What does a US business need to accept non-US credit cards, technically and administratively?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot07/May/20121 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 07/May/2012
Nothing actually. The whole premise of accepting cards is the network they belong to. If I see a VISA/Mastercard sign on your business website or door, it means, my card, be it from anywhere in the world, will be welcome at your doorstep.
Sometimes, for example, where I travel to the US and use my overseas card, the reply on the terminal is to call, and the merchant calls, and asks me for additional identification, just to confirm my presence - because the fraud center picks this transactions as suspicious, one minute country X and next charge in country Y.
You as a merchant (I believe) are bound by Visa / Mastercard terms to accept all cards, unless explicitly your business is as such that you do not sell outside of the US and hence see no reason to accept an out of country card (very few and rare examples of this).
Most of the times, when processing a non-US card, the AVS information may not be complete, and hence a call back to your merchant service provider would show up on your terminal (the same is usually not true for online transactions - it will simply decline at your end or sometimes the card holder would have to call in at his bank to authorize the transaction). If the transaction amount is large or frequent (one shop and then another and then another), the same is true. You would have to call in and get the authorization.
Restaurants do this all the time! Especially in places where a lot of non-US customers show up, Orlando, Chicago, NYC, etc.
Sometimes, for example, where I travel to the US and use my overseas card, the reply on the terminal is to call, and the merchant calls, and asks me for additional identification, just to confirm my presence - because the fraud center picks this transactions as suspicious, one minute country X and next charge in country Y.
You as a merchant (I believe) are bound by Visa / Mastercard terms to accept all cards, unless explicitly your business is as such that you do not sell outside of the US and hence see no reason to accept an out of country card (very few and rare examples of this).
Most of the times, when processing a non-US card, the AVS information may not be complete, and hence a call back to your merchant service provider would show up on your terminal (the same is usually not true for online transactions - it will simply decline at your end or sometimes the card holder would have to call in at his bank to authorize the transaction). If the transaction amount is large or frequent (one shop and then another and then another), the same is true. You would have to call in and get the authorization.
Restaurants do this all the time! Especially in places where a lot of non-US customers show up, Orlando, Chicago, NYC, etc.