These portable credit-card processing doohickeys Square, Intuit whatchamacallit, etc.

[Daniel Stone]

Anyone use one of these?

Got me thinking... I've seen some larger camera shops on ebay that state they DO NOT accept payment via Paypal, only through credit cards(I'm assuming you call them and do it over the phone?)... Well anyhow, I've noticed some coffee shops here in LA that are using them now, and seem to be loved by customers and the business owners, simply because they only charge a per-transaction fee, no daily fee, no monthly fee, etc...

So... what's the deal? Anyone heard anything other than some scumbags who've used them to "skim" credit cards, I'm just looking at this as an option if I continue to sell @ the local monthly camera show(since ya'll are tight wads it seems lately ).... No matter.

thoughts or advice on these? This would be only used as a secondary option to cash transactions for in-person deals...

thanks,

Dan

Intuit's "GoPayment"
http://payments.intuit.com/merchant-...NS-3426UD.html

Square reader
https://squareup.com/reader

[Jon Shiu]

Paypal been advertising a card reader. Seems like an easy option if need swiping.

Jon

[Jehu]

Square is inexpensive, reliable and exceptionally easy to set up. The module for Droid and iPhone is free.

[Zaitz]

I used payanywhere once and thought it worked fantastic. Set up is free. They send the card reader to you for free. Setting up the items is easy and making transactions is easy. Funds go to your bank account and the transaction fee is less than Paypals 3%.

http://www.payanywhere.com/

[Greg Blank]

For many years I processed CC's using a bank, until the day the bank decided to start charging 30+ per month regardless of transactions or not+ any transaction fees. Anything though can be a business expense and a deduction or an absorbed cost. I use PP and a lot pf people prefer it because no information is exchanged, for me not keeping peoples CC information on file is a plus. There are successful businesses I know of that don't accept credit cards, only cash or cash like transactions. Square is ok the percent they charge is similar to pay pal.

[eddie]

i use gopayment on my iphone. free if you do small transactions (still have to pay the 3% or what ever but no monthly vig). if you do more then you pay per month plus %. still not bad.

i have intuits payment stuff for a while as well. got tired of the monthly payment for the rarely used service .

i am setting up an e commerce site soon so i am not sure what i will use then....maybe intuit but i may have to pay monthly again as i plan (hope) to be making WAY more money......

eddie

if I continue to sell @ the local monthly camera show(since ya'll are tight wads it seems lately )
Dan

YEAH! what Dan said! go to e bay and "steal" my lenses there please....one day left!

[Daniel Stone]

got a quick question for ya'll...

So I signed up for the Intuit GoPayment reader, but it seems that some people have experienced non-compatibility with the type of phone I have, T-Mobile/HTC MyTouch 4g....

so, I might have to look for a new phone(staying with T-Mobile), does anyone here use the Intuit GP reader(grey one) with an Android-based phone? If so, which model? Seems the "compatible devices" list on the Intuit site doesn't seem to be very reliable, as some of the models listed have been "problematic" in one way or another.

P.S. I'm still waiting to receive the reader to actually try it in-person, hopefully it'll arrive soon, and I can test it out. Just putting out a feeler to see if other Android-OS phone models have good reliability with this particular reader.

thanks,

Dan

[Sylvester Graham]

Reports of skimming are from the early days when readers like square did not encrypt. Now, any reputable reader, including square, encrypts on swipe and there's no way for anyone to access the #, including you. Of course, I'm not a computer scientist but I did spend quite a while researching mobile card swipes, and I can tel you most are encrypted now. Unless your running a serious business with over 10k a month in charges, go with an encrypted reader with the lowest swipe %. Forget readers that charge a monthly service charge--again I don't know what kind of business your running but if you don't make that many sales why bother risking LOSING money. Also watch out for readers that have a cancellation fee or hidden surcharge if a monthly minumum isn't met.

[Daniel Stone]

I'm not running a "business" per se, but I have an abundance of camera equipment I'm trying to liquidate, so going to the local camera shows is a great place to get things offloaded(if people are willing to buy). I figured that if splitting the ~3% fee with the customer gets me a sale, its better than no sale at all... Most people aren't walking around @ these shows with $600 cash in their pocket, but you'd be surprised. But being able to take credit cards for those that don't (I had a few people turn away when I said I wasn't able to take them YET), so those might have been sales...

And since the setup was FREE, cancelling my account is FREE, the fees are relatively negligible, I feel its a win-win proposition for everyone. I still like cash in hand, but this is an electronic world we live in, so I have to adapt if I want to be able to keep things going...

thanks for the tips though amilne, I researched the various offerings before settling on the GoPayment from Intuit

-Dan

now only if my current device will work, I hate "upgrading" if it isn't really necessary...

[Sylvester Graham]

Oops, missed your post above mine. In all honesty I expect traditional wired card swipers to disappear from metro areas in a few years. Current businesses might keep them, but the things cost $500 new and you need software+merchant account to run them.