Payment Gear

Return Policy

nathan — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:30:51 +0000

Upon receiving your order:

Please inspect the product immediately.
Please keep all original packaging.
All problems must be reported within 14 days of receiving your product.
All returns must be pre-authorized by Payment Gear and receive a Return Merchandise Authorization Number via email (RMA#).
Items that are purchased “As-Is” cannot be returned.

If your item is defective:

Payment Gear will offer a limited lifetime warranty against defects and provide a replacement part or product in place of the defect.
Please contact Payment Gear to report any defects prior to returning the defective product.
Upon receiving your returned merchandise we will issue the replacement item as quickly as the current supplies allow.
All returns must include all locks, keys, screws, instructions or any other item that came with the original purchase. We cannot accept incomplete returns.
International customers are responsible for all custom fees charged by their country.

The following conditions must be met in order to issue a refund:

All returns must be postmarked within 14 days of original shipment.
RMA # is obtained prior to the return.
The product has not been customized by Payment Gear or anyone else and/or a sample was not provided prior to the initial purchase.
Product must be in new condition and returned in original packaging. Refunds will not be issued for damaged or incomplete product.
A restocking charge per unit will be applied of 25% or $25, which ever is greater.
Return shipping is the responsibility of the purchaser.
Shipping will not be refunded by Payment Gear.
In case of broken or damaged product immediately notify Payment Gear.

LimitedLifetimeWarranty

Payment Gear warrants all enclosures to be free from material defects and workmanship for a period of (1) years from the date of purchase, subject to the following conditions, exclusions and exceptions.

The liability of Payment Gar is solely to the cost of repair or replacement of the unit at our option. This warranty does not cover the normal wear and tear of parts and does not apply to any unit that has been tampered with. This warranty does not cover any damage caused by misuse, weather or natural elements, vandalism, negligent handling or damage due to faulty packaging or mishandling in transit. The warranty does not cover damage caused due to alterations to parts or product by any person other then those authorized by Payment Gear LLC.

Parts that are non-durable (including and not limited to foam, spacers, bumpers and felt), which may require replacement, are specifically excluded from this warranty.
This warranty is valid for the original purchaser only and excludes all other legal, implied and/or conventional warranties.
Payment Gear is in no-event liable for incidental or consequential damage to anyone of any nature whatsoever.

TermsandConditions

Payment Gear (herein after referred to as “Seller”) shall be held harmless for any events beyond their control.

Any and all materials delivered to the shipping address remain property of the Seller until the agreed purchase price therefore is paid in full, at the time specified therefore, and thereupon, the title to said equipment shall, without any further action on the part of the Seller, be transferred to and vested in the Purchaser.

From the time the materials are shipped to the Purchaser until it has been paid for by the Purchaser, the Purchaser assumes liability for all destruction, loss or damage to the equipment however caused, and will pay to the Seller the full price of such amount thereof as remains unpaid of the equipment.

Any taxes, with respect to such purchase price, shall be paid by the Purchaser unless otherwise expressly prescribed by law.

Purchaser shall be obligated to pay all costs of collection incurred by Seller in the case of Purchaser’s non-payment. This may include, but is not limited to, collection costs, attorney fees, and court costs.

Seller warrants to the Purchaser that which was agreed upon in the terms of purchase. No other warranties expressed or implied are given.

The Purchaser agrees that information disclosed by Seller to the Purchaser including but not limited to information learned by the Purchaser form Seller’s employees or agents, that relates to Seller’s products, designs, research, development, know-how, operating procedures, contracts, including proprietary technology, programming, trademarks, trade names, trade secrets, service marks, logos, and publications disclosed to the Purchaser by Disclosure will be considered and referred collectively in this Agreement as “Confidential Information”. The Purchaser agrees to hold all Confidential Information in the strictest confidence and will not disclose, use or publish any of the Seller’s Confidential Information.

The Purchaser further acknowledges the value that the Seller or third-party has in its proprietary technology, programming, trademarks, trade names, service marks, logos, and publications, and the Purchaser agrees not to revise engineer, copy, modify, or otherwise use any disclosed concepts, copyright, patent, service mark, logo, or trademark whether in hardware, software, or manuscript.

The purchaser agrees that it will not at any time do anything that may adversely affect the products, development, concepts, and marketing plans of the Seller.

Request RMA

How do credit card processing rates actually work?

nathan — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:44:27 +0000

Here is the truth about credit card processing rates.

Visa & MasterCard have several dozen rate categories known as Interchange, which determines the rate a merchant must pay for a particular transaction. The applicable rate is determined by various circumstances, such as the card being swiped, keyed‐in with(out) without AVS, called in, the type of card (business, corporate or reward), and whether it was batched out within 24 hours. So any given business will hit multiple interchange categories within the processing month, depending on the card type and how it is accepted.

The standard method of pricing that 90% of all merchants pay is known as 3 Tier Pricing. This consists of three separate prices called Qualified, Mid‐Qualified & Non‐Qualified. The Qualified discount rate is the base percentage you pay on all transactions and only covers a few Interchange rates. When a merchant processes a transaction that goes through one of the more expensive Interchange rates, providers add the Mid‐Qualified or Non‐Qualified rate to the merchant’s Qualified rate. There is no industry standard pricing, but an additional 1% for the Mid and 1.60% for the Non is quite common. To elaborate, when a merchant is setup under a 3‐tier pricing schedule, they will pay one of the following three rates on each transaction:

1. Qualified Discount Rate

2. Qualified + Mid‐qualified

3. Qualified + Non‐Qualified

For retail merchants, the non‐qualified will apply to any keyed‐in transactions. For Internet & Mail/Phone order merchants, the mid‐qualified generally only applies to rewards cards.

Another way of talking about these rate structures is simply, Card Present or Card Not Present. Essentially this translates as Qualified or Non-Qualified.

Lastly, if you want the most transparent pricing plan possible, then you want what is referred to asOver Interchange or Interchange Plus Cost. These pricing plans take the actual Interchangecategory costs & tack on a small percentage. An industry average can range from 0.50% – 0.30% over Interchange, depending on your volume and business type.

How is Interchange Plus Cost different from 3-Tier? With 3-Tier the payment processor tries to estimate what Interchange Categories you will hit, then comes up with a fixed pricing structure above that average. So the processor may lose on some transactions and win on others. With an Interchange Plus Cost pricing plan, the processor will always make they’re margin and you will always know your exact processing fees. However, while you will definitely save money over time, it is much more difficult to accurately budget your exact processing fees on an Interchange Plus Cost rate structure.

PCI DSS Compliance

nathan — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:32:24 +0000

Payment Card Industry Compliance is complicated. We make it simple.

What is PCI DSS Compliance?

It stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. This is a regulatory body that enforces a set of comprehensive requirements for enhancing payment account data security, in order to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global level.

The PCI DSS is a multifaceted security standard that includes requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. This comprehensive standard is intended to help organizations proactively protect customer account data.

Who Created It?

The PCI Security Standards Council, includes every major card association: American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc.

What Does It Require?

The PCI DSS compliance covers some of the most important, yet basic vulnerabilities in the industry, including API Abuse, Access Control, Authentication, Code Permissions, Code Quality, Cryptography, Error Handling, General Logic Error, Input Validation and Environmental Security in regard to systems. These can be traced back to the original 12 Requirements of Visa CISP:

1. Install and maintain a firewall to protect data.
2. Keep security and patches up-to-date.
3. Protect stored data.
4. Encrypt data sent across networks.
5. Use and update antivirus software at all times.
6. Restrict access to “need to know.”
7. Assign unique ID’s to all users.
8. Modify pre-set security settings of 3rd party vendor software.
9. Trace all access to data by unique ID’s.
10. Regularly test your security systems and policies.
11. Implement and maintain an information security policy.
12. Restrict physical access to data.

The program ensures the annual validation of merchants and service providers on both the issuing and acquiring side of the business.

Why is this important to me?

In 2008 electronic crime passed up all other organized crime combined(drugs, guns, theft). Not only is customer’s data at stake, but so is your business’ reputation. If you don’t follow it, you may be shut down, fined, or held accountable for any of your customers card data being stolen and misused.

How do I ensure PCI Compliance?

We’ve already done most of the work. Here’s how:

Third Party Audits. and ongoing scans by qualified assessors, including: Security Metrics, TrustWave, Comodo, McAfee.

1024-Bit SSL. All of PaymentGear’s communications and processing occur through Secure Socket Layers (SSL). To ensure an even higher level of security, we use 1024-bit SSL encryption with all of our transactions. Any toolkits linked for usage with the USA ePay gateway are also tested to make sure that security is set up properly. With the proper security layers set up between toolkits and the gateway, we can ensure that no information can be stolen and all information is securely transmitted.

Identification Through Source Keys. Many older gateways use IDs and passwords to verify a user’s identity and facilitate communication between that user and the gateway, but the security of this method is easily compromised. So at PaymentGear, we developed the Key System for safe, secure identification and communication.Each Merchant toolkit (such as a shopping cart) communicates with the gateway using a unique high-bit encrypted string called a Key. When information is sent to the gateway, the Key identifies not only the merchant, but also the specific toolkit from which the information originated. This allows merchants to feel secure in the knowledge that the toolkit source code does not contain sensitive information such as their username and password. It also provides the opportunity for merchants to use separate Keys for each individual toolkit. Merchants can also revoke a Key if they notice that it is being misused.

Fraud Stopper. Fraud Stopper is built on a Module Stack Design. Each module controls a different aspect of security and merchants can choose which modules to include in the fraud control stack. Some examples of modules include: duplicate transaction control, block by country, block by IP address, and many more. The Module Stack Design provides the opportunity for merchants to add or change their fraud modules depending on their unique security needs. USA ePay is always adding new fraud modules to the Fraud Stopper to keep our merchants up to date with the latest fraud security.Fraud Stopper also allows merchants to apply different fraud settings to different Keys or Sources. For example, a merchant may wish to implement a high level of fraud control for an online shopping cart, but a lower level on the console for their own employees.

Storing Credit Cards Securely. Payment Gear realizes that the theft of lists or databases in which credit card information is stored can have dire consequences for merchants and for their customers. With this in mind, Payment Gear has a revolutionary new way of storing credit card information, through Tokenization. In our Gateway System, each credit card number is stored individually, making it impossible to steal an entire list or database full of sensitive data. Credit card numbers can only be viewed on an individual basis by unlocking or decrypting each one. If a card number is needed, the requested number is decrypted and unparsed from the system, a process that takes only a few seconds.
Payment Gear’s non-database system provides the highest possible level of security for credit card data storage.

Take These Four Easy Steps to Ensure PCI Compliance.

1. Integrate our secure API or us a partner app on our platform.

2. Use our third party certification software for free. This completes your annual SAQ and Scan requirements

2. Businesses that do over 6 Million transactions must hire a Qualified Security Assessor. We will help you find the right one. Just email:security(at)paymentgear.com.

3. Put us to work. Make sure to work with your Account Manager to ensure everything is done correctly.

4. Receive Your Certification.

Understanding Credit Card Rates

nathan — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 04:46:08 +0000

Visa & MasterCard have several dozen rate categories known as Interchange, which determines the rate a merchant must pay for a particular transaction. The applicable rate is determined by various circumstances, such as the card being swiped, keyed‐in with(out) without AVS, called in, the type of card (business, corporate or reward), and whether it was batched out within 24 hours. So any given business will hit multiple interchange categories within the processing month, depending on the card type and how it is accepted.

1. Qualified Discount Rate

2. Qualified + Mid‐qualified

3. Qualified + Non‐Qualified

For retail merchants, the non‐qualified will apply to any keyed‐in transactions. For Internet & Mail/Phone order merchants, the mid‐qualified generally only applies to rewards cards.

Another way of talking about these rate structures is simply, Card Present or Card Not Present. Essentially this translates as Qualified or Non-Qualified.

Lastly, if you want the most transparent pricing plan possible, then you want what is referred to as Over Interchange or Interchange Plus Cost. These pricing plans take the actual Interchangecategory costs & tack on a small percentage. An industry average can range from 0.50% – 0.30% over Interchange, depending on your volume and business type.

How is Interchange Plus Cost different from 3-Tier? With 3-Tier the payment processor tries to estimate what Interchange Categories you will hit, then comes up with a fixed pricing structure above that average. So the processor may lose on some transactions and win on others. With an Interchange Plus Cost pricing plan, the processor will always make they’re margin and you will always know your exact processing fees. However, while you will definitely save money over time, it is much more difficult to accurately budget your exact processing fees on an Interchange Plus Cost rate structure.