[Cabal] Credit Cards

[Sean Egan]

I got the quote on this today, and filled out the paperwork. Credit
card processing is *complicated*, and I'll try to explain our rates
the best I can. The best measure, though, is that my girlfriend
wouldn't stop marveling every time she saw a waived fee or low rate.

Visa and Mastercard both have tons of different card types (probably
about 40 each), all with different rates, and we have no clue what
those rates are until after it's charged. Each transaction takes a
flat fee, ranging from nothing to $30, and they take a percentage,
ranging from .1% to 3%. These are the fees applied by the credit card
companies and are, as such, unavoidable.

To cover the cost, the processing company also has a percentage and
flat fee. The rates we're offered are .05% (Elie says the lowest she's
ever seen is .1%), and a 10 cent flat fee. Additionally, there is a
batch fee: you typically send your transactions in to be processed
once a day, so every day that has transactions will get charged
another dime.

The processors also charge a $5 monthly fee.

Lastly, there's a gateway fee; the gateway is the bit that takes our
transactions from the Internet and sends them to the processor. They
recommend authorize.net which they claim is the cheapest for what we
need. They will cost us $20 to setup, a $5 monthly fee, and a nickel
per transaction. There's plenty of free software we can install on
pidgin.im that speaks the authorize.net protocol.

I'm assured that this is a very good deal.

-s.