I got a call from MSI Canada today. Their salesperson was INCREDIBLY obnoxious and pushy (and actually made me wonder if I was buying a merchant account or a bad used car) but he offered me some great rates - 1.8% for Visa and 1.9% for MasterCard. This would save me hundreds per year based on what I'm currently paying.

I checked out their website (http://www.msicanada.net/) which looks pretty poorly done. There's no information about the product he recommended (SafePay) and they won't give me the API documentation until my application has been approved. (I haven't given them anything yet.) There's nothing on their "About Us" page except "coming soon".

So far I'm not seeing any reason to call them back except for their rates. I thought I'd ask here and see if anyone has used them. If I'm wrong and they're fantastic, that would be great :)

MSI Canada is the Canadian marketing arm for Merchant Services, Inc. out of New York. You would want to verify their customer support provided, and read the contract terms closely. Quoting a low up front rate is a common tactic which may look attractive at first, but when the non qualified transactions are taken into consideration you may be paying much more than you bargained for. Other fees to consider, which are in addition to the % of each sale, would be transaction fees, pci compliance fee, authorization fees, batch fees, monthly fees, push funds fees.....many of which may or may not be asked for by other providers.

Hey ioiom63, did you go any further with MSICanada.net? My client wants to know wif it'd be a better alternative to tehir current payment provider connected to their eCommercetemplates cart. A guy cane to talk about it with them, and gave them a test password for their login area.

I'm kind of not impressed. Like you say, the site is poorly designed. I can't find much info at all as to whether or not they even connect to a shopping cart, and they don't seem to have a support forum. I guess that API thing would be how it connects, because that other QuickLink thing seems to just make single-buy buttons, kind of like Paypal. I don't see anyone else online talking about this system anywhere.

I have a feeling the guy who talked to them was just a sales rep, and even though he said it'd do exactly what they want, and the rates are low, he really was not a technical guy.

Hey!

No, I did not end up going any further with MSICanada. Their unwillingness to provide documentation and my inability to find other people who had actually used them for eCommerce caused me to give it up.

I did find a retailer here in town who uses one of their terminals. I spoke to the owner. She says their local salesperson here in Vancouver was/is very good. She didn't say what rates she pays, but I quoted mine and she said hers were quite a bit better. She doesn't use their eCommerce services so didn't know anything about that unfortunately.

Thanks for the quick reply!

I'm now in the middle of listing legitimate alternatives for my client if they reaaly feel they want to switch pay providers. I have a feeling that MSI would end up being a nightmare to try and connect the cart to, since it's not a supported provider, and it seems doubtful many others have experience with it. I already went through this with their current pay provider after they switched from their original one. The current one was sold to them by a sales rep I suspect, and they offered no true support in getting it connected, although I eventually got it working (and I'm a graphic designer, not a programmer!). We've only been using the other one smoothly for a month now, and if they want to switch, I'm going to make sure it's one their cart is 100% compatible with, and provides both US and CAD termninals.

Thanks again!

I use TD Merchant Services now and I like them. The discount is a bit expensive at 2.95% but the features are decent and I've been problem free. They were slow to set everything up but once set up their support is handled by Beanstream, the company they contract their eCommerce to. They are based in Victoria, BC and their techs are excellent. I was able to get better rates from TD Merchant Services than by going to Beanstream directly.

Here's a list of their packages: http://onlinemart.ca/EN/PaymentServicesPricing.asp

For some reason, I have the cheapest (Batch Processing) package but I have all the features of the 1A/1B package. I have no idea why, but I like it!

Congrats for getting the current provider working :) I used to be a graphic designer and now I'm a programmer. We'll turn you into a programmer in no time :)

My client used to use Beanstream, actually! I liked it, because it's supported by their eCommerce cart, and the payment page was able to integrate visually with the design of the site. From my point of view it was great! I'm not entirely sure why they switched (pushy sales guy? They're using MyVirtualMerchant now) but I think it was because they said they couldn't do refunds to a credit card. I was actually just on Beanstream's site now to see if Beanstream processes in US as well as CAD. We're running two databases for separate Canadian and US prices.

Beanstream should be able to process in US as well as CAD. It will require a new merchant account ID for US funds. Be sure to mention that you already have a merchant account for CAD funds so they cut you a break on the monthly fees. You do not want to start paying double!