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"Non-Qualified" is a Visa/MasterCard mandated category of charges and as such, is not optional to the processing bank.
All U.S. processing banks charge higher for transactions falling in this category, as they themselves are charged higher by both Visa and MasterCard. Processors and/or their agents who do not discuss this higher category charge with the prospective merchant client are not being ethical and honest in their marketing practices, as the merchant will find these higher charges on their monthly statement regardless. Non-Qualified charges apply to business, corporate, commercial and foreign card transactions and transactions that are not AVS verified (matched against address and zip code, done automatically through most real-time systems). In short, transactions that are not performed with a regular consumer card or are not AVS verified generally fall into the lumped category known as "Non-Qualified" (i.e., a banking term meaning 'does not qualify for any percentage discount fee'). Transactions not batched out within 24-48hrs are also downgraded into the higher rate category of Non-Qualified (autobatch is available free through our services).
Visa requires that address and zip code match the card issuer information in order for the merchant to avoid the higher non-qual rate; MasterCard currently does not require that they
match, but is expected to require this soon. ATM Debit cards that are not 'pin inputed' at a face-to-face point of sale, something which is
not technologically possible over the internet (although technology is under development to allow this by consumer use of a CD Rom application), are processed as a credit card and receive the regular rates for card-swipe and keyed categories.
Unfortunately, regardless of which processing bank you as a merchant choose, you will not be able to escape the higher rate
category charges for certain transactions as described here. Just because your agent representative did not discuss these higher rate categories with you does not at all mean you will not find them on your monthly statement. For valuable information on how to avoid being tricked by an unethical processor or agent, please see our article Tricks Of The Trade; What Every Merchant Should Know.
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