5.3. ERMUSR 04-13-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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costs, but this is only an option for the web-based and phone payments. Zt is actually against the law to collect a convenience fee in any other situation. ~ have accumulated a number of credit card vendors' information over tl~e past few years and their costs do not vary signihca~atly from one to the other, but their offering of services along with the basic credit card function does, Some focus an Internet payments, some focus on phone payments, some focus on counterlretail transactions, and. sotne are a combination. Zn determining a credit card vendor ~ chose to focus on these criteria: cost, support, service offerings, and references, ~~when ~ started this research, service offerings was not one of my initial criteria. Zn the last year tlaougll, the requests for credit cards Dave come from more va~~ying wants and needs, and the ability to use the credit card as a payment option in varying ways has becan~.e more necessary.} ~ have attached th.e i~~fornlation on a company called "Paymentus" that ~ would like the commission to consider ERMU working with to provide credit card payments to our customers, They offer a combination of services; phone payment, Web payment ~througl~ a link fro~aa our website~, and face to face. Additionally, they allow you to set tl~e processing cost at your comfort level by utilizing tl~e convenience fee as i0o% passed on to the customer, o% passed onto the customer ~whicl~ would be a Z.75% transaction fee to use, or some hybrid sharing of the convenience fee. Paymentus leas sand that the ~r~ast popular fee sharing is actually no shari~~g, but having a full 1 ao% convenience fee charged to the customer. ~f ~ Oo% is passed on to t~~e customer, tl~e walk inlcounter customers would Dave to be provided a computer terminal or a phone to ~~~ake the payment. ~f we swipe the card, we cannot charge a convenience fee. To have the ability to tale a credit card payment at the front counter by swiping the customer card, it would require tl~e purchase of a machine device for approximately $Gafl and havi~ag a phone line for the maclalne to obtain an authorization. The processing cost ranges from 2% to Z.95%, depending on the credit card. Dete~~nining how much to charge the customer, or not to charge, is woz~th some discussion, certainly, accepting credit card payments would be received well. ~t becomes a matter of determining low much of a value E1~MU would receive by offering credl.t cards to determine how much cost we want to absorb, Zf tl~e focus was hest customer service,lao matter the cost, obviously we would pass nothing along to tlae customer. It could be argued that tl~e customers who don't use the credit cards are then subsidizing those that do. T mentioned above that there is so~.e cost no matter the form of payment, whether it be staff time taking and processing the checl~s, or renting a box to subsidize postage and then processing the checks. we also lave a cost of collecting past due payments when people forget to pay an time, or can't make it to tl~e office, or Dave no other means to pay. Thane costs are all ultimately subsidized by the rest of the customers. There is some value to taking the credit card payment, knowing the money will be in the bank, and also automating the processing of the payments. That being said, the people who really want tolhave to pay by credit card will pay a fee to do so.