Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Are You Being Scammed by the PCI Compliance Fee?

Torrance, CA. - [b]Merchant Solutions[/b], a premier provider of merchant accounts and credit card processing solutions has broken the mold for credit card processing.

Lately there have been reports of processors that are starting to charge their customers $19.95 per month for not being PCI compliant. To fix this problem, these processors are requiring their customers to install some PC based scanning software that is supposed to magically make the business PCI compliant, thereby allowing them to avoid the monthly charge.

[b]Let me start out by saying: This is a scam[/b] Reputable processors will have already paid this fee for their merchants, do your due diligence and shop for the right merchant processor.

There is nothing that you can just put on your PC that will make your business PCI compliant. This is so far off course that it hardly can be related to PCI. PCI compliance is in reference to networks, computers, hardware and software that play a part in the processing, storage, or transfer of a credit card transaction.

It is now required that every business be PCI compliant, but let me assure you that there is no simple computer program that will do this for any business. Even if only a single computer is used to enter card data, it is unlikely that it is the only piece of the puzzle, and even more unlikely that a single piece of software can guarantee PCI compliance.

Steps to get compliant:

1. Determine whether you need to be PCI compliant. (If you accept credit cards, or play any part in the processing of a credit card, you need to be PCI compliant.)

2. Determine which Level of compliance is required for your business.

* Level 1: Greater than 6 million credit card transactions per year or any business that has suffered a hack or data breach, or any business deemed Level 1 by card associations. * Level 2: 1 to 6 Million credit card transactions per year. * Level 3: 20K to 1 Million credit card transactions per year. * Level 4: Less than 20K ecommerce, or 1 Million total transactions per year.

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