At L Duncan Apparel, we are committed to our success as well as the success of others. We are keen on uplifting our community. We are starting a series of stories that we have learned over the past year. As a small business, it can be difficult to compete with other businesses and still remain true to your values. We want to share our story so that other entrepreneurs and small business owners may learn from our mistakes.
On the Road to Success: Beware of credit card machines
You would think that purchasing/renting a credit card machine would help to make more money, right? In the beginning, we tried renting a machine from a large national publicly traded bank that shall remain unnamed. We rented the machine from one of their reps. We were supposed to have a trial that lasted a year and then after the year we would start making monthly payments on the machine. Well we soon found out that the bank started deducting their fees right after we signed the contract. We called the bank immediately to find out what was going on. They said that the rep did not explain the agreement correctly and that something was wrong with our machine. They wanted us to sign a new contract for a new machine. They also wanted us to pay additional fees.
At the end of the ordeal, we ended up with a large headache and missing funds. We scrapped the idea of renting a credit card machine and now we use Square. It’s a smartphone application and attachment where you can process credit card transactions. It’s makes transactions A LOT easier and is giving traditional credit card readers a run for their money, literally. This was one of those lessons we had to learn through our pockets. OUCH!
