I signed up for Intuit’s new GoPayment card system yesterday. Thought I’d share a few thoughts.
GoPayment is a way for regular folks to take credit card payments from other regular folks using your cell phone or tablet. It’s advertised pretty much like the Square system, the first credit card device and service for regular folks. The major benefit is that it’s cheap, no monthly payment, and it has a cute device that plugs into the phono jack on you device that you use to swipe the card. Both GoPayment and Square charge a very low percentage per transaction (Are you listening PayPal?) lower than commercial rates, and no monthly fee. GoPayment is so much like Square… well I haven’t seen any written description of it that hasn’t included a reference to Square. I’ve liked the Square system, but was curious about Intuit’s entry. Given it was free, I figured what the heck, give it a try.
Intuit GoPayment System
Haven’t got the reader yet, but already it’s coming across as a whole lot more in my face than Square.
I got a big follow-up annotated bill in e-mail this morning with a lot of line items and $0 due notations. Like that’s supposed to make me feel good? My first reaction was “WTF? A bill?” OK, maybe that’s just the three cups of morning coffee talking.
What really bugged me was GoPayment had this “hidden” credit card they issue you as a way to get your money. That wasn’t at all obvious until I got the confirmation that I’d ge getting the card in the mail. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t need or want another credit card. Not for SkyMiles, not for Dinner Credits, not for an additional 5% off on my purchases. It’s already hard enough to track my intentional spending, and if I was the victim of identity theft I want to make as few calls as possible if it becomes necessary to shut things down. So I try not to have a lot of credit cards, especially specialty cards.
Both systems work across all major smartphone devices, but Square hires a better photographer for their ads.
Of course, after a call to their customer service, it turns out I don’t have to use or keep the card. I kept saying things like “So when I get the card in the mail, I can destroy it immediately and not have that affect my GoPayment account?” The guy was a bit unnerved about that, suggesting I activate the card first, then call in to terminate it. Um. Yeah. That makes sense.
You can still get the money transferred to one of your accounts, just like Square does, but they default to using the rechargeable credit card. But how many people are really going to rebel like me? So many just accept that “well this is the package, guess I’ve got a new card to monitor.” And we all know that terms on cards can change when the bank thinks it’s not getting enough profit on your business. Right? It’s just another thing to monitor, reading all the bland, poisonous notes in the monthly statements. And I hate that.
If I was going to devil’s advocate their design decision here I’d guess they found that most people were unable to complete their process if it required the banking codes necessary to do the direct deposit dance. Issuing a credit card was much easier, just requiring an address, social security number, and a couple of additional personal data chunks. Probably, but that’s a big part of what’s wrong with the credit industry in general. I’m not going to dig in on that speculation, it’s not the real devil that I think is in play here.
I’ll probably give it a whirl when it arrives, but I expect I’ll be dumping this. Square stays silent until I use it. So far it hasn’t tried to sign me up or send my info along to other companies. I’m not feeling the same warm fuzzy about Intuit.
anyone that thinks or says Intuit is the only company that charges the % for biz card or reword cars doesn’t know anything about CC processing. this is normal. the merchant always pays for the customers rewords
Not following you Ryan. Who said “Intuit is the only company that charges the %…”
I am new to this and looking to accept cards for my part-time art business. I was leaning towards GoPayment, but now I’m not so sure, since they have a tiered rate system, and it seems that most cards with rewards or flyer miles programs attached to them are charged at the higher “keyed in” rate. Not so with Square.
I also heard that most merchants are being charged the high fee by PG for up to 70% of their transactions, which would seem to wipe out any slight benefits they might have over Square.
Further, GP doesn’t seem to be that upfront with this information and only gives it to you if you do a little digging, or completely read their terms when you sign up.
Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on this?
You are charged 3.7% for almost all transactions. Do not use Gopayment! For the first month or so they were fine, but now they have charged our business numerous hidden fees that make no sense, withheld funds repeatedly(if your business grows, and you begin taking more credit cards, you are considered high risk and treated like a criminal), and when we returned an item to the merchant we purchased it from, and had the money refunded to the Intuit card, they took the money from the merchant’s account, but still have not refunded the money into our account. It has been over 2 weeks that we have waited for the return of the $800, and still nothing, and we get a different story with each CS rep we speak to.We have faxed copies of invoices to them repeatedly, done anything they asked to prove the transactios are legitimate, but still have lost over $2,000 over the past month. It makes no sense, it is NOT their money to hold! We are getting a lawyer to handle it due to the fact that their risk department is a JOKE.
I completed my 1st transaction with GP on 11/27. I am still fighting to get the funds released to my bank account. I received a e-mail requsting my business financial statements, a copy of the invoice, and 6 months of transactions. I called to get it all solved (thinking these requests were a bit extensive) and was placed on hold for 1.5 hours. I finally opted for the “call back” option when someone is available, nobody called, (big surprise) I called back and continued to hold for over an hour, finally I got a “customer service” rep that told me I must send the proper documentation because of the “risk” they take by accepting credit card payments. Risk, Big Deal, so do I and every other person that accepts credit cards. If I had known this was what I had to go through to get paid I would never have signed up! GoPayments is a joke! Stay far away, or plan on a huge amount of hassle!
Big issue with Square – if you key transactions they will hold anything above $2002 for 30 days…. I know this because it’s happening right now and I can’t get them to respond for nothing.
Is the $2002 a written policy? I can see any number of possible reasons why a bank might hold funds (happens with checks for example) but how long have you given them to respond? And how did you send an inquiry?
I specifically asked more than once about that PCI fee and I was told every time there is no fee for this. The reader is on its way and I will not be too happy if they pull any kind of bait and switch or try to add any fees. I asked repeatedly if there were any other fees, ANY, and I was told no. To be continued…
Okay here is the deal with intuit. They tell you that your fee is 2.7% but in fact if the persons credit card is a card that gives the person rewards (like every card in america) than your fees are 3.7%. ALSO, what they hesitate to tell you is that there is a PCI fee, which is assessed yearly. These fees run anywhere from 35.00 to 100.00 per year according to how much money is swiped on your cards. These are fees you do not get notified of until you receive your reader. I consider this bait and switch. Not a good thing.
I just signed up as well and was told that the 2.7% applied to qualified swiped cards and the 3.7% was for keyed in and unqualified cards. I was told that an unqualified card consisted of most rewards cards, International Cards and Corporate cards. The reason I got for not disclosing which card is qualified or not at the time of sale is that Visa/MasterCard consider it a violation of their Terms of Service to discriminate against accepting certain cards, which is why they dont charge the additional 1% until the end of the month. Basically, I was told we are paying for the “rewards” portion of the card.
Because I used a Pro Adviser to help set up my QB, I was offered a 9.95/mo Merchant Services acct with GoPayment processing. It changed my rates a bit. 1.61 qualified(swiped) 2.2 Mid(keyed), 3.5 non qualified. ALL AMEX cards are charged at 2.54%(regardless of what it is).No monthly Min and the first 2 mo are free. and the offer is good for the life of the acct. so I switched from the GoPayment to the Merchant Services w/GoPayment within an hr of starting the first. I also think there was a .25 trans fee if i keyed in the card.
I would say if you swipe more than 1000.00/mo then you might consider switching and ask the sales agent for the Pro Advisor discount.
Also, one of the biggest pluses was that my sales agent gave me her direct extension so if there were any issues, I could follow up through her. I had a couple glitches and I got a hold of her and she worked as the front-runner for me. So in this day of Customer No-Service, I was impressed and truth be told, I have never had a problem with Square, but, since i do high dollar transactions(500.00+) for service related work I dont think I want to chance my money being tied up trying to get in touch with them when I have a direct line to my agent. Customer Service is half the product in my book. Id rather pay a bit more for peace of mind.
I just reread this and it sounds like I’m an employee of Intuit- LOL, I’m not, Just a small business owner that cant afford to to have my cash flow tied up. I wont cancel my Square Acct though, it will be nice to have in a pinch AND I’m toying with the Idea that if I recognize a non-qualified card(if it has a company name on it or says Reward), I can always use Square to process it
I have never replied to this type of conversation, but here I am. I thought I would share my experience with both the Square and GoPayment. I was introduced to the Square last fall and found it very interesting, compact, easy to use, and just a great concept. I went and purchased an iPad so that I could use it to take payments via credit card (among other things of course) and cancel the expensive processing company I had been using.
I received my card reader for the Square and the first time I used it, even after several swipes, I had to key in the number. It happened again, and again. I ordered a new reader thinking maybe it was defective. It continued even with the new reader. The last draw was my customer’s card was declined more than once on another project and they were not happy as I had processed payment from them before. Now, several keyed in cards-declined, they had to send me a check. I e-mailed CS and no response. E-mail again, no response! Frustrated, and needing to do something, I checked into Intuit.
I was on their site and wound up chatting with a representative who was very patient and answered all my questions. He asked if I was ready to apply, I said yes, and he called me within minutes to go through the process. I did take a bit of time and they do require more information, but I needed to do something so I went ahead.
I was approved within hours and I waited until the next day to use GoPayment. I downloaded the app on my iPad, but used my laptop to process my customers payment using the same card that was declined using the Square. It was approved in seconds! I could not believe how easy it was and called CS to let them know and ask another question. I actually spoke to a human being, also very pleasant and I let her know that.
Bottom line, while I was excited about the Square and it’s simplicity, the issues as a new customer was not worth the trouble. With Intuit, I really like the fact that I can use my laptop AND my iPad to process payments. I should receive my reader soon and hope that also goes as smooth. Their setup is very easy and their pages on the website are uncluttered and to the point. I was finished in minutes. I even asked if I did it right as it was so simple!!! The CS could see my charge and all is well. I was told to call anytime if I had any other questions as they are available 24/7.
Maybe one transaction with Intuit isn’t enough to judge on a companies performance, but it sure helps when it went as smoothly as it did!
sde
I have the intuit card reader and was never approached about thier credit card. Deposits are transferred into my personal account of choice within a day. One difference in favor of the intuit is that intnuit has more options for devices it can be used with or you can manually process a charge without using the reader. While the square seems to only be ipad, ipod and iphone friendly. I was going to get the square, however I do not have any device it would work with. So far I have been happy with intuit.
Hi Shelia!
Thanks for the comments!
Square works with Android as well as iOS devices, I regularly carry the Square reader in my pocket (which I could not do with the Intuit reader – it’s just too big for a man’s pants pocket) and I switch back and forth between my Android phone and iPad regularly. And Square’s software also lets you manually input a card number without the reader (which I had to do once when I misplaced my reader.) What device do you have that is supported by Intuit and not Square?
Thanks for reminding me, I do need to do the follow-up article now that I’ve received the full Intuit package!
Cheers,
-Ric
The card reader may be smaller but I am damn sure the customer service with intuit is better! 2 weeks and counting on trying to get any support from Squareup! They are dealing with people’s money and provide no phone support! Google them read the complaints until they setup proper support beware!!
Hi GT,
Have you had occasion to use both? Frankly the device size difference is a real deal breaker for me. I have my Square on my keychain, via a dongle that it plugs into. I always have it with me. Unless I carried a purse, which I’ll admit might be a marketing strategy, I can see no way I would always have the relatively huge Intuit device with me. Which kind of puts the customer support problem at the wayside for me.
And I have to say my experience with Square’s CS has been fine. Only one instance, I stepped on the dongle and needed a replacement, it was dealt with immediately. However, I was a very early adopter and given your complaint I’m running a “test” of their current turn-around before I update on this article. Obviously Intuit has an established infrastructure, they’re much much bigger than Square, so they do have very good phone support.
Thanks for the comment,
-Ric
Other options are available as well that you should look into. Got my free reader and pay-as-you-go plan from (www.MobileCardReader.biz)
Lower rates than square and go payment. Customer service helped me set up the account so my funds did not get held in risk reserve…
Boy do you sound like you work for the company