Processing MS Debit Cards
 

I'm interested in processing MS purchased debit cards independently (myself) - no MO purchase / deposit or other hoops. Has anyone looked into this?

Square's subscription plan could have been pretty nice for heavy hitters - $275 per month, no swipe fees. Discontinued now.

The best I can find now is 1.75% from a reputable processor. I'm wondering if there is any way to get this lower if you're only processing debit cards.

Has anyone gone down this road? Feel free to PM me.

interesting, but probably not worth it even if you got a fee-free processor due to the probable tax liabilities. correct me if I'm mistaken, but somewhere along the line this would most likely be flagged as "income."

That's a really important consideration. I know Square is similar to PayPal - $20k in sales AND more than 200 transactions.

Square will shut you down if all you push is giftcards

Looks like the 1099K requirements are uniform- so you'd essentially be limited to 200 transactions with no reporting.

Could you set up a company that has the income, but can deduct your costs as expenses?

Are there any processing companies that will allow you to take that many gift cards?

Yes - and tie your money up for months.

What about becoming a seller of the Visa/MC gift cards and then sell them to yourself? CVS, Walgreen's, Staples etc must be making money on selling them.

People who have tried to do this get shut down by their payment processors pretty quickly, and it is a bear to get your money back. If you already have a legitimate business with decent volume, you might be able to sneak in a few gift cards here and there, but, like other people have said, you would have to report this as income. Of course, there are always other ways to self-churn, but they are more complicated and involved.

Been there, done that. Sucked

Can you share more on what happened please?

You will get placed on the "MATCH" , "TMF" list pretty quickly. Not easy to get off.

What is Match or TMF means?

Have processors other than Square shut people down? If so, which ones. I can't find a thread on this topic.

Mastercard calls what we want to do laundering, and lots of luck getting your money back:

Code 03 on MATCH:

Laundering
The Merchant was engaged in laundering activity. Laundering means that a Merchant presented to its Acquirer Transaction records that were not valid Transactions for sales of goods or services between that Merchant and a bona fide Cardholder.

I was shut down by Square for processing $1000 a day in GCs for about 3 weeks, another CC processor was giving me problems after only 1 GC swipe! This was about a year ago.