[TheForge] credit card accounts

[Steve Bloom]

Greetings all --

At 10:15 AM 1/13/2003 -0800, Andy wrote:
> > When Bill goes to knife shows, he uses the old fashioned swiping machine.
> > Then when he comes home, I run all of the cards through the
> > electric machine
> > & phone lines.  It's a bit of a risk, but we've been ok so far.
> > -Kirsten
>
>My bro-in-law used this system for years and only got a couple of bad nuts.
>Wierd thing was, one tried to come back and do it again at a different show,
>using the same stolen credit card both times. Makes me think that the
>phrase, "Dumb Crook" is a redundancy.
>He was chased down and arrested after the second time- bought from one of
>the kids, and Ian was just returning from break and recognized him...
>By and large it worked real well.

I expect to do just that - the real question is what's the best source to get a
merchant account. A net search shows ~2.5% discount rate/~$0.30 per
transaction/$10 monthly fee is pretty standard. Some want you to fork over
$350 for software. Others require a $25/month min. etc. Some require
the swiper, others don't.  The best I've found so far is free software with
a bit more per transaction.  Off to check out Verisign.....

Steve
Steve Bloom, IronFlower Forge. Archer, FL
     Webmaster for the FABA web site:
	www.blacksmithing.org