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<channel>
	<title>Carrington Fisk</title>
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	<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/</link>
	<description>Certified Payments Professional &#38; POS Expert</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 03:09:14 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
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	<item>
		<title>Core Competencies</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/core-competencies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=core-competencies</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 03:09:14 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Growth]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1331</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Today I was on a meet with a group looking for a processing partner for their software. It had great potential... until the meeting started. It was clear from the beginning what this group was looking for was instant payouts in a gig-style environment. My message was clear - our core competency is in debit [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/core-competencies/">Core Competencies</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Today I was on a meet with a group looking for a processing partner for their software. It had great potential&#8230; until the meeting started. It was clear from the beginning what this group was looking for was instant payouts in a gig-style environment. My message was clear &#8211; our core competency is in debit and credit card processing. As the conversation progressed over the next few minutes, it was plain to all that it wasn&#8217;t a fit.</p>
<p>It got me thinking about <strong>competence</strong>.</p>
<p>It made me think of the Bobs from Office Space&#8230; they missed the mark. Instead of &#8220;What is it you say you do here?&#8221; it should have been &#8220;What is it you say you do really well here?&#8221;.</p>
<p>My core competency &#8211; what is it? If I were face to face (I guess it would actually be face-to-face-to-face) with the Bobs &#8211; what is it that I say I do really well?</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not much of a braggart, but I&#8217;m certainly not concerned about being unnecessarily humble.</p>
<p>There are very few people who are as good as I am at supporting, coaching, and unlocking MOTIVATED payments professionals and payments team leaders.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s my core competency.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve decided to embrace this.</p>
<p>I work with a small team now and will be adding 5-7 new agents or agent groups (train the trainer style environment) through the end of 2023.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been very hesitant to &#8220;put myself out there&#8221;. Some of that may be imposter syndrome. Surely some of that hesitance is my love of privacy and being under the radar. After all, my dream weekend is sleeping in a hammock under the stars and cooking over an open fire.</p>
<p>With no idea who actually visits this site or who reads my musings, I&#8217;ll say this. If you&#8217;re a payments leader (VP, DD, DM, TL, TM, etc) looking to shed the hamster wheel or if you&#8217;re a quota-carrying sales rep with a desire to unlock <strong>real</strong> residual income, <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/chat">let&#8217;s chat and see if it&#8217;s possible I&#8217;m a fit for you and you&#8217;re a fit for me</a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/core-competencies/">Core Competencies</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Completely Avoidable $40,000 Loss from Local Business</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/completely-avoidable-40000-loss-from-local-business/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=completely-avoidable-40000-loss-from-local-business</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Oct 2022 18:35:25 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[refunds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[theft]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1315</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>An Orange County salon had nearly $40,000 in losses from a completely avoidable theft. You see, this garbage person didn't go for the cash register, they went for something else. Thieves aren't stupid. They know that merchants are taking 90-100% of their revenue electronically and the opportunity to snag a register full of cash is [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/completely-avoidable-40000-loss-from-local-business/">Completely Avoidable $40,000 Loss from Local Business</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>An Orange County salon had nearly $40,000 in losses from a completely avoidable theft.</p>
<p>You see, this garbage person didn&#8217;t go for the cash register, they went for something else.</p>
<p>Thieves aren&#8217;t stupid. They know that merchants are taking 90-100% of their revenue electronically and the opportunity to snag a register full of cash is one that went away even before the Covid nonsense.</p>
<p>Security footage from The Grand salon in downtown Brea showed the thief entering the store and instead of going to the cash register, they went for the payment processing terminal. The theft, while non-traditional, was completely avoidable &#8211; I&#8217;ll tell you how in a second, but first, let&#8217;s discuss what the thief did.</p>
<p>They snagged the payment terminal and then, from the comfort of their own home or some other location, they proceeded to electronically steal money in a very difficult to trace way. For those of you who are concerned that this information could be used for new would-be theives to do the same thing and are mad at me for explaining it&#8230; tough. First, not too many people (😢) read this. Second, it&#8217;s avoidable and if you&#8217;re worried about it, you can just process with me and I&#8217;ll prevent this from happening.</p>
<h2>How This Thief Stole $40,000 from The Grand salon in Brea</h2>
<p>In payment processing there are sales and there are refunds. When you make a sale, the balance is deducted from the available balance linked to the card. For a debit card it comes out of your bank account. For a credit card it goes against the account spending limit. For a gift card, it goes against the ledger balance available.</p>
<p>Refunds work in reverse. Pretty simple, right?</p>
<p>This thief used prepaid Visa cards. When you issue a refund to a Visa gift card, it increases the available balance.</p>
<p>They grabbed the credit card terminal and proceeded to process several refunds to prepaid Visa cards and then, we assume, they used those cards at other establishments in the area or more likely, purchased goods online. If they bought locally, they probably masked up like a good little sheeple so they could protect their health (🙄) while hiding their face from security cameras.</p>
<h2>How to Avoid Refund Theft</h2>
<p>That&#8217;s what they did. Frankly, it&#8217;s pretty smart. It&#8217;s hard to trace, and the opporutnity size is much larger than a cash drawer.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this merchant&#8217;s processor is inept &#8211; like completely.</p>
<p>Earlier I discussed refunds and how they impact different card types. There are two ways to keep this from happening and it&#8217;s embarrassing that this merchant&#8217;s payment processor didn&#8217;t enable these settings:</p>
<ol>
<li>First, you ALWAYS have a manger password enabled for refunds. Yes, ALWAYS.  This way, unless that person is given the password, they can&#8217;t issue a refund. Can that create another step during a busy day? Yes. Can it prevent theft like this? Yes, unless they&#8217;re an employee who has the password &#8211; proceed to #2.</li>
<li>Second, we ALWAYS disabling unreferenced refunds. If it&#8217;s an old terminal that&#8217;s out of date, we replace it. If it&#8217;s a virtual terminal, smart terminal, or gateway linked device, we disable it on the back end. Also, our processing accounts have risk flags for unreferenced refunds above a total threshold. An unreferenced refund is a refund amount that is not linked to a sale on that specific card. If I walk in and purchase $10 with my Visa card ending in 2009 then the most I can have refunded to that card is $10. Otherwise, it is unreferenced and it will fail. The only time I enable unreferenced refunds is in the first week of a business going live with me. I&#8217;ve made exceptions in the past for merchants with a longer receivables cycle, but again, that&#8217;s a conversation they have with me and something we still monitor aggressively. See #3 below.</li>
<li>Third, we have negative batch flags in place. We place automatic risk holds on negative batches. If you meant to do it, no problem &#8211;  you can tell me that yourself.</li>
</ol>
<p>Y&#8217;all think that your bank is a good partner for payments. You&#8217;re wrong.</p>
<p>Bankers wouldn&#8217;t know what #2 or #3 are. They&#8217;re not experts, they&#8217;re not trained and frankly, they&#8217;re not focused on payments.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve trained hundreds of not over 1,000 payment processing salespeople and sadly most of them wouldn&#8217;t know this because they washed out too quickly or didn&#8217;t take this seriously as a career. You would be shocked at how many people treat this as a side hustle and not their occupation.</p>
<p>Kick them to the curb and upgrade your partnership.</p>
<p><a href="https://ktla.com/news/local-news/thief-uses-stolen-credit-card-machine-to-steal-40k-from-orange-county-salon/?fbclid=IwAR0dv3ESeWgJqLoTOVB35zwJr6er4BtivL1ba1oAddAbLcf-k9hv3cLl5yI">Link to article</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/completely-avoidable-40000-loss-from-local-business/">Completely Avoidable $40,000 Loss from Local Business</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>The Trouble with Crypto</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/the-trouble-with-crypto/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-trouble-with-crypto</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 05 Jun 2022 05:52:05 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1300</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>As a Libertarian, I love Crypto. I am excited about a currency that is difficult if not impossible to manipulate and isn't held hostage by the whims of political breezes. That said, crypto is scary for small business owners as a currency option. You may not know this, but I owned a pizzeria from 2015 [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/the-trouble-with-crypto/">The Trouble with Crypto</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As a Libertarian, I love Crypto. I am excited about a currency that is difficult if not impossible to manipulate and isn&#8217;t held hostage by the whims of political breezes. That said, crypto is scary for small business owners as a currency option. You may not know this, but I owned a pizzeria from 2015 to 2019. During that time, being in Cheshire County, NH, we accepted BitCoin. NH is the self-professed crypto capital of the USA. Honestly, I had no interest in it but we had a few kitchen staff that were willing to be paid in BitCoin, so we accepted it as both a marketing opportunity and a tax reduction opportunity. Yes, I know that was probably in the &#8220;gray area&#8221;.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s just say that I wish I still had those BitCoins&#8230; during the time we accepted BTC, the price was around $5,000 and today&#8217;s price is $29,800. I would have been sitting on a LOT of profit for those pizzas we sold for BTC.</p>
<p>While it may seem exciting to 6x your money as a business owner, that same volatility is terrifying from a cashflow perspective.</p>
<p>Today is June 5, 2022 and today&#8217;s price is $29,789. On June 1, just a few days ago the price was $31,821. If you sold your pizzas and beers on June 1 and converted those sales to BTC in real time like we did (as everything on our menu was priced in dollars), you&#8217;d be on the wrong end of market speculation. Let&#8217;s walk through the numbers.</p>
<p>First, let&#8217;s say you sell $500 worth of product on June 1 that is paid for with BTC at the conversion value of $31,821. That equates to roughly 0.1571BTC. If you don&#8217;t convert that to USD (US Dollars) immediately and let&#8217;s say you wait until June 5 (today), then the value of that $500 drops to $467.99 (0.1571BTC x 29,789). That&#8217;s a loss of $32.01 or 6.42%. That may not seem like a huge difference, but it is. I&#8217;ll show you why.</p>
<p>Most restaurants operate on a 10-15% net profit margin. That means that in $500 of sales, the restaurant is only going to profit $75 on the high end. If you lose $32.01 in currency conversion losses, then you&#8217;re only netting $42.99. That&#8217;s a huge difference&#8230; 57% in fact.</p>
<p>And, that is only if BTC moves a modest 6% &#8211; it&#8217;s dropped much more in a similar amount of time in the past.</p>
<p>But what if BTC goes up?</p>
<p>Great question &#8211; if BTC goes up now you have a profit on the conversion, which means you&#8217;ve realized a short term capital gain. That means tax reporting, ordinary income tax treatment on capital gains held less than 1 year, and the cost of managing those transactional gains.</p>
<p>I love cryptocurrency. I love the blockchain even more. I see deed transfers for real estate and car titles going digital thanks to the amazing technology that is BlockChain.</p>
<p>That said, until BTC and other cryptocurrencies become less volatile relative to the USD, they aren&#8217;t an ideal currency solution. Couple that with a free-spending short-sighted administration, and BTC as good of an investment it may be for the long term, the short term volatility makes it not ideal for small businesses.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/the-trouble-with-crypto/">The Trouble with Crypto</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>Merchant Account Reserves</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/merchant-account-reserves/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=merchant-account-reserves</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 May 2022 17:37:15 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1292</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>If you've ever had reserves placed on your merchant account, you know it's a frustrating but sometimes necessary thing to enable electronic payments. A reserve is a way to manage risk for high risk transaction processing. Think of a business that sells a good product, but that product caters to emotional purchases and has a [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/merchant-account-reserves/">Merchant Account Reserves</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you&#8217;ve ever had reserves placed on your merchant account, you know it&#8217;s a frustrating but sometimes necessary thing to enable electronic payments. A reserve is a way to manage risk for high risk transaction processing. Think of a business that sells a good product, but that product caters to emotional purchases and has a lot of return volume or chargeback volume. Sometimes, to protect itself, the acquirer institutes a merchant account reserve that is like an insurance fund against unpaid claims down the road.</p>
<p>The challenge is, and what most merchants don&#8217;t know, is that reserve accounting at most ISOs is abysmal. In fact, one of the nations largest acquirers, Square, got a lot of heat for its <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/square-reserve-funds-money-withheld">policy on rolling reserves</a> in prime pandemic time. Imagine how miffed the Forbes reporter would have been if they got a peek at how lazy Square&#8217;s reserve accounting is.</p>
<p><strong>So how can you tell whether your company is managing your reserve account properly?</strong></p>
<p>How can you know whether you’re doing business with an ISO that can be trusted with fiduciary responsibility for your merchant’s reserve funds?</p>
<p>The ISO needs to be able to access the settlement platform reserve balance AND the sponsor bank account where the reserve balance is held. When you access both of these resources, your dollar amounts should be an exact match &#8211; all the time and every time. Sounds simple right?</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s go over what it means first and then I&#8217;ll scare you with how often this isn&#8217;t the way.</p>
<p>When reserve balances at the bank level and the processor ledger are the SAME, it means that we know the exact reserve balance for every single merchant subject to a reserve in our portfolio. It also means that we can drill down to each addition to or subtraction from that reserve balance for each merchant.</p>
<p>Again, simple right?</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not &#8211; it takes a few critical pieces to get merchant account reserves right and many payments companies fail miserably, albeit without malice, at managing this important piece of the business.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Lazy Accounting</strong> &#8211; rather than break out the balance of the reserve account, many payments companies track just the lump total of reserve balance instead of breaking it down into is individual pieces and components.</li>
<li><strong>Improper Accounting</strong> &#8211; this balance, whether it is tracked properly on an itemized level, or whether it is tracked as one lump number, is NOT revenue. Yet, many payments companies treat this as a revenue item instead of a contra-liablity line item (a contra account is one that offsets another account &#8211; think of how accumulated depreciation offsets the value of an asset). There are sadly many cases where this has happened and accounting &#8220;gray area&#8221; happens all too often even with public companies (think potential unfunded pension liabilities as an example). If you didn&#8217;t understand all that accounting talk, just know this &#8211; it&#8217;s no good.</li>
<li><strong>Third-Party Accounting</strong> &#8211; 99% of the agents and ISOs out there are &#8220;retail&#8221; ISOs. They don&#8217;t handle underwriting or risk and have no access to ledger accounts nor could they do anything about it if they did. They rely on their processor and don&#8217;t or can&#8217;t verify reserve balances.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Why You Should Care About Reserve Accounting</h2>
<p>Without itemized accounting of your reserve balances it&#8217;s going to feel a lot like social security payments (i.e. a Ponzi scheme). As releases are allowed, what balance are they being released against? All is well until the well runs dry.</p>
<h2>Questions to Ask About Reserve Accounting</h2>
<ul>
<li>Where are reserve funds held?<br />
<em>Answer:</em> in a controlled account with the sponsoring bank</li>
<li>How is the reserve balance verified?<br />
<em>Answer:</em> There should be a required reconciliation report to the sponsor bank on a regular basis</li>
<li>How can I see the balance for a specific merchant and a detailed ledger?<br />
<em>Answer:</em> they should provide you a report or access to view this information on your own. You can then verify this against the merchant&#8217;s statement or activity in your CRM or access system.</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/merchant-account-reserves/">Merchant Account Reserves</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>MCC Matters</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/mcc-matters/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mcc-matters</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Mar 2022 19:09:46 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[interchange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mcc]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[restaurant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[utility]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1248</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>When your business was enrolled for payment processing with your (hopefully local) sales rep, what were the questions like when it came to MCC code? They're hard to spot, but if you're dealing with a true payments professional, you're going to get some seemingly strange questions and many of them are very specific: If you're [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/mcc-matters/">MCC Matters</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When your business was enrolled for payment processing with your (hopefully local) sales rep, what were the questions like when it came to MCC code? They&#8217;re hard to spot, but if you&#8217;re dealing with a true payments professional, you&#8217;re going to get some seemingly strange questions and many of them are very specific:</p>
<h3><strong>If you&#8217;re a restaurant owner that has a bar these questions should have been asked:</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>About what percentage of your sales are coming from alcohol?</li>
<li>Are bar sales a focus item &#8211; custom cocktails, mug club, etc</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Why You Should Care:</strong><br />
The cost difference between qualifying you for 13 vs. 12 or 14 code suffixes is significant. Take out a calculator &#8211; for real, do it &#8211; and type in your monthly sales. Then multiply that number by 0.002. That&#8217;s what you would save by being coded properly.</p>
<h3><strong>If your business deals with energy production and delivery or waste management, you should have been asked:</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>What has your processor told you about utility interchange?</li>
<li>Do you offer convenience fee options or accept payment from businesses?</li>
<li>Is your system passing tax and AVS information?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Why You Should Care:</strong></p>
<p>This one is insane. Think about it this way &#8211; most of my merchants see about 30-50% of their purchases are being made by customers using debit cards. The rest are using some type of credit card, many of which are rewards cards. So do this &#8211; take out a calculator (yes, you). Enter your monthly sales. Divide by two. Then, multiply that number by 0.015. That&#8217;s what you could save by being coded properly.</p>
<p>For real.</p>
<h3>Your Rep Didn&#8217;t Know MCC Code Matters</h3>
<p>Chances are, none of these questions were asked. I know this because I&#8217;ve been in the industry for quite a while, even trained sales reps, and all merchant services sales professionals are taught is now to prospect. Rarely does any company offer any nuts and bolts training below the barest surface levels.</p>
<p>For several years I led sales teams at a huge national payment processor. When I left, the company had 400 outside sales people. One of my biggest gripes was a lack of product training resources for the sales teams. They were selling devices they&#8217;d never used and often were positioning technology and devices that weren&#8217;t the right fit &#8211; not through any maliciousness, but just lack of understanding.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve always been a bit obsessive about mastering my craft &#8211; whether that was as a beer salesperson, a seminar sales director, or a payments professional.</p>
<p>After many years, I came to understand that most people don&#8217;t want to be an expert. Let&#8217;s face it &#8211; it&#8217;s hard to be an expert any anything, let alone something as complicated as electronic payments.</p>
<p>Payments is where my OCD intersects beautifully with my ability and I&#8217;m happy to leverage that for your business. And remember, salespeople act the way they&#8217;re compensated. I don&#8217;t get paid to get you, I get paid to keep you. The longer you stay with me the more I make and therefore service and support are paramount to what I do.</p>
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<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/mcc-matters/">MCC Matters</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>OCCIP Concludes Pax FBI Raid a False Alarm</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/occip-concludes-pax-fbi-raid-a-false-alarm/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=occip-concludes-pax-fbi-raid-a-false-alarm</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Nov 2021 19:23:24 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fbi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1244</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>The Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection (OCCIP) released an update on the FBI raid on PAX USA headquarters in Jacksonville, FL: At present, OCCIP does not believe that the use of PAX Technology devices poses unique risks to network security. PAX Technology maintains remote access to their point-of-sale devices, which is common within [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/occip-concludes-pax-fbi-raid-a-false-alarm/">OCCIP Concludes Pax FBI Raid a False Alarm</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection (OCCIP) released an update on the FBI raid on PAX USA headquarters in Jacksonville, FL:</p>
<blockquote><p>At present, OCCIP does not believe that the use of PAX Technology devices poses unique risks to network security. PAX Technology maintains remote access to their point-of-sale devices, which is common within the retail payments industry as providers typically use this access to perform device maintenance. OCCIP is not aware of any attempt by PAX Technology to use their devices for disruptive or destructive purposes</p></blockquote>
<p>The original story broken by <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/fbi-raids-pax-technology-what-it-means-for-the-payments-industry/">Action News Jacksonville (who shares a parking lot with Pax)</a> like with many news articles of today&#8217;s new world, caused a significant amount of speculation and fear mongering in the industry with some companies like FIS and PaySafe either removing Pax units from the field or halting the deployment of Pax devices. It&#8217;s pretty easy to argue that non-payments professionals would never have known about this had Action News not shared this parking lot with this company. A quick google of &#8220;pax fbi&#8221; doesn&#8217;t show much since the initial release.</p>
<p>Like so many other scares, this one seems to have been all bark and no bite as confirmed by the milquetoast announcement quietly published by OCCI, an investigative branch of the Treasury Department. <a href="https://mcusercontent.com/68879690d1ecb48e2248155df/files/2c3ded9c-3845-a0ef-4b0c-9a9731303fd4/Office_of_Cybersecurity_and_Critical_Infrastructure_Protection_OCCIP_issued_guidance_about_Pax_Technologys87.pdf">Full text of the release can be found here</a>.</p>
<p>While technically the investigation is ongoing, very little was seized from their Jacksonville operations facility and not a peep has been heard from the authorities since the raid. Safe to say, without the lust of the 24-hour news cycle to promote ad sales, it wasn&#8217;t worth pursuing the investigation fully without finding at least a smoking gun or two.</p>
<p>Pax is looking like a decent investment play as they&#8217;ve struggled to regain the market hit the day news was released about the raid.</p>
<p>As with everything on this site, it is my opinion and laced with a healthy dose of my personal viewpoints.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/occip-concludes-pax-fbi-raid-a-false-alarm/">OCCIP Concludes Pax FBI Raid a False Alarm</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>FBI Raids PAX Technology &#8211; What It Means for the Payments Industry</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/fbi-raids-pax-technology-what-it-means-for-the-payments-industry/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fbi-raids-pax-technology-what-it-means-for-the-payments-industry</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2021 17:58:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fbi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1234</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Yesterday, October 26th, Action News Jacksonville reported FBI personnel executed a court-issued search warrant at Pax Technology in Jacksonville, FL. Very few details were known until Krebs on Security, a cyber crime focused publication, reported further details: Several days ago, KrebsOnSecurity heard from a trusted source that the FBI began investigating PAX after a major [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/fbi-raids-pax-technology-what-it-means-for-the-payments-industry/">FBI Raids PAX Technology &#8211; What It Means for the Payments Industry</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Yesterday, October 26th, <a href="https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/fbi-jacksonville-homeland-security-agents-investigating-outside-southside-business/BVFSPMUVUJHWRJTX56PSQDXAZ4/">Action News Jacksonville</a> reported FBI personnel executed a court-issued search warrant at Pax Technology in Jacksonville, FL. Very few details were known until Krebs on Security, a cyber crime focused publication, reported further details:</p>
<blockquote><p>Several days ago, <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/10/fbi-raids-chinese-point-of-sale-giant-pax-technology/#more-57313">KrebsOnSecurity</a> heard from a trusted source that the FBI began investigating PAX after a major U.S. payment processor started asking questions about unusual network packets originating from the company’s payment terminals.</p>
<p>According to that source, the payment processor found that the PAX terminals were being used both as a malware “dropper” — a repository for malicious files — and as “command-and-control” locations for staging attacks and collecting information.</p>
<p>“FBI and MI5 are conducting an intensive investigation into PAX,” the source said. “A major US payment processor began asking questions about network packets originating from PAX terminals and were not given any good answers.”</p></blockquote>
<p>According to Krebs, the search was a result of a joint investigation opened by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Customs and Border Protection, and Naval Criminal Investigative Services.</p>
<p>Sounds like a big deal right?</p>
<p>It might be.</p>
<h2>What about Payments Industry Certifications?</h2>
<p>You might be thinking &#8220;How this could be possible with PCI and EMV certifications?&#8221;. Apparently, this process is not as stringent as you would think. Manufacturers get certified once every two years and there’s absolutely no enforcement or monitoring after that. It is mostly a paperwork game, the process is easy to game, and a malicious company can change anything they want after the ROC’s and certification letters come in.</p>
<p>Our industry uses certifications as security theatre and they have very little to do with actual security. Waving around certifications like they mean something may impress the bros at ETA, but they don’t mean much in the real world. A comment from a payments equipment developer:</p>
<blockquote><p>I’ve personally worked for companies that put in all the security safeguards for the QSA, and then ripped them all out as soon as the paperwork was signed. I’ve seen payment devices deployed in the field with 777 unix permissions on the file system.</p></blockquote>
<p>For those who aren&#8217;t super nerds, a 777 permission is &#8220;anyone can do anything&#8221; &#8211; not great for a device designed to safeguard payment information.</p>
<p>Another developer added this comment:</p>
<blockquote><p>I have worked directly with these terminals. They are running old versions of Android. It is up to the end user to update the firmware, etc. as newer versions come out. They also open up multiple Websocket/MQTT connections out to IP addresses in mainland China. Partners have complained about this and questioned why that is necessary. The terminals also have cameras and microphones on them, just like any android does. It will be very interesting to see where this goes.</p></blockquote>
<h2>What does the FBI investigation on PAX mean for the payments industry?</h2>
<p>Last week, WorldPay/FIS, one of the world&#8217;s largest processors, <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/WorldPayPax.png">discontinued certification for PAX devices</a>. I have a hard time believing that the two events are not connected. Other companies, like PaySafe, have temporarily suspended deployment of PAX devices while others are loading up on these same devices assuming that &#8220;this too shall pass&#8221;.</p>
<p>If PAX has somehow left openings in their firmware for malicious files or deployment of malware and that is discovered as a result of this investigation, two things can happen &#8211; PAX will implode, or security firmware will be pushed out to all devices. I think it&#8217;s pretty safe to count on the latter &#8211; there are just too many of these devices out there &#8211; millions &#8211; and too many point of sale systems that rely on semi- or full-integration to the PAX devices.</p>
<p>In September, <a href="https://infotechlead.com/security/pax-fixes-vulnerabilities-in-mobile-pos-terminals-positive-technologies-68487">Pax addressed security issues that were discovered by Positive Technologies</a>, just as Ingenico did in 2020 on their Telium series and Verifone&#8217;s systems as well. These things happen, and fixes/patches are deployed to address them. As technology safeguards get stronger, hackers get more inventive. It&#8217;s like the old adage &#8211; one that is more poignant than ever today &#8211; <em>hard times create hard men, hard men create soft times, soft times create soft men, soft men create hard times</em>.</p>
<p>After all, Micros, one of the most popular legacy point of sale systems in the market today, is a <a href="https://threatpost.com/oracle-micros-pos-vulnerability-puts-300000-systems-at-risk/129736/">gaping vortex of security problems</a>. Granted, this is a point of sale system and not an actual payment device, but the logic remains the same. It&#8217;s still in the market, Oracle (it&#8217;s owner) and Shift4 (it&#8217;s primary processing partner and gateway) have made changes and updates to protect the system. It&#8217;s still not great, but it&#8217;s still in the market running just about every single airport snack you purchase.</p>
<h2>What are we doing?</h2>
<p>Until this is addressed, we are halting deployment of Pax A-series, which operate on an old version of Android. The S-series, their older hardware, has an OS that is more protected as it doesn&#8217;t have as many capabilities for third-party applications, and will continue to be deployed on an &#8220;integration need&#8221; basis.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/fbi-raids-pax-technology-what-it-means-for-the-payments-industry/">FBI Raids PAX Technology &#8211; What It Means for the Payments Industry</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>Free Ain&#8217;t Free &#8211; Unless It Is</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/free-aint-free-unless-it-is/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=free-aint-free-unless-it-is</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Oct 2021 03:24:57 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1230</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>I've been in payments for long enough to know that no matter how good your service is, how reliable your equipment is, shit happens. Beers spill, lightning strikes... equipment drops. Every terminal will either crap out or become inoperable at some point. The big question is, how long does it take for you to get [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/free-aint-free-unless-it-is/">Free Ain&#8217;t Free &#8211; Unless It Is</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve been in payments for long enough to know that no matter how good your service is, how reliable your equipment is, shit happens. Beers spill, lightning strikes&#8230; equipment drops.</p>
<p>Every terminal will either crap out or become inoperable at some point. The big question is, how long does it take for you to get back up and running so you can take payments again &#8211; the lifeblood of your business?</p>
<p>When I was at my previous company we didn&#8217;t have any kind of solution we could provide even by the next day. It was a little embarrassing to go to my client and say &#8220;Hey, uh, you can get a square account in a few minutes and be up and running.&#8221; I was referring a competitor that sure, had much higher rates for 99% of my clients and little to no customer service, but it was accessible and they solved the problem.</p>
<p>Then, when I first started here, I requested additional parameter sheets for every account. Parameter sheets are what is used to program credit card terminals, virtual terminals, point of sale systems &#8211; basically anything that connects to the processing enviornment.</p>
<p>This way, I wouldn&#8217;t have to request the info and I could spin up a &#8220;just in case&#8221; option. I almost exclusively went with <a href="https://advancedpaymentprocessing.com/solutions/">SwipeSimple</a>, which is an absolutely fantastic solution. But, it took an hour or two to get it set up and there is a small activation fee and a small monthly fee. Totally worth it as a software &#8211; but a little frustrating as a merchant.</p>
<p>Enter MX. Every single account that I set up comes with a FREE mobile processing application and a FREE virtual terminal. The same place you go to check your batches, statements, deposits, look at your transactions &#8211; that&#8217;s the same place you can go and process a just-in-case transaction and even host a payment link. The mobile app dubs as your payments information center.</p>
<p>So if you&#8217;re tired of getting nickel-and-dimed with fee after fee just to keep this train on its tracks, perhaps it&#8217;s time to get a better partner.</p>
<p><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1231" src="https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM.png" alt="" width="1023" height="574" srcset="https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM-200x112.png 200w, https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM-300x168.png 300w, https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM-400x224.png 400w, https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM-600x337.png 600w, https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM-768x431.png 768w, https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM-800x449.png 800w, https://carringtonfisk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-20-at-11.22.25-PM.png 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px" /></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/free-aint-free-unless-it-is/">Free Ain&#8217;t Free &#8211; Unless It Is</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>New Hire Onboarding in 2021 and Beyond &#8211; Breaking Up with Dead Trees</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/new-hire-onboarding-2021-beyond/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=new-hire-onboarding-2021-beyond</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:44:54 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payroll & HR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new hire onboarding]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1224</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>We've all had a big breakup in our lives - first love, last love, alcohol, or that one alcohol you'll never drink again. For me, I broke up with processed foods and carbs (and Jager). New hire onboarding exists because you broke up with an employee and they broke up with their previous employer. I've [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/new-hire-onboarding-2021-beyond/">New Hire Onboarding in 2021 and Beyond &#8211; Breaking Up with Dead Trees</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We&#8217;ve all had a big breakup in our lives &#8211; first love, last love, alcohol, or that one alcohol you&#8217;ll never drink again. For me, I broke up with processed foods and carbs (and Jager). New hire onboarding exists because you broke up with an employee and they broke up with their previous employer. I&#8217;ve also completely broken up with dead trees.</p>
<p><strong>It&#8217;s 2021 &#8211; Ditch the Paper</strong></p>
<p>In a year where even my grandma knows how to use a QR code, there are still thousands of businesses using paper to run their processes. I get it, not everything can be cost effectively digitized, but let&#8217;s chat payroll for a minute.</p>
<h2>Paperless New Hire Onboarding</h2>
<p>When you hire a new  employee, you have an employee handbook, a W4, I9, offer letter, a direct deposit form, and perhaps additional forms.</p>
<p>When I owned my pizzeria we had to get a DHHS form where the employee would acknowledge the requirements to offer a sanitary workspace.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s 10 pieces of paper if you don&#8217;t print out the handbook plus another 2 pages for the actual application.</p>
<p>Plus, you have to stop what you&#8217;re doing, chase down the employee, wrangle the information, get them to sign, then you need to key that information into your payroll system and often your point of sale.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s gotta be a better way right?</p>
<h2>One-Click Electronic Onboarding</h2>
<p>Every payroll system should offer a seamless electronic on-boarding experience for the employer and the employee.  As you consider which companies to partner with, here are a few must have features:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Customizing Templates<br />
</strong>No one has the same documents. Sure, we all have similar required documentation to board an employee for our state compliance, but businesses are all different. You could need Serve Safe info, Health forms, handbooks, ethics statements, etc. Your onboarding system should allow you to insert those documents.</li>
<li><strong>Minimal Information Required<br />
</strong>The ENTIRE goal of electronic onboarding of new employees is to streamline and speed up the process of getting new hire paperwork completed. Some systems &#8211; like ADP &#8211; require that you have the new hire&#8217;s social security number to even send the invite. Seems kind of crazy right? You should only need an email address and a name. The rest should be able to be entered by the employee.</li>
<li><strong>Mobile Responsive<br />
</strong>My data shows that 82% of new hire onboarding is completed by the employee on a mobile device. That 18% is most likely because the onboarding system didn&#8217;t work correctly on mobile. If your system looks like garbage on mobile or isn&#8217;t easy to use on mobile, you&#8217;re going to start off on the wrong foot with your prospective employee. And in this job market, speed and first impressions are paramount.</li>
<li><strong>Integration &amp; Single-Login</strong><br />
Your onboarding system should talk to your payroll system and vice versa. That means the same login, the same interface, and the new employees automatically populate into the payroll register.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are a lot of other beneficial bells and whistles that you can leverage out of a good onboarding system, but these are the core basics.</p>
<p><a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/contact/">If you aren&#8217;t getting what you need from your payroll provider, especially as it relates to making the hiring process easier, let&#8217;s chat</a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/new-hire-onboarding-2021-beyond/">New Hire Onboarding in 2021 and Beyond &#8211; Breaking Up with Dead Trees</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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		<title>Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee &#8211; Starting October 2021</title>
		<link>https://carringtonfisk.com/visa-emv-excessive-fallback-fee-starting-october-2021/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=visa-emv-excessive-fallback-fee-starting-october-2021</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carrington Fisk]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Sep 2021 08:02:31 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Payments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EMV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[heartland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[interchange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[visa emv excessive fallback fee]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carringtonfisk.com/?p=1221</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>You may have seen a new line item on your merchant processing statement - Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee. Yes, it is a Visa imposed fee and no, that doesn't mean that what you see on your statement is a passthrough cost. First, let's look at the rule and second, we'll take a stab at [...]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/visa-emv-excessive-fallback-fee-starting-october-2021/">Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee &#8211; Starting October 2021</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You may have seen a new line item on your merchant processing statement &#8211; Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee. Yes, it is a Visa imposed fee and no, that doesn&#8217;t mean that what you see on your statement is a passthrough cost.</p>
<p>First, let&#8217;s look at the rule and second, we&#8217;ll take a stab at describing what it isn&#8217;t.</p>
<h2>Understanding Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee</h2>
<p>Visa introduced this transaction fee way back in 2019 as a part of a pretty sweeping adjustment to several interchange fee structures from the two biggest card brands &#8211; Visa and MasterCard (no collusion though, definitely not). With those fee adjustments due to take hold in April and October of 2021, Visa wisely put their greed on hold in light of this little thing called Covid-19. I&#8217;m going to assume it was pretty tough though, because it&#8217;s estimated that this fee restructuring will net Visa an additional $768 million per year (<a href="https://www.digitaltransactions.net/interchange-adjustments-will-add-a-net-889-million-to-merchants-costs-an-analysis-says/"><em>Source Digital Transactions</em></a>).</p>
<p>The Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee penalizes merchants who swipe a chip card, if those swiped chip cards represent 10% or more of their transactional volume. If you are using a legacy software like an Aloha or Micros and are swiping cards that have EMV chips on them (pretty much every card), then you&#8217;re going to get spanked. If your equipment is malfunctioning and you attempt to chip the card but your reader isn&#8217;t working and you then have to swipe the card, you&#8217;re going to get spanked (subject to the 10% rule that is).</p>
<h2>Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee is $0.10 per item</h2>
<p>For each item, if your &#8220;fallback&#8221; sales exceed 10% or more of your total number of sales, you&#8217;ll pay an extra $0.10 per transaction.</p>
<p>As always with the payments industry, those bad apples are showing their bruises and taking advantage of this fee change to really put the screws to their clients.</p>
<h2>Here is what the Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee is NOT:</h2>
<h3>Heartland Non-EMV Assessment Fee or Non-EMV Program Fee<br />
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<p>Heartland AKA Global is the unofficial king, queen, prince, and robber baron of bullshit fees. They have been ramming this non-EMV fee down their merchants&#8217; throats since May of 2021 and show no signs of stopping. If you&#8217;re with Heartland (wake up!) and your statement looked like this, the Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee would cost you an EXTRA $364.90, that is if Global passes the fee on at cost.</p>
<h2>How you can avoid the Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee</h2>
<p>This is where it gets tricky.</p>
<h3>First, let&#8217;s hit the easy one &#8211; your chip reader isn&#8217;t working or it&#8217;s working intermittently.</h3>
<p>If you have faulty equipment, work with your processor or (shameless plug) get a new processor who will help you get working equipment. In the meantime, for those transactions that aren&#8217;t going through and you&#8217;re thinking it will be more than 10%, then you may want to just hand key them. I know that is a pain, but it&#8217;s up to you on how much $0.10 means to you (assuming your processor doesn&#8217;t mark this item up that is).</p>
<h3>Second, your point of sale system doesn&#8217;t have EMV capability.</h3>
<p>This is the tough one. There are a great many point of sale systems (Aloha, Micros, TouchBistro, Mojo, and many others) that either aren&#8217;t EMV capable or it is VERY expensive to convert to EMV. If you&#8217;re using one of the older iPad or tablet based systems &#8211; you have no excuse. Get with someone who knows what they&#8217;re talking about (<a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/about/">ah-hem</a>) and upgrade &#8211; like NOW.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re NOT a restaurant owner or a retailer who leverages a POS system, you may be thinking &#8211; why not switch to one that does?</p>
<p>Because it&#8217;s a pain in the ass &#8211; a potentially expensive one at that.</p>
<p>It means a new set of hardware, training staff, making sure menus are set up properly and that kitchen printers and bar printers spit out what they&#8217;re supposed to spit out. It means connecting online shopping, curbside, and all the other myriad things that make a business work in 2021.</p>
<p>This is why Toast is eating Aloha&#8217;s lunch.</p>
<p>They have a great outside sales force and a solid product. They also know that restaurant owners are the worst combination of busy and lazy so they glaze over details &#8211; trading the saving of a few bucks now for overpaying for years into the future while receiving almost zero service.</p>
<p>Oh, and wait until they need to justify their turbo unicorn-squatch status when they go public at the ungodly sum of $16 billion (<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/toast-ipo-could-value-restaurant-tech-vendor-at-16-billion.html">Source</a>).</p>
<h3>Here&#8217;s a cheat sheet of elevating your old POS:</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Aloha, Micros, PosiTouch, Digital Dining, Dinerware, Restaurant Pro, FoodTec, HarborTouch</strong> &#8211; basically anything with a &#8220;computer&#8221; and a back office server &#8211; you need to click here for the<a href="https://advancedpaymentprocessing.com/instore/hotsaucepos/"> best local server restaurant pos</a> on the market. It also coincidentally has the best support I&#8217;ve ever seen (everyone who works there has worked in restaurants) and your upfront cost is going to be less than $4k for 3 stations.
<p>Not only does this system provide better service than your legacy system, but upgrades are free, it offers integrated online ordering and is fully cash discount compliant. ALSO IT LOOKS AND FEELS EXACTLY LIKE ALOHA. You will kick yourself for not making the move faster.</li>
<li><strong>TouchBistro, Revel, Lavu, MobileBytes, SalesVu, etc</strong> &#8211; these guys were great when iOS systems first came out. They&#8217;ve been eclipsed by newer companies that are committed to restaurant technology, not monthly fees they can charge restaurants (that and MobileBytes was purchased by Heartland &#8211; yikes!). For these you need to <a href="https://advancedpaymentprocessing.com/instore/paradisepos/">click here for the best tablet point of sale system &#8211; retail or restaurant</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>I <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/about/">owned a restaurant for 4 years</a>. It was one of the hardest things I ever did and I did it before all the Covid shenanigans started. I learned a ton about what to expect from a point of sale, from a processor, and from a vendor. I would be happy to chat with you about your business and whether or not it&#8217;s a fit, I&#8217;ll do my damnedest to help.</p>
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<p>The post <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com/visa-emv-excessive-fallback-fee-starting-october-2021/">Visa EMV Excessive Fallback Fee &#8211; Starting October 2021</a> appeared first on <a href="https://carringtonfisk.com">Carrington Fisk</a>.</p>
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