Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. (NYSE: HPY) provides credit and debit
card, payroll and related processing services to restaurant, hotel, and
retail merchants throughout the United States. Heartland has become the fifth largest payment processor, with over $60
billion of annual processing volume from current merchants.
At Heartland, we do not believe in deceptive rates that mislead a
customer. We work to educate our merchants to understand that the only
"rate" that matters is your Net Effective Cost of accepting cards at
the end of the month. This can be mathematically obtained by dividing
your total fees by your Visa/MC sales volume. Most people are fooled by
what they think is their actual rate. Other processors will tell you
they are giving you a great rate, 1.72% for example. What most
merchants don't realize is that their actual rate is usually well over
2%, discovered when dividing their fees by their Visa/MC sales
volume. 1.72% is the inflated rate only being charged for "Qualified"
cards. Higher rates are being charged for the Mid & Non-Qualified
cards. They typically break your rates in three catagories:
"Qualified", "Mid-Qualified" and "Non-Qualified" charges. When in fact,
there are actually 148 different rates depending on the type of card
being used by your customers. If a customer uses a debit card which
visa charges 1.12%, your processor is probably rounding that rate up to 1.72%. Most processors lump those 148 different types of cards into one of these 3 catagories and
round the rate to the highest fee.
At Heartland, we use "Cost Plus" pricing charging the actual rates Visa/MC will charge for each individual card type.
Small and mid-sized businesses have rights, too. It's time someone stood up for them.
The Merchant Bill Of Rights was created for owners of small and mid-sized businesses like you. It's purpose: to give you the same fair costs and treatment that large merchants receive from their credit / debit payment processor.
To learn more about your rights, visit MerchantBillOfRights.com
We operate our payroll organization with the same standards as our CC Processing company. Our merchants have found the HPS Payroll product to be as rewarding to use as our CC Processing product.