Curtis Kleinman & Associates
Payment Processing Specialists
30+ Years’ Experience Working For You
Offering Multiple Banking Choices including High Risk
There’s great value having honest, proactive payment processing experts to guide you. I’ll remain your primary contact always actively involved. We apply to the proper payment processor for your business.
- MOTO (Mail Orders/Telephone Orders)
- e-commerce/Mobile
- Retail/Swiped
Online Account Manager, Remote accessibility, Virtual Gateway, Fraud Protection, Chip Reader/Wireless Terminals
Services & Benefits
Services
- Payment Processing (PCI compliant solutions)
- Payment Gateways
- Chargeback Alerts & Fraud Detection
- e-Check, ACH/EFT, Gift Cards
Underwriting
- Moto/E-commerce/Restaurant & Retail
- High Risk, Affiliate Marketing, Trial & Continuity
- Direct Response/Infomercial
- Health & Beauty, Nutraceutical, Fitness & Weight Loss
- Club & Membership, Dating, Travel, Credit Repair
We Go Above & Beyond
- We advise and guide you, negotiating and contacting payment processors.
- Strong follow up skills micromanaging the underwriting process for you.
- Multiple banking choices with competitive rates and many fees waived.
- Quality vendors recommendations
Curtis Kleinman
Hard working, accessible, passionate, well connected, entrepreneur who works directly with you. Since 1986 focused on helping business owners by saving money, educating, advising and speaking often.
Biography
- 2011: Inaugural DRMA Member of the Year
- 1986-2008: Owned Information Systems Resources a Staffing Company with 100+ employees
- 1998: Pioneered targeted email marketing
- Authored over 40 published articles and e-Books
- Born: Brooklyn, New York
- Animal lover with 3 rescue dogs (Roxy, Tito and Kobe)
Client List
- American Express
- Bed Bath & Beyond
- BMG Music
- Bristol Myers Squibb
- Cantor Fitzgerald
- Citibank
- Coach
- Colgate Palmolive
- Deloitte & Touche
- Deutsche Bank
- Disney/A.B.C.
- Ernst & Young
- Estee Lauder
- Fox Sports
- H.S.B.C.
- JPM/Chase
- Lever Brothers
- MasterCard
- Merck
- Morgan Stanley
- Nature’s Bounty
- Pfizer
- Price Waterhouse Coopers
- Revlon
- SONY
- Tiffany
- Time Life
- Viacom/MTV
- Web MD
- Weider
- Young & Rubican
“I have an intense drive for perfection, staying actively involved with clients and vendors.”
Consequences of Choosing the Wrong Payment Processor
Certain credit card processors avoid direct response, trials, auto ship and upsell programs.
- Account halted with a spike in customer orders.
- Lower chargeback tolerance.
- Higher Reserves
- Approved for a lower processing volume (not sufficient for sales needs). In the first 6 months, it’s difficult to increase your payment processing volume.
- The hidden fees and charges.
- Bad Support including delays in responding to calls and emails.
Great Advice
- Always use a payment processing agent to guide you through the application process, analyzing and submitting paperwork for you.
- Use AVS (Address Verification System) making sure the address a consumer provides matches their credit card.
- Ask for a CVV code to assure your customer possesses the credit card.
- Only ship your product to a customer’s actual billing address. Don’t ship to overseas addresses or PO Boxes. The extra sales opens doors to many problems.
- By providing an IP check you confirm a customer’s email address matches their physical location.
- Only use standard off-the-shelf products. Never use anything proprietary that isn’t portable.
- Make sure customer service is available during your peak sales hours and when media’s airing.
- Don’t set unachievable expectations by publishing unrealistic claims and testimonials.
- To obtain a domestic merchant account, you need a signer with a Social Security number. A US-based corporation and bank account won’t help.
- Don’t request more processing volume than you’ll need. Your account spends more time in underwriting, under extra scrutiny. You may be asked for tax returns and financials.
- For larger transaction amounts, ask your customer to fax driver’s license and credit card copies.
- Gifts and Loyalty programs can increase sales for both e-commerce and retail business.
- Your website should display an SSL certificate.
Selling via Direct Response
- When applying for payment processing, keep a healthy bank balance and rotate funds in your bank account, paying expenses. Many merchants applying are not financially aligned to achieve their desired processing volume. Banks look at the average bank balance over the past 90 days.
- Your cost of goods should be $.20 (or less) on the dollar. Media, fulfillment, call center and other costs must be accounted for in your projected expenses.
- Provide your customer a refund before you receive your product back. Especially if your cost is less than 20% of the sales price.
- Thoroughly research affiliate marketing companies you’re considering using. Bad affiliate traffic can increase your risk of chargebacks and destroy your company.
- Payment processors utilized must understand sales will experience peaks and valleys.
- Use Chargeback Alerts to avoid a chargeback being it’s reported to Visa, MasterCard Discover and American Express.
- Using a consumer scoring system can reduce chargebacks. The score from 1- 100 factors the customer’s past chargeback history and other risk factors.
- Use real time authorizations to verify credit card orders live.
- Confirm Auto Ship orders with your consumer prior to billing and shipping your product.
- Selling with trial and Auto Ship increases your risk of chargebacks.
- If your product has Auto Ship or multi pay don’t accept prepaid credit cards.
- Analyze your chargeback reason codes. Your problem may be fraud, a bad billing descriptor, poor call center performance or the product quality.
- Using product tracking and shipping insurance reduces chargebacks greatly.
- Do allow customers to purchase multiple orders to the same shipping address.
- Use a clear billing descriptor. I recommend your company name (or website or product name) and your customer service phone number.
- Signing a Personal Guarantee doesn’t mean you’re responsible for product liability. A Personal Guarantee means you’ll cover all banking fees owed if there’s an ACH reject. In most cases payment processors don’t even enforce a Personal Guarantee.
- Payment processors check a merchant’s online reviews and ratings. Your Better Business Bureau Rating can either help or hurt your cause.
- Call your own call center periodically to see the response time and level of service. How quickly does your call center contact customers whose credit cards declined?
