It’s always on the business to have correct change, it’s a basic function of doing business to be able to break bills for proper payment. That’s like saying that, if they accepted credit cards as payment, their reader only allowed for payments in increments of $20 when your total was $51. They certainly wouldn’t make up such an excuse and force you to pay $60. It definitely sounds like they’re doing business in bad faith.
Clover CAN be a great system. It largely depends on what you need. Aside from Square, just about every system/processor will typically have an associated monthly cost. If you’re only looking for a card reader with no inventory maintenance, bells and whistles, or features, something like Square is typically one of your more cost-effective options if you’re running less than $2-3k monthly (unless you’re primarily taking debit cards). I actually just started my own small processing company after leaving my former company, so I’d be more than happy to break it down for you over the phone and answer any questions you may have. Best of luck to you!
Tons of companies offer it these days. They do it in one of three ways.
They gouge you on “equipment fees” or monthly hardware costs.
They set you up with a surcharge program, which is capped at 3% due to the Visa police. It covers most of your costs most of the time. How it works: you have a good/service at $100. If a customer pays cash, it stays $100. If they pay card (excluding debit cards, you CANNOT surcharge debit cards), the cost is adjusted to $103.
A cash-discount/ dual-pricing system. Essentially you have a cash and a card price for any given item. The cap for the difference is set at 4%. In this case, if a customer buys an item ticket priced at $100, they pay that price with a card. If paying cash, the cost is reduced to $96 to avoid overcharging cash-paying customers.
It’s SUPER important to make sure that you notify the card processing companies of your intention to surcharge, as a first offense is a fine of $1,000, and it scales rapidly from there if you’re found to be non-compliant. If you have any questions at all, feel free to let me know. 🙂 This is in no way solicitation or an advertisement, but I own my own small credit card processing company, and I know my way around the rules, and what a good or bad deal looks like. Best of luck!
I offer two services.
First, I work in credit card processing offering wholesale cost-based pricing for all of my partners, and I try to qualify them for free terminals via the bank I work with.
Second, a business partner and I recently launched a LinkTree-esque platform which can be monetized, allows you to build a customer contact list, and offers LinkTree premium features for free.
Hoping to hear from some of you guys soon to see if it’d make sense to do business together!
ihero.app/anthony