Three-Year Contract
The standard Card Payment Direct merchant agreement is a three-year agreement with tiered pricing, an early termination fee of $250 to $350, a $25 monthly minimum fee, a $99 annual fee, an application and setup fee of $195, a monthly account maintenance and statement fee of $9.99, a monthly iAccess Online Viewing fee of 14.95, a chargeback fee of $25 per incident, a monthly gateway fee of $10, a wireless terminal monthly gateway fee of $19.50 per terminal, an annual PCI Compliance fee that will vary according to the merchant’s compliance history, a monthly PCI non-compliance penalty of $30 for merchants who have not completed their PCI self-assessment, a one-time $25 business verification fee due within 30 days of account setup, and a $2 regulatory fee.
Expensive equipment leases through First Data Global Leasing are also associated with Card Payment Direct through iPayment, whose agreements last 48 months and cannot be canceled.
Virtual Terminal and Payment Gateway Pricing
In addition to its storefront payment processing services, Card Payment also dedicates a portion of its website to advertising its virtual terminal and payment gateway services. However, pricing is not disclosed on either of those services. Additional rates and fees, including gateway fees, technical support fees, batch fees, and additional transaction rates typically apply to these e-commerce services.
Fees Galore
All told, a document we received lists 13 different fees of varying amounts that merchants may encounter. Some of these fees may be waived by sales agents after strong negotiation, and, given the fact that this sample document is a MOTO application, some of these fees may not apply to face-to-face merchants. Even so, the overall cost of a Card Payment Direct merchant agreement appears to be much higher than the cheapest merchant accounts, which is consistent with other reports of iPayment’s contract terms.
