Scandalous sales tactics

November 2010

We were at a conference recently with 250 other companies who sell credit card processing services. We’d like to call them our peers, but what we do is so different than these businesses that we’re apologetic to have to call them our competitors. We were both shocked by what we heard from these other companies and re-invigorated that we are on the right path to help wineries escape from these unscrupulous sales organizations.

We found ourselves in a room with middle aged men who would look more at home on a used car lot than in a hotel conference center. Yes the comb-over was prevalent, but worst of all the dodgy sales tactics were overflowing.

Here’s one that takes the cake – At Winery Payment Solutions we refuse to lease equipment to our clients, simply because it’s a bad deal for your business. We gladly post our prices for equipment on our website, starting at $199 for a basic terminal. Because you can acquire the equipment for so little, leasing the same equipment for $25 a month is predatory pricing and we simply won’t do it.

So we were shocked when a competitor proudly announced to us that they had found a way to lease Virtual Merchant access. Virtual Merchant is a website so you can submit your wine club orders, phone orders or integrate directly with your e-commerce websites. So, we provide a user id and password to a website so our winery clients can perform transactions. This competitor was proud to tell us that they “lease” access to Virtual Merchant for $23 per month to their clients. WHAT??? They “lease” access to a publicly available website? This is on top of a monthly fee to use Virtual Merchant.

The economics of this are scandalous. The competitor is committing the winery to pay $23 per month for 48 months which adds up to $1,104, for nothing. This is pure profit for the agent and purely disgraceful tactic to pad their bottom line.

We hope that you have not fallen prey to tactics like these as we work hard every day to educate our clients and provide honestly better payment processing services. Never lease your credit card processing equipment; we can help you along a better path.

Here are just some of the money saving solutions that Winery Payment Solutions offers.

One Account for Everything

You don't need multiple accounts, statement and monthly fees for Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. Stop paying additional monthly fees for statements when you can have a consolidated statement and one account for all your transactions. In addition you don't need a separate merchant account for E-Commerce, Retail sales and Mobile payments. All you need is one merchant account for all your sales channels and no additional fees.

Online Terminal

If you'd like to accept payments without a credit card machine to further reduce your costs and power your wine club, you can use our virtual terminal for all or some of your transactions. You can also connect a card reader and receipt printer to your PC and have credit card machine wherever you take your computer.

Electronic Checks

With our award winning check processing solutions you can scan a check and get paid fast. If you want to stop going to the bank every day to deposit checks, or you want to make sure a check is good before the customer leaves, our e-check solution is right for you.

Gift Cards

Offer your customers the option to buy and pay with gift cards. With every merchant account, you get the first 50 standard gift cards for FREE.

Low Cost Credit Card Machines

With any merchant account we offer credit card machines to meet your needs at the lowest prices possible. Don't fall for a free terminal, there will be fees charged later to make up for the "giveaway".

Merchant Service Advisor

Signing up is a simple step away.

Scandalous sales tactics

World Class Payment Solutions

Already with another provider?

We'll pay your termination fee if you move your account.

Call Winery Payment Solutions, Inc. at 800-993-6300.