interchange rates. So what is really going on? Are the interchange rates really increasing? Here is what I know:
Visa
Effective April 2008 Visa is raising their "Signature Preferred - card [...]

An SPT Processing Statement is a Sales Tool? What?

by John Robinson
We know you’re successful business people. (I mean, you’re reading StraightPassThrough.biz, right?) And this means you probably have a pretty good idea who your customers are.
But what if you could use your processing statement to really market to specific customer groups? What if your statement was a powerful sales [...]

Straight Pass Through Explained

Check out one of my Power Point presentations about merchant accounts and straight pass through:

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Posted on February 27th, 2008 by Robb Lejuwaan in Merchant Account, Straight Pass Through

Debit or Credit?

by John Robinson
Debit or Credit?
If you’re a brick-and-mortar merchant, do you accept PIN-based debit? If not, you may be missing out on a tremendous opportunity to reduce your bottom line. If so, you may not be aware of several ways to improve on that reduction, as well as a few pitfalls you should avoid.
Debit? What [...]

Merchant Account Secrets - Eight Ways to Save Money


Posted on November 19th, 2007 by Robb Lejuwaan in Interchange, Merchant Account, Non-Qualified, Straight Pass Through

What is EIRF?

No, EIRF is not a cousin of the once popular Smurfs. In fact EIRF is not any where close to being a nice, soft, smiling, blue cartoon character. On the contrary, EIRF is disagreeable, hard, frowning and black! If you have it you most certainly are wondering what it is, how you [...]

Posted on November 9th, 2007 by Robb Lejuwaan in EIRF, Merchant Account, Non-Qualified, Straight Pass Through , ,

Tip of the Iceberg - Missing Debit Card Rate Reduction

I am reviewed three merchant account statements today and they all have one thing in common - these businesses are not receiving a reduction in rate when a customer uses a debit card. On one statement there is no debit card activity noted at all. So just in case you have not heard [...]

Is Price Really the Most Important Thing?

If you are a merchant and you are reading this blog post chances are price is a pretty important factor to you when it comes to your merchant account. I too think price is important or I would not write about almost daily.  Now that we know we agree on that, I want to [...]

10 Reasons to Break Up with Merchant Account Provider

You may have been with your merchant account provider for years. Your account representative may be a close personal friend. You may think your bank will give you the best price and service. You may be wrong; you may be paying too much; you may deserve a better rate and better service. [...]

Lessons From Being Lost - Swipe That Card!

Yesterday I had a scheduled appointment with a winery here in Southern California (Temecula, CA). A very rare thing happened on the way there - I got lost! I mean really really lost; I arrived at the winery over 1.5 hours late! Turns out there are two streets of the same [...]

Free Merchant Account Analysis


Posted on October 16th, 2007 by Robb Lejuwaan in Merchant Account, Straight Pass Through