Frequently Asked Questions
Understanding credit card processing can be confusing, but we’re here to help!
Check out our FAQ’s to find quick answers to common questions.
We’re here to provide the help you need.
Great savings and great service isn’t a marketing slogan, it’s the internal standard we hold ourselves to.
Last year, more than 95% of the comparisons we completed had savings with Best Card and the average savings was $6,496 for a 27% reduction in overall cost.
Credit card processing is a tricky industry. Any merchant service providers can choose to have competitive rates; however, we often see other processors have their rates and prices inflated significantly.
This is why we love doing a cost comparison so we can show you exactly what savings we can provide. If you happen to have great rates, we are happy to tell you that directly. The vast majority of the time there are significant areas where we can save businesses money in addition to providing better payment options and customer service.It’s simple to switch. We know that change can be inconvenient and we do everything in our possible to make the setup seamless.
From signup to setup and training we can make sure that your business is ready to go with Best Card within 1 week of receiving your DocuSign application. You’ll be fully onboard and processing with us before closing down your prior merchant service account, so there should be no downtime where you’re unable to accept payments.
From account setup to installation and training our team is available to answer questions and will work with your schedule to find a convenient time to complete the transition. We’re responsive to the individual needs of offices to make sure that we go the extra mile to make the process painless.No, Best Card has no setup fee for new accounts, and we can usually get you setup to accept payments within 1 week from sign up.
In that week we will:
- Onboard the merchant account and shepherd it through the risk review process.
- Download, test and ship equipment so that it’s ready to use when it arrives at the business.
- Work with your team to schedule an installation at a convenient time for the business.
- Our staff will walk you through the installation and training on the device at the scheduled time.
The goal is to make it a simple, seamless process to get setup and start saving with Best Card.
Most people are surprised that there’s actually two parts to answering this question!
First you need to make making sure you that you’re receiving competitive rates and fees from your processor. Best Card is endorsed by 50+ professional associations and has pre-negotiated ultra-competitive Interchange plus pricing for all members of those associations without hidden fees and sneaky surcharges that our competitors often charge. Our Payments 101 guide explains why this is the best pricing method to minimize your costs long-term.
Second, you need to make sure that you’re following the best practices when accepting payments to keep costs low. Our 7 Rules of Low Fees walks through the basic info that every practice should know to minimize card fees.No, Best Card does not have any early termination fees and you can cancel at any time at no cost. This reflects our commitment to keeping costs low and providing excellent customer service.
Many processors charge early termination fees ranging from $250 to $1,000, with some contract clauses costing even more. In extreme cases, businesses have been told their Early Termination fees are over $100,000 to switch processors. We’ve seen other merchant service providers contracts that automatically renew with a short period to cancel, or have difficult hoops to jump through to close the account without paying a fee.
We don’t think that expensive termination clauses and tricky contract language are a replacement for doing a great job for our clients. We maintain our clients because they’re happy with our service, not because of a contract they signed that’s too expensive to cancel.No, unfortunately we do not.
We get it. Who doesn’t love free stuff? But sadly, card readers always come with a cost. “Free” card readers usually come saddled with higher monthly fees, hidden fees, and overall expensive rates. The companies in our industry that offer free equipment tend to have much higher monthly costs and regular fee increases that dwarf the costs of buying card readers outright.
Our goal has always been to offer the lowest price that we can guarantee for the life of the account; for members of our endorsing associations that get discounts on equipment, this means that we usually sell the card readers at cost to make it easy to get started while having the lowest possible rates.No, Best Card does not offer leases on equipment.
Equipment leases are typically overpriced options for merchants. Most credit card equipment leases involve 48-month, non-cancellable agreements. Even a seemingly low price of $25 per month totals to $1,200 after 4 years for a device that likely costs less than $500.Every business has different needs, clientele and goals. For this reason, we love to have conversations about the different card readers and options we can setup your business with so that we can see what will be the best fit for the business. Our goal isn’t to upsell, but to find the right setup for how you want to run your business.
Broadly, we group our offerings into a few options:
- Countertop – Simple, secure card readers designed to sit on a counter.
- Mobile – Simple standalone or smart phone connected devices.
- Clover – Sleek point of sale devices with business management apps.
- BCPay – Our all-in-one point of sale system that unifies your in-office payments using card readers with website payments, text-to-pay, customer vault and scheduled payments through our cloud based Best Card Online system.
Let’s be honest nobody has ever asked for this, but this is something that you want without knowing what to ask for.
Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) is a way to simplify your PCI compliance requirements because all card data is entered on P2PE certified devices. This means in most cases that your PCI compliance consists only of a relatively simple questionnaire instead of requiring scans of your internal office network.
All of our BCPay devices are P2PE certified at no extra cost. All of our countertop, mobile and Clover terminals include the option to be P2PE for a $5 per month fee.Our rates are good for the life of your account.
On Best Card’s Interchange passthrough pricing, we guarantee our rates for the life of your account and have never raised our rate increase in our company history.Yes, Best Card automatically sets up our merchants to accept MasterCard, Visa, and Discover cards, with American Express as an optional addition. American Express is the only card issuer with rates that vary based on the type of merchant (e.g., medical vs. retail) and transaction size. With Best Card, all card types, including American Express, are deposited together.
No, we can turn off any card brand at your request so that your business accepts only cards from brands that you choose.
Yes, all of our payment systems recognize debit cards as soon as they are submitted without requiring PIN or special input to specify that it is a debit transaction. So you still get a low debit rate without having to do anything special when a customer pays with a debit card.
Upon request, we can add PIN debit to your account, but since PIN debit normally comes with additional annual PIN debit network fees, we tend not to automatically set this up since it no longer provides substantial savings for most businesses.Yes, passing a percentage fee to your customers who pay with credit cards is called Surcharging and Best Card offers this as an option for all types of merchants.
This has become more popular in recent years. Currently, only two states – Massachusetts and Connecticut – explicitly prohibit surcharging. While the idea of having your patients and customers cover your processing costs, the requirements from the card brands can be confusing and not something that a business can just decide to do on their own.
Surcharging needs to comply with the card brand rules established by Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express. While we have seen programs that call themselves “cash discount” and “dual-pricing” that do not follow the card brand regulations, we do not offer pricing models that aren’t complying with the regulations in place because there can be substantial fines for improper surcharging.
Please be aware that there are substantial business considerations to weigh before beginning surcharging. See our in-depth surcharging and call us if you have additional questions or are interested in pursuing.Yes, we do offer check processing. We can set this up upon request and would be happy to review whether check processing is worthwhile and cost effective for your business.
First, always feel free to call Best Card if you have any questions on how to proceed!
If you haven’t closed the batch yet, you should void the transaction to avoid being charged any processing costs. Once voided, the transaction will be cancelled and the pending authorization will fall off the customer’s transaction list in 3-5 days, depending on the bank’s policy.
If the batch is already closed, you’ll need to run a Return. While Best Card does not charge processing fees on Returns (unlike most processors), you will still incur fees from the original sale since the batch has closed and fees have been paid to the card company.
Please feel free to call if you have balancing questions, as we are happy to help!
Voids do not post until the batch is closed and settlement with the bank occurs. We recommend letting the customer know that the transaction will drop off, but it can take a few days before the change is reflected online. Banks do reserve the right to suspend the removal pending authorizations from the cardholder’s account for varying durations depending on their policies, though it rarely takes more than a day or two to resolve.This is important for several reasons:
- Credit card processors look for same-card transactions to offset refunds. If the return is for a large amount, the risk department may temporarily suspend the return, delaying the customer’s refund.
- Embezzlement can occur via credit card transactions. Refunds without offsetting sales trigger risk alerts for this reason.
- Many Best Card merchants accept Flex Benefit/Health Savings Account (FSA/HSA) cards. If the original transaction used FSA/HSA funds (often untaxed due to program specifications) and the return is made to a different card, it violates the policies associated with these cards.
- Returns processed to the same cards as the original transactions may qualify for partial refunds of the original transaction fees charged.
With any chargeback, the chargeback team from our backend clearinghouse sends out a mailed notification to alert you to the chargeback and at that time also removes the disputed funds into a separate escrow account until the dispute is settled.
Simultaneously, we also regularly send out email notifications of disputes so that an office has multiple communications of any chargeback affecting your business.Great question, generally if you rarely receive chargebacks then it has no negative impact long-term on the business aside from the amount of the transaction being disputed.
If you are regularly seeing chargebacks (e.g. more than 1% of transactions over a 6-month period are being disputed) this can initiate fraud and compliance reviews on an account.There are several reasons why your business may experience a chargeback or transaction dispute. While most chargebacks are initiated by cardholders, the card’s issuing bank can also initiate one. The best way to avoid chargebacks is to prevent fraudulent transactions, to help mitigate these risks:
- Have a refund policy in place. This refund policy can distinguish between refundable and non-refundable items, such as custom designed items or consumables.
- Check identification if the cardholder’s identity is not known or verified prior to the transaction.
- Know that keyed or manual transactions are more likely to be fraudulent than swiped transactions, and swiped transactions are more likely to be fraudulent than EMV or contactless transactions.
- When manually entering a card number, always request billing address information and the card verification code (CVV/CID).
- Sometimes customers initiate disputes because they don’t recognize the name on their statement. To avoid this issue, ensure that the “doing business as” name on receipts is your business name and not something generic like “Store 351.” We can help with this.
- Keep documentation of merchandise/services sold in case you need to provide documentation in response to a chargeback. Always respond promptly; most notices allow up to two weeks for a response.
These proactive steps not only curtail fraudulent activities, but also enhance transaction integrity.
We frequently help our merchants respond to chargebacks and are always available to discuss what steps you should take when responding.
Generally speaking, there are a few best practices we recommend:- Make sure to review the reason and reason code claimed in the chargeback and formulate your response by responding to that specific reason.
- Provide copies of receipts.
- Provide any relevant documentation that may provide evidence that matches your response.
- For HIPAA related chargebacks: According to Health and Human Services you can provide information, including PHI, when responding to chargeback. It is recommended to keep such disclosures to be as minimal as necessary and abide by reasonable requests for confidentiality or any agreed to restrictions on disclosure of protected data.
A lot of factors that go into your PCI level give us a call and our team will walk you through it from beginning to end. There are a lot of moving parts, our team can help explain why you are at that level, and how to become/stay PCI compliant.
Exhaustive list here of PCI compliance our team will be able to walk you through this.
Depending on how you accept and transmit credit card payments, there are different requirements to ensure you’re protecting credit card data.Any credit card equipment that transmits information via an internet connection must pass quarterly network scans to maintain PCI compliance.
If your credit card terminal connects via phone lines, or if you only accept payments over the internet, you do not need to complete a network scan.To receive breach protection from our PCI compliance program, your business must complete the correct PCI requirements. Skipping scans increases your liability for costs associated with card data breaches. In case of a breach, you must provide evidence of compliance, including passing scan records.
We strongly recommend completing these scans for online processing. If you can’t pass a scan due to lack of IT support, invest in IT improvements to enhance network security. This ensures cardholder data protection and aligns with both PCI and HIPAA requirements.
As of 2023, Best Card now offers a Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) security upgrade for our internet connected devices. P2PE compliant devices do not require quarterly network scans. While we still highly recommend strong IT security for the protection of your patient and customer data, a P2PE device would eliminate the need for scans to be PCI compliant.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Best Card, LLC
6455 S. Yosemite St., #600
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
PHONE:
(303) 482-2773
(877) 739-3952 (toll free)
FAX:
(866) 717-7247