In a speech at its Merchant University, the company's head reported that his firm has not increased its merchant account rates since it began. "We don't engage in ‘bait and switch’ marketing tactics,” he said, adding: “While there have been many changes over time to the Interchange system to support the overall growth of the payment system for the benefit of all stake holders, we have never raised our markup to our credit card processing merchant families."

The words come from Gino Kauzlarich, CEO of MerchantService.com.

His company also boasts that it has no hidden fees. "So a merchant can clearly see the exact percentage rate, for each card product cleared, on our easy to reconcile monthly merchant account statements and online reporting systems.  By contrast, most competitors sell their merchants credit card processing on a low ‘qualified’ rate of 1.69% when in fact they add-on substantial hidden markups  above the Interchange rate into ‘mid and non-qualified’ tiers that many times run the total costs of credit card processing up by 50 to 250 points or more.  Most merchants seldom know it, or can’t figure it out" Mr. Kauzlarich adds.

"Our merchant account program eliminates these hidden mark ups.  It is the most open of all credit card processing programs.  We're proud to routinely increase our merchants’ bottom line profits by many hundreds, or even thousands of dollars a year,” he says.

To explain the difference, MerchantService.com's web site includes a discount rate tutorial for people accepting credit cards. It's at http://www.merchantservice.com. The company also holds training sessions several times a year at locations convenient for its clients.

MerchantService.com is what Mastercard calls a Member Service Provider. At Visa, the term is Independent Sales Organization.

Merchants and others interested in increasing their income are invited to contact the company at its Sarasota offices.

MerchantService.com is headquartered at