National Merchant Alliance (NMA) specializes in providing technology based electronic payment programs to software companies, enterprise organizations and merchants nationwide. NMA is an electronic payment provider that delivers secure credit, debit, ACH and other payment solutions to its customers. Our merchant payment processing solutions are cost-effective, high quality, and PCI-DSS compliant.

Your account will be charged for all appropriate fees on or around the second business day of the month following the activity, via an Automated Clearing House (ACH) transaction. The detail of your fees will appear on your merchant statement that you will receive the within the second full business week of the month following the activity

An authorization is required in order to complete a Sale transaction. As the name implies, an authorization is a transaction you use to:

• Help verify that the card is not counterfeit.
• Verify that the cardholder has sufficient funds for the purchase.
• Place a “hold” on the cardholder’s available balance for the amount of the transaction.

A settlement is the action of submitting your authorized transactions for payment. While an authorization places a hold on a cardholder’s available balance to cover your payment, a settlement completes the process of charging your cardholders and remitting payment to your business. In most cases, you have the option of setting your POS device to automatically settle your transactions daily.

Yes, the funds will not be available to you unless you process the settlement.

A credit is a refund issued by you to a legitimate customer due to a return, cancellation of a sale, or entry error. This transaction reduces your day’s processing total. Your customer typically receives returned funds within 2 business days; however, this timeframe depends on the issuing bank’s policies.

A credit is required when a customer returns merchandise or cancels a sale and requests a refund on the amount of the return. You should process the credit through your POS system if the original transaction was electronically deposited.

No. But even if it is your store policy not to issue credits, your customer has the right to seek reimbursement through chargeback procedures. If your store incurs excessive chargebacks, you may be required to pay additional fees, and, in extreme cases, have your right to accept Visa or MasterCard revoked.

A chargeback occurs when a consumer disputes a transaction found on their account and requests a refund from their credit card company. The merchant is billed by its acquiring bank, which has been billed initially by the card issuer. A chargeback fee, often up to $25, is charged per incident to the merchant, which is not refundable regardless of the outcome of the dispute. The acquiring bank will charge the merchant a fee for the retrieval of information, and if it is determined that the customer is right, there will be another fee for the chargeback itself. The customer will be refunded their money directly through the credit card company and your checking account will be debited. Eventually, if your account has excessive chargebacks, the bank may choose to cancel your account. So, the more you do to protect yourself against chargebacks, the better off you will be.

Yes, if the customer has a valid dispute with the charge in question and you do not provide the necessary documentation and/or satisfactorily remedy the situation. If, however, the customer doesn’t have a valid dispute and you complied with processing regulations, you may not be liable. If the chargeback is found to have been in error, a merchant will be granted a reversal.

A chargeback to the merchant may occur when a cardholder does not recognize the transaction or disputes the following:

• Participation in the transaction or sale.
• Performance and/or quality of the merchandise or services.
• Delivery of the merchandise and/or services.
• Breach of any term, condition, representation, and warranty of the transaction.
• Amount of the charge.

This is not a comprehensive list but contains the most common chargeback reasons.

Most often, the first stage of a chargeback procedure comes in the form of a ‘retrieval request.’ A retrieval request is a request from a card-issuing bank to see an original, photocopy or fax of a sales draft to prove the validity of the sale. If one of your customers disputes a sale, you will receive a letter of notification and be requested to send a copy of the signed copy of the draft or other information to your processor.

In most cases, if your records are complete and you have complied with credit card regulations, you can successfully contest chargebacks. It is also possible that the initiation of a chargeback will cause the cardholder’s bank to withdrawal funds from your bank account. Please note that you would be notified by letter after your account has been debited. This is why we always encourage merchants to maintain a balance in their accounts.

You are required to locate the signed copy of the draft, or other requested information, and send a copy of it to your processor within the time allowed. Failure to do so will result in a chargeback due to non-receipt of requested item. Your credit card processors may request copies up to three years following the date of sale.

For all transaction types:

• Check the expiration date and do not accept expired cards.
• Obtain authorization for the full amount of the sale.
• If a card is declined, do not continue to get an authorization.
• Include a customer service telephone number in the billing name that appears on your customer’s bank statement.

For Card-Present Transactions:

• Do not accept a card that appears to have been altered.
• Do not accept any cards which have not been signed.
• Verify that the card number and signature on the receipt matches the number and signature on the card.
• If you manually key in a card number, get a manual imprint of the card.
• Return policies must be printed on the sales receipt close to the signature line.
• Be on the lookout for the following suspicious behavior:
  • Customer makes indiscriminate purchases without regard to size, style, color, or price.
  • Customer makes purchases, leaves the establishment, and returns to make additional purchases.
  • Customer hurries you to complete the sale at closing time.
  • Customer refuses free delivery for large items.

For Card-Not-Present Transactions:

• Confirm the customer’s card number and obtain the customer’s signature on an order form.
• Ship goods only to the cardholder’s billing address and obtain a signed proof of delivery from the shipper for delivered goods.
• Never charge a cardholder’s card until the goods have been shipped.
• Pay special attention to international purchases since they have a greater risk of credit card fraud.
• Use security features such as AVS to verify the billing address and ZIP code, and CVV2 to verify that the consumer is in possession of the card.
• Make the warranty and return policies clear on your Web site, in e-mail and other correspondence.

No. Our services will never cost more than what you are currently paying; and, in many cases, you may save money by switching from your current processor. Your NMA representative will request your current credit card statements and present you a thorough cost-saving analysis.

National Merchant Alliance has a powerful, online reporting suite called Resource Online. With this web-based reporting you can review daily batch and transaction detail, reconcile daily deposits, conduct a search by date or card number or transaction amount, view monthly statements online, and much more. You have the option to elect to receive either emailed or paper statements at the end of each month, too.

PCI-DSS is an acronym for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. PCI-DSS is a set of security standards created by the Payment Card Industry Security Council, which is comprised of the major credit card companies (American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa International), to protect their customers from identity theft and security breaches. Under PCI-DSS, a business or organization should be able to assure their customers that its credit card data/account information and transaction information is safe from hackers or any malicious system intrusion. To find out more about PCI-DSS, visit www.pcisecuritystandards.com.

Interchange is the percentage rate and transaction fee charged to merchants to process credit/debit card transactions. Interchange is priced at the transaction level and depends upon the combination of industry category code, the method by which cards are accepted (i.e.: swiped, hand-keyed, e-commerce, etc.), the card product, and sometimes even varies by transaction size. All banks and merchant processing companies operate from the exact same Interchange, Dues and Assessment costs.

Dues & Assessments are processing fees merchants pay to the Card Associations (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc.) to finance their roles in the following:

• Operating the network
• Setting rules
• Setting pricing
• R&D (develop new technology, combat fraud, etc.)
• Marketing/Branding

They are a set percentage of the sale and are generally collected on monthly basis. Additionally, on the last day of the month, the merchant is assessed additional fees which may include charges for reporting, authorizations, international or cross border transactions, etc.

The rates vary based on the amount of risk involved in the transaction. The lowest rates will always be the ones where the customer is present and the card is swiped and a receipt signed in a face-to-face transaction. The credit card companies view these types of transactions to be fairly low in risk for fraud, whereas internet transactions and transactions where orders are taken by phone or mail are generally considered higher risk since the customer is not present and the card is not in hand.

A stored value program allows you to offer your customers a pre-loaded card with value for future purchases. Although there are many different applications for stored value cards (gift card, merchandise return, pre-pay), they all share some common components:

• Magnetic Stripe Cards – The merchant gives a consumer an electronic stored value card in exchange for some kind of pre- payment. Typically, the card includes a magnetic stripe, the merchant’s name or logo and an account number.
• Transaction Processing – The merchant can process stored value transactions from the point of sale. These transactions are delivered to NMA’s authorization system for processing in real-time, which is where account balances are maintained for all cards.
• Merchant Reporting – You will receive reporting that provides information about the transactions processed during a period of time and the outstanding balances of your customer.

Contact National Merchant Alliance’s expert Customer Solutions Representatives at 1.800.707.4095. Anyone who answers the phone will be able to assist you.

A merchant account is set up with a financial institution to allow you to accept credit card payments directly from your customers. All money collected through your merchant account is deposited directly into your business checking account within 2 to 4 business days (48 hours for Visa, Mastercard, and Discover; 72 hours for American Express).

You need a merchant account if you want to take credit card payments from your clients using your own business name, and have the money deposited directly into your business checking account. A merchant application must be filled out, signed, and approved in order to set up a merchant account. This application serves as a contract with National Merchant Alliance, via Chase Paymentech or First Data, for merchant payment processing services.

Visa, MasterCard, and Discover come standard with every account. In addition, you will be able to have access to debit and American Express at your request.

If you have an existing American Express service establishment number, this needs to be provided to us on the merchant application; or you can elect to apply for an American Express account (also on the merchant application) and National Merchant Alliance will handle the account set up on your behalf.

From the time we receive your application, it generally takes between three and five days to receive your approval. If you are ordering equipment (terminal, PIN pad, card reader), it is shipped out upon approval, and will generally reach you within five business days. You can begin processing as soon as your POS device(s) have been configured.

We have an average 98% approval rate, so it’s very unlikely that you wouldn’t get approved. We will go over all the details of your business before you apply, so we will do our best to be sure that you will get approved.

Funds are deposited directly into your business checking account (via ACH) typically within 2 business days.

No, this practice is known as “credit card laundering” or “factoring.” It is against Card Brand operating rules. Using someone else’s merchant account to process your credit card transactions can lead to heavy fines and other severe penalties. In addition, you’ll also put that merchant’s credit card processing account in jeopardy.

Call the voice authorization center and request a “Code 10” authorization. By saying, “I have a ‘Code 10’ authorization,” you put the center on alert without letting the customer know you are suspicious. The center will give you further instructions.