Hi Lassiecat
If you already have a merchant account and you are looking to change your provider (presumably to reduce cost and or improve service ?), the rates you will be offered will depend on a number of factors.
The primary ones being as follows:-
card t/o per month (how much are you worth to a merchant provider ?)
Charge Back history if any ? (Risk of fraud)
How many accounts / terminals you are looking to switch ?
Your business classification ( e.g. your Risk profile)
Do they want your Business ( not all providers want all types of Business)
I cannot advise you about other companies, but most inbound telesales you would probably been talking to, are paid commission on winning new business, so the answer in principle is probably yes.
I assume you run an ecomm site as you are posting on this part of the Forum, so are you also factoring in your gateway costs as well the merchant account costs ? This will often make a big impact on your total running costs.
Our preferred approach is to do an analysis on your current total spend and then propose to you (if we can) a more cost effective package, and if you think the Business case stacks up, proceed to an application with us.
Another approach would be to use a comparison site such as
www.cardswitcher.co.uk where you can provide information about your business and get some indicative quotes.
If you would like to discuss me undertaking a business analysis for you without any obligation please do PM me.
Hope this helps
Mark
