From: Hannah, Joan T (jhannah@radford.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 30 2003 - 12:51:28 EST
Stuart,
We use an outside company called PhoneCharge, Inc. to process credit
card payments via touchtone and the web. We accept Visa, Mastercard and
Discover. PhoneCharge charges a convenience fee to the card holder.
The convenience fee is a set amount depending on the dollar amount
charged, although this will be changing soon since Visa recently
published new regulations. According the new Visa regs the convenience
fee charged to the card holder for making a payment through an
"alternative payment method", should be a fixed or flat fee regardless
of the amount paid. Therefore, beginning Feb. 1 PhoneCharge will be
charging a flat fee of $30 for all credit card payments on Visa,
Mastercard and Discover. PhoneCharge based our flat fee on our payment
activity in 2002. PhoneCharge will review our activity every three
months to make sure the convenience fee is appropriate.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions.
Joan T. Hannah
Manager, Student Accounts
P.O. Box 6922
Radford, VA 24142
540 831 5504
jhannah@radford.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart B. Warner [mailto:swarner@wnec.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 11:30 AM
To: bursar-l@virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Credit Card Fees
We are stopping accepting credit cards due to the close to $200,000 in
fees we have to pay. We got very little bad response from our
traditional, full-time students. Transient, part-time students are
having a tougher time. Even so, we think we have come out way ahead.
We are currently investigating what it means to use a third party
processor via phone or weblink to accept cards. That way we get the
benefit, and the processor gets to charge their fee for the service and
cover the credit card fee. We don't have a lot of information, yet, on
how much a stand alone processor charges the school. Any input would be
appreciated.
Stuart Warner
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