Help and Support in a Tech sense of the words

Why InstaMerchant.com and FirstData.com are bad for small business

2011-05-18T12:53:00.005-05:00

My experience with Instamerchant.com and FirstData.com has been overall quite a disappointment.It's cost me way too much time, and way too much money just to accept payment through credit cards.

Sign Up.With instamerchant and firstdata it's a lengthy process that takes days not minutes. The process included a credit check, and literally pages of forms for me to fill out and fax. If I sign up for PayPal.com or the new SquareUp.com, I'm done with the forms on a webpage in a few minues. Every service I've tried has a verification period to do some test ACH deposits and withdrawals. Those take a couple business days- that's across the board. The aforementioned instamerchant / firstdata combination took close to 30 minutes just for the paperwork and faxing. You need to download various forms, put your personal information on them, then sign and fax them to the proper numbers. Why can't that process be up to date like Google's, PayPal's or Square's??

Contracts. With instamerchant and firstdata there was a 6 month contract. When you sign up, you get hit with a fee, and again when you want to cancel, there's a "cancellation fee" of $30! With Paypal, Google, or Square- no contract! This will be a no-brainer after reading this article.

Fees This is the biggest game-killer of all the reasons not to sign up with Instamerchant / First Data.
The fees for a small business that does a low volume of card transactions are HUGE. The last month (April) Broadview accepted CC payments through Instamerchant / First Data, there were $536.80 of transactions run through this (dis)service, and a total of $110.00 in fees taken from the company's account (before the cancellation fee was charged). $110 is 20.5% of the gross sales. Add a $30 cancellation fee and now the total fees charged becomes 26% of the gross payments! This is outrageous and just plain ridiculous.

Paypal, Google, and SquareUp charge FLAT RATES. If you don't use the service, you don't pay for it!!
Paypal fee percentages do vary from 2.9% down to 1.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Google Checkout fees also vary from 2.9% down to 1.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Square Up fee percentage for swiped transactions is a flat 2.75% for a swiped transaction, OR 3.5% plus 15 cents for a manually entered payment. NONE of these services charge "gateway fees"(for the privilege of using the service?), "statement fees" ($9.95 to mail you a statement?? Stamps are only 44 cents right now I think, paper is 3-4 cents per page, ink is another penny or two per page, the computer that generates the statement works for FREE- minus electricity), "customer service fees"( to maintain the call center in India?). this was not a comprehensive list of all the reasons these people can conjure up to take money out of your small business' bank account.

More Fees. Recently another fee has come in to play. The PCI compliance fee- another $20 a month until you sit down for an hour long phone conversation with a company called Security Metrics Inc contracted to FirstData to ensure PCI compliance of all its customers. I repeatedly told the rep I'm canceling the service yet he seemed to ignore that and kept calling. The calls were similar to dunning like a bill collector to complete this unnecessary interview. I think all in all I wasted about an hour and 15 minutes listening to this guy jabber on asking questions about if and how credit card information is stored. After the third call I started just hanging up on the guy, then another day and I received a call from a supervisor. I told the supervisor the same thing- I'm canceling the account. He stated the rep didn't relay that information to him and apologized for the calls. I haven't heard from them since.

The effects of all this time and money wasted on paying unnecessary fees and wasting time on documentation will vary according to what type of business you have. But trust me, it's surely better spent on more constructive activities. I will never again sign up to do business with a payment gateway service that runs under an antiquated model such as this. I regret ever signing up to be gouged like this. And I will never recommend doing business with either firstdata or instamerchant to any friends- or even worst enemies.

Disclaimer- None. I don't work for Paypal, Google, or Square Up. I see they're doing a good thing for small business. And I wish them the best of luck in their business ventures. Two of the three are already wildly successful, and I think the third is on its way to join the others.

Large file transfers

2011-04-24T23:34:00.001-05:00

Anyone need to transfer large files that you just can't quite force feed to your email server?
Well check out a great free online service called Dropbox!
www.dropbox.com

What's all the Ruckus?

2011-04-01T13:49:00.012-05:00

What's inside the Ruckus MM2211 Metro Broadband Wireless Gateway? Two PCBs, one for the main board, and another for the antennas. Here's how I disassembled mine and what I found inside.

**Broadview Technology Solutions, LLC and or myself take NO RESPONSIBILITY for the safety of you or your equipment. Do not try this with your own device. Perform these steps at your own risk.**

Here's the front view of the Ruckus ..

First, peel back the edges of the long sticker on the rear of the device. Remove them with a size 10 security star bit. That's the only tool you'll need to open this device.

Next, gently peel up the orange / white sticker on the front top center of the device and remove another screw.

Gently pry off the top portion of the cover to expose the antenna PCB. (Shown is both a front and rear view of the antenna board)

Then flip it over and pulled off the two front pads which cover the last two mounting screws.

Remove the screws and gently lift off the bottom part of the case to expose the radio PCB.

Now all the internals are loose to lay out and have a look at. Here are the two PCBs displayed. There's an 8 pin ribbon cable between the two boards, and an U.FL end of one cable that connects to the radio board. The onboard memory is an Etron Technology EM639165TS-6G 8MB chip. Under the silver plate, there's an Atheros AR2315A-001 IC which provides the access point functionality (32-bit MIPS R4000-class processor, Wireless MAC and baseband processing engine, 10/100 Ethernet MAC, High speed UART, 16-bit configurable local bus, Integrated analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, SDRAM and serial FLASH memory interface, with a PCI 2.3 host interface). Next to the Atheros chip cover there's also a 5 pin header most likely for programming the onboard NVRAM. Between the RJ-45 port and the 10 pin header (8 pins seem to be used) there's a Delta Discreet LAN Filter LFE8563. Near the right edge there's an ST branded 25P64V6P 64Mbit low voltage flash memory chip featuring an SPI Bus compatible serial interface, 50MHz clock rate (max), and boasting 20 yr data retention.

The customers I've done work for that have one of these devices are generally unhappy with the speed, and reliability of them. The latency and ping time leave much to be desired. But hey- it is after all "wireless internet". There are a few other wireless providers (ahem-TMOBILE-ahem) that frustrate me to no end with the huge 4 digit ping times and intermittent data service.
I think the general population expects some of that.

Any comments are welcome, please share your experience - positive or negative with this device. Thanks!

New Office!

2011-03-18T14:59:00.003-05:00

We've got a new office at 1000 E 146th St in Burnsville! A little more elbow room never hurt anyone did it? We've got more space to work on PCs, TVs, and store inventory!

To celebrate the move to our new location, the firm is currently offering “Free support Fridays”, where computer owners can bring their systems in and get free help with basic computer problems that they're having. Do you need some memory installed? Another hard drive installed in your desktop? Need the inside of your PC or laptop cleaned out so it runs cooler? Need your registry cleaned? Broadview Technology Solutions will give you 15 minutes of free computer support (longer if no one is waiting) to help cure what ails you and your computer. Free Support Fridays are held at the Broadview Technology Solutions office every first and third Friday of the month.

Have an awesome day!

First Android Phone Virus!

2010-11-12T00:28:00.003-06:00

So yes, you might consider that antivirus program for your Android phone! Ok so far it's only struck people in Russia... most likely that's where it originated from, and the author of the code just released it in to the wild.

Here's the story...
http://www.fastcompany.com/1680011/android-gets-its-first-ever-virus-youre-a-mandroid-my-son

Changing Hosting Providers

2010-11-05T12:53:00.005-05:00

Yesterday ... the entire day was spent moving our website from Domains Priced Right to our new host HostMonster. As soon as I started calling for support purposes, the little doubt I had left in my mind about the move was swept away. Multiple support phone calls to Domains Priced Right's long distance number were answered in an average of 6-8 minutes. Repeated calls to HostMonster's toll free number were answered in an average of 1-2 minutes.

The main reason we decided to make the switch was that our payment gateway provider First Data needs port 1109 opened for the web server to establish a connection and transmit the credit card transaction data such as card number, CVV code, and expiration date to First Data. Domains Priced Right salespeople stated we needed to upgrade to a more costly solution in order to have this port open. HostMonster sales said all that's needed is for us to purchase a static IP address and then they will open port 1109 for us. This solution resulted in only approximately a 50% increase in monthly costs, whereas Domains Priced Right's solution would result in approximately a 700% increase in monthly costs!!

Unfortunately during the transfer process I missed a crucial step to ensure greater uptime. Best practice dictates that you should change your DNS servers to your new host's addresses before you initiate the domain registrar transfer. One step missed equals an important lesson learned and now possibly up to a week of unreliable DNS info which may cause service interruption!! So... anyone who is thinking about jumping ship from one host to another please learn from my mistake!

Windows 7

2009-09-19T20:23:00.002-05:00

So after pretty much completely skipping an install of Vista after hearing most customers complain on and on about the OS, I've decided to skip getting to know Vista intimately and just dig in to Windows 7. Waiting on my hardware to arrive via snailmail... ever so patiently. :-)

RNC St.Paul, Minnesota State Fair, and Google Chrome

2008-09-02T14:50:00.003-05:00

What an embarrassment. Google... the giant of search engines releases its new Chrome browser, and it can't be downloaded. Am I wrong in this statement? Trying to download the new browser with IE and with FF brings errors in both browsers!
This is the link I'm using but ... anyone else having the same issue?
gears.google.com/chrome/?hl=en

Hopefully this will be corrected within the hour.

And ah yes... once again... the Minnesota state fair. Anyone else want to wade through this mess?
Amy tried the spaghetti on a stick and was quite impressed I believe. I may post some videos later.

Waiting for the protest in St.Paul at the Republican NationalConvention to get ugly... is anyone else? Why is there no local news coverage of this? A friend of mine is attending in person and says there's a million cops around keeping watch. That's not news worthy???

-Matt
4MCC.NET

Down Time

2008-03-10T17:08:00.002-05:00

Surfing for broken laptops and PCs to repair and sell at a profit is getting tougher. I think more and more guys out there are getting the same ideas. The labor which is 90% of my usable income is somewhat scarce lately... so the "dumpster surfing" is getting the best of my down time. Alread done with my homework... so not much left to do after that. Ah well, onward and upward right?! Keeping my nose to the grind stone.

-Matt
4MCC.NET

2008-01-28T19:23:00.001-06:00

Remote access is such a great thing. Saves me so much time , and that valuable commodity (approaching $3,274.91 and 9/10ths of a cent) that we call gasoline. How would we ever provide support without it again? :)

-Matt
4MCC.NET

A mesh of business and pleasure

2008-01-24T18:16:00.000-06:00

Combining family life and work gets messy. Using an old iMac with iCal to try to straighten things out. So far, so good. Got an opportunity to do a simple job today, but I had to turn it down. Previous engagements for better pay. :) I think that's the first job I've declined in months. Just still feels wrong in a way.

-Matt
4MCC.NET

Leads

2008-01-23T12:49:00.000-06:00

Lead generation is so time consuming for me. Posting locally, having to sit in front of my pr0n generator and type tediously tiptoeing through the rest of the 5.4billion other ads for the same type of service I provide to seek out a niche` in which to nest my site neatly. Anyone else with me here? I have "big plans" to add a whiteboard in my office at home to more efficiently organize my organic outbursts of things to do to further my "evil empire" also known as my spare bedroom. Hopefully wallyworld or the local free classifieds will provide a very cost effective solution.

-Matt
4MCC.NET

Brother Laser Printer

2008-01-21T19:12:00.000-06:00

Ran across an interesting new (to me) piece of technology. A Brother brand laser all-in-one, which had an actual waste toner bin which the user is responsible for emptying! Why is this?! Wouldn't you think that now in this day and age, we'd have technology efficient enough to NOT HAVE WASTED INK?! I guess it's Brother's way of selling more toner cartridges! They should really figure out a "greener" way to do this. Besides, the end user was stuck guessing at what the error message had to do with.

-Matt
4MCC.NET