The real question is: “Is it safe to accept credit cards?” with or without an iPhone…
If you read the previous post you are well aware of the motivation and monthly numbers of web searches for stolen/faked/or otherwise hacked credit card numbers.
Accepting credit cards with an iPhone using an iPhone credit card app, is identical to accepting credit cards via any other computer web connected virtual terminal. As most virtual terminal users run a MOTO business, in which they never actually see the card, in most cases, when you accept a credit card with an iPhone, you’re probably on a safer ground, as unlike those MOTO businesses, you, at least occasionally, do see the actual credit card.
All iPhone credit card applications (included on our site…) are PCI compliance, as restricted credit card info is never saved on your smart phone. The second you process a credit card transaction, the info is securely sent to your payment gateway, and transaction details no longer include credit card information you are not supposed to maintain.
As a merchant accepting credit cards you need to make sure you use anti fraud measures, just like any other merchant. Many iPhone merchants, like other small merchants, use their payment gateway and merchant account provider to fully run the fraud management on their behalf. The real risk in this kind of an arrangement is a business loss, as your provider, might decide to decline a transaction you could have decided to take…
Gidi Argov, Founder and CEO
www.CreditCardProcessing-r-us.com
We added your post to our site – Thanks!
So, are you actually saying that an iphone transaction is a card not present transaction? Or in other words, an expensive transaction? Is there a way to convert it into a card present, at least in v\cases where you actually see the card?
Most iPhone credit card processing solutions enable only card not present transactions and therefore indeed run through higher interchange fees. Same applies to any other online transaction…
There are other iPhone processing solutions which do support Card Present transactions. Payware Mobile by Verifone is a CP solution, and at least as it relates to interchange fees, is a cost effective one.
Sure it is! I do it for almost a year now and don’t have one problem to report!
All businesses suffer some financial loss from credit card fraud.
This risk increases when accepting payments online for payment of services, to pay bills, and to purchase merchandise.
It is up to each business to verify the owner of the credit card. In addition, businesses must make certain that they protect their customers’ personal information when taking payment from cards.
I used to think that accepting credit cards with an iPhone is safe. That was before my iPhone, along with some other gazillion iPhone devices, developed a sudden 2011 bug, and failed to wake me up this morning. I am no longer sure…!
In today’s world, when we rely on smart phones to do almost anything, an alarm clock is something we take for granted.
The iPhone 2011 bug is indeed embarrassing, especially being an Apple app bug…!
Embarrassing as this may be, it doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason to stop processing cards on iPhones…
Actually, only “buy now” and similar one time transactions failed during January first and second 2011. Subscriptions and recurring payments were processed seamlessly…
Wise guy – your name suits you!
For our slower readers we’d like to clarify that as far as we know, there were no processing issues on January first or second of 2011.
The previous comment must relate to the fact that one time alarms failed to ring while recurring iPhone alarms kept ringing as usual…
Accepting cards with an iPhone is as safe as the app you use.
If you’re iPhone app specifications indicates it has passed PCI compliance testing, you are in a much better place than with many other online Virtual Terminals provided by 3rd parties, not always PCI secured.