Has anyone ever used Total Merchant Services (http://www.webpaymentsolutions.com/) ? I'm just starting my research on investing in a merchant account and getting away from 3rd party processing. This company is offering a seemingly nice discount rate with AuthNet's TotalPay with a $200 purchase fee. Just trying to get some feedback on this company from either personal experience or just feedback on if you think this is a good company.

Thanks.

Also...could you please make any recommendations on a merchant service to use that supplies you with everything you need to start doing transactions online (Virtual Terminal).

Thanks.

WePaymentSolutions is actually a reseller for Total Merchant Services (TMS). TMS is an ISO/MSP based out of Colorado. They have been in business for a number of years. TMS uses Global Payments as their settlement network and HSBC Bank as their sponsoring bank. ( The TMS corporate Web site is www.totalmerchantservices.com )

Their TotalPay package is basically the Authorize.Net gateway - and thus it will have the virtual terminal. (Any AuthNet gateway solution from any merchant processor would provide the same.)

In terms of the pricing on the site, the $200 setup fee is actually a little high by today's pricing standards as there are many merchant providers now offering free Authorize.Net setups.

One other thing that I'd suggest checking on the actual merchant agreement is to see if there is any seperate "Interchange pass-through per trans" fee of .10 that you need to add into the stated Web site % and per trans pricing. On TMS merchant apps in the past, I have often see this line item so you need to take this into account when figuring out the total effective cost.

You will also want to check about any separate AVS costs, batch headers and the criteria for downgrades as well as any non-qualified surcharge pricing. This higher % price will take effect in the event that there is not a full AVS match or that it is a foreign or corporate card transaction.

In addition, there is usually a Monthly Minimum and Early Termination Fee and sometimes an Annual Fee on most TMS programs. You will want to double-check all of these details prior to sending back any application just to make sure that you are made fully aware of everything.

Some other things that you'll want to ask with any merchant provider that you consider are - how are chargebacks handled and processed? Is there any fraud detection & scrubbing included beyond just AVS & CVV and if so - at what cost? Is there any kind of merchant online reporting provided and if so - to what degree and to extra costs apply?

And last but not least... ask for references and talk to other similiar companies who have used each provider to get their feedback if you can.

Hope that info is helpful and best of luck with your search! :)

HSBC is a good bank and well established. They are worht quite a bit of money and can be trusted. I chose Cardservice actually because they use Wells Fargo and have a deal with Wells Fargo to waive their contract from three years to one year. Even though I hope to be in business in three years, a couple of my marriages did not last that long!

For the chargebacks, Cardservice provides mymerchantoffice.com which I sign into every day to help me review any chargebacks or retrieval requests. Getting to the chargebacks at this time helps me even win some. And with all of the accounts I have with them, I can combine all my accounts into one sign on with the MMO

Thanks for the replies, and CDG I was looking into getting an account from you guys as well.