Card machine to accept payments over the phone?

[Tigris]

Hiya,

i'm currently using a sumup card machine which takes 1.69% of each transaction which is fine by me as a lot of my work is bank transfer.

However, I did speak to Sumup regarding having a card machine in which I could enter clients card details over the phone into the machine (Some of my work is remote) which they said they aren't allowed to offer/provide that service.

I have since spoken to a few clients who have said many other companies they deal with do allow this? Basically they give the long card number, expiry date and CVV number to make the payment via card machine.

Sumup did say something about a certain regulation which means you aren't supposed to do it that way and should have the card present?

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Does your accounts system offer this (after creating an invoice)?

Otherwise, what you need is a virtual terminal.

The companies like SumUp are for 1:1 and/or online transactions. Not doing this could open them up to fraudulent claims about 'it wasn't me, guv' with transactions.

 

[David Griffiths]

A company that I'm involved with had an arrangement with Barclaycard which permitted "cardholder not present" transactions, so it might be worth approaching them. However, on top of the processing fee for each payment they charged £15 per month plus VAT for "proactive security services" whether we took any payments that month or not. Due to the seasonal nature of the business there were only three or four months a year where we had a need for this, but we had to pay for the other months anyway. There will be other card companies who offer the cardholder absent facilty who may charge less..

Sumup themselves have another facility which may suit you, called payment links.. We've used Sumup for some time for "normal" transactions and recently added this facility and you'll find it on their webside - look at Products>payment links. Briefly you can set up a payment link and then email that to your customer. They click on the link and can make payment directly to Sumup. You don't have to take card details, expiry date, CVV number and address and key all of that in and you get an emails as soon as the payment is made.

Their normal charge for this is 2.5%. However, you can opt to make a monthly payment which works out at about £14 per month if you pay annually, and the rate reduces to 0.99% on all payments. (Including those that you pay 1.69% at present) They say that if you take more than £2.800 every month this is worthwhile.. It's higher if you pay monthly but you can opt in or out as needed if I've understood it correctly.

We've used this a few times now and it's worked brilliantly. Our members loved it and it's better for them as they aren't giving out security details. Have a look and see what you think. You can use it straight away if you're OK with the 2.5%

 

[HFE Signs]

Most providers offer a virtual terminal, you really want one that supports pay by link you can then use Apple Pay and Google Pay, you then email your client a payment link and they pay from their phone wallet.

 

[Tigris]

Most providers offer a virtual terminal, you really want one that supports pay by link you can then use Apple Pay and Google Pay, you then email your client a payment link and they pay from their phone wallet.

I've got a few elderly customers who don't do payment via phone apps/online banking.

Will keep with my sumup machine for now I think which sends payouts to my business bank. I was just hoping I could get a terminal with a keypad which I could enter clients card details when on the telephone for them to make payment (the ones who don't do online banking etc).

 

[fisicx]

This might work for you:

Card-not-present (CNP) transactions explained | Stripe

Here’s what businesses need to know about increasingly common CNP transactions, how they work and how to accept them securely.

stripe.com

I set a client up with this and it all worked well. You don't have a terminal, you do it via the Stripe dashboard. But you do need to be PCI Level 1 compliant.

 

[wayzgoose]

We use squareup.com. Virtual terminal, 2.5% transaction charge, no monthly fees.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

2.5% - wow, you might as well use PayPal.

If your card t/o is over £1+£1.5k a month, get a proper merchant account + you could save yourself about 2% on fees!

 

[Ryan Paul]

I use paya ITS

 

[wayzgoose]

2.5% - wow, you might as well use PayPal.

If your card t/o is over £1+£1.5k a month, get a proper merchant account + you could save yourself about 2% on fees!

It's for phone orders only which are very few and far between.

 

[glengraving]

Hiya,

i'm currently using a sumup card machine which takes 1.69% of each transaction which is fine by me as a lot of my work is bank transfer.

However, I did speak to Sumup regarding having a card machine in which I could enter clients card details over the phone into the machine (Some of my work is remote) which they said they aren't allowed to offer/provide that service.

I have since spoken to a few clients who have said many other companies they deal with do allow this? Basically they give the long card number, expiry date and CVV number to make the payment via card machine.

Sumup did say something about a certain regulation which means you aren't supposed to do it that way and should have the card present?

Using sumup, you can send the customer a "Payment Link" via SMS or email, so it is possible for them to pay remotely (it will open a browser page for them to enter their card details), you will see the link status updated as paid once they have done so and then you can prepare their order.

If that's too technical for the customer, you could technically open the payment link on your own browser/laptop, and have them read off their card details over the phone. This workaround does feel intrinsically dodgy though, you will want to do it in incognito mode or something to make sure you don't save their payment details on your device. I suspect this is what Sumup says you aren't supposed to do in your last sentence. Seems like a data protection no-no.

I wouldn't be comfy doing it this way, but I did have to routinely do something similar when the council gave out gift cards to low-income households to use in eligible local businesses, but the gift cards required a swipe type card reader (which sumup reader doesnt support) so got adept at this workaround (but with the customer present).