Eating fresh at Subway may possibly cost you more than a five dollar foot long. In a scheme dating back to 2008, hackers were able to steal and gather credit card data from the point-of-sale (POS) systems of over 150 Subway restaurants. According to Sean Gallagher’s article, “How hackers gave Subway a $3 million lesson in point-of-sale security”, the hackers were able to retrieve the sensitive card information from over 80,000 people.

Authorities noticed the attacks on the POS system through “a targeted port scan of blocks of IP addresses to detect systems with a specific type of remote desktop access software running on them.” The software provided a ready-made back door for the hackers to gain entry to the POS systems. PCI Security Standards Council’s regulations require two-factor confirmation for remote access to POS systems, something that wasn’t implemented at the different Subway franchises.

Gallagher’s article goes on to say that Subway Corporate Press Relations Manager, Kevin Kane, stated “the tech guys who dealt with this moved and put steps in place [to block the theft of data] as soon as they discovered it.” Subway did not go into detail on measurements taken into preventing possible attacks saying, “We don’t want to give away the blueprint.”

Cyber-security is an element that businesses must take into consideration when choosing POS software.  ChargeLogic Payments is PCI validated credit card and payment processing software integrated with Microsoft Dynamics NAV that encrypts sensitive customer account information. This ensures that data is not left behind on hardware, protecting customers from having their credit card data stolen in the event of a hack.

ChargeLogic Connect is the leading cloud-based service integrated with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. One service that Connect provides is Secure Remote Storage –a service that manages and stores credit card information, ensuring that it is never stored in the NAV database. When a customer’s credit card number is required for payment processing, ChargeLogic Payments retrieves it from Connect, securely transmits it, and then deletes it, allowing businesses to take their operations out of scope for PCI compliance, while greatly decreasing the possibility for data theft. For more information on ChargeLogic Payments and ChargeLogic Connect, visit www.chargelogic.com.

 

Some of America’s traditional holiday season festivities include walking around a winter wonderland, drinking a warm mug of hot chocolate, and singing songs like, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.  Well, PNC Wealth Management recently released the PNC Christmas Price Index® and this year it’s going to cost a pretty penny to enjoy those wonderful 12 days of Christmas.

Around this time of the year, PNC researches the cost of buying each gift named in the traditional Christmas carol—from a partridge in a pear tree and the two turtle doves to 11 pipers piping and 12 drummers drumming.  According to Kelly Erb’s article “Cost of 12 Days of Christmas Mirrors National Economy” on Forbes.com, this year the price-tag of the “364 separate pieces of Christmas joy” checked out to be $101,119.84. The highest priced gift your true love would be paying for…the seven swans-a-swimming, which cost an astonishing $6,300, up 12.5% from last year.

It’s no surprise that our country’s hard economic times have taken their toll on holiday shopping, but we shouldn’t let the inflation of some of our favorite holiday gifts discourage the true meaning of the holiday season—spending time with those you love.

Happy Holidays from ChargeLogic!

Until recently, the options for shipping software integrated with NAV have been limited.  Because Chargelogic Shipping is easy to use and easy to implement, some might be surprised by the technologically advanced features built into the software.  ChargeLogic Shipping provides all the key functionality that businesses expect and more.

Check out some of these key benefits:

• Benefits to Merchants

1. Affordable:  With key functionality built-in, ChargeLogic Shipping does not require additional modifications that increase costs.
2. Improved customer service:  With features like rate shopping, address validation, accurate rate quotes, direct carrier connections, package management, and easy return shipments, merchants can provide a superior customer shopping experience.
3. Streamlined business processes:  Smart Pack and Smart Weight Technology provide merchants with tools that continually update NAV with information on the products a business sells and ships.  The result is accurate weight estimates, detailed package management, time savings in the warehouse, and a smoother workflow.
4. Easy:  ChargeLogic Shipping is easy to use in the back office and the warehouse.  Designed for today’s technology, Shipping provides easy to use menus, commands, and touch screen functionality.

• Benefits to Customers

1. Predictable Shipping Fees: Gives businesses the ability to provide exact shipping fees by item weight and bill for shipping when the order is placed.
2. Package Management: Provides information including the number of packages being sent and the transit times.
3. Easy Returns: Emails a prepaid return shipping label directly to customers for easy returns.

• Solution-Center Benefits

1. Easy to implement.
2. Easy to manage.

See the difference for yourself.  Attend a free one hour demonstration of ChargeLogic Shipping on December 6, 2011 at 2pm ET.  We’ll see you there!

Negative reactions from customers, law-makers, and even President Obama have led to Bank of America and other banks within the industry to terminate their controversial $5 monthly debit-card fee.

Hugh Son reports in his article on Bloomberg.com, “Debit-Fee ‘Flop’ Leaves Banks Seeking $8 Billion” that Citigroup Inc. and U.S. Bancorp had originally dismissed the idea of imposing new charges, and SunTrust Banks Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. got rid of their check-card fees last week.

Banks are currently looking for other ways to regain revenue after the Federal Reserve capped fees on debit-card purchases last month. Authorized through the Dodd-Frank Act, the legal limits cut bank’s annual revenue by an estimated $8 billion. Nevertheless, customers have made it known that the bank’s money-making strategies will not be on their dime.

 

Sources:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-02/debit-fee-flop-leaves-u-s-banks-looking-for-8-billion-in-lost-revenue.html

Since the government capped debit card swipe fees on October 1, 2011, banks and card associations are looking for ways to make up for lost revenue.   Bank of America Corp plans to charge debit card customers a $5 monthly fee starting in early 2012.  It is rumored that other banks will follow suit.

The debit card swipe fee reform caps debit card swipe fees at about 21 percent, down from close to 44 percent.  Economic analysts expect the cap to save merchants and consumers more than $6 billion a year.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. have hiked the fees they charge to merchants for small ticket transactions. According to Trefis Team’s article “Rising Debit Card Fees May Swipe Value from Visa, MasterCard” on forbes.com, to retrieve lost revenue, “…banks are forcing card networks to raise debit card fees for small transactions.” Paying in cash is quickly becoming outdated; from 2008 to 2011, the number of transactions processed by Visa rose from 37.7 billion to about 54 billion. Trefis believes that it is likely that the fees that merchants pay on a $2 transaction—which is currently at about 8 cents—could possibly triple, and that the increase in fees could decrease the number of transactions—thus hurting Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. stock.

Sources:

http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=110839

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/10/06/rising-debit-card-fees-may-swipe-value-from-visa-mastercard/

We want to congratulate the winners of ChargeLogic’s drawings at Directions 2011.  We had a great time at the show and are pleased that so many of our partners stopped by to see us at the reception.

We also want to thank everyone who attended our session featuring ChargeLogic Connect and ChargeLogic Shipping.   Many of the attendees were excited to hear about the newest addition to Connect: Click-to-Pay Invoicing, which enables businesses to email invoices containing a link to a secure website for online payment by credit card or electronic check.

Connect’s Click-to-Pay Electronic Invoicing is different than other products that email invoices; it allows the customer to pay online in a safe, secure environment using the payment method of their choice.  Payments are then automatically pulled into NAV and applied to the invoice on the customer account.  Eliminate paper invoices and get paid quicker with ChargeLogic Connect’s Click-to-Pay Invoicing.

Now on to our winners!  Congratulations to the following individuals for winning ChargeLogic’s prizes:

$50 iTunes Gift Cards:  Nicole Luer, InterDyn CFO; Laurel Loehlin, BMI; David Thikoll, Silverware; Kevin Lord, Solution Dynamics

$100 Gift Cards: Martin Kerr, Bestborn Business Solutions; Krystal Heffley, InterDyn CFO

iPad: Christian Roach, Open Door Technology

Visit ChargeLogic’s Event page and register for a free online demonstration of any of our products:

ChargeLogic Payments
ChargeLogic Connect
ChargeLogic Shipping

With Directions 2011 less than two weeks away, all of us at ChargeLogic are gearing up for the fun that our favorite event brings. We are excited to meet with all the attendees to see what you have been up to and to show you what we’ve been up to.

As a bronze sponsor, ChargeLogic will exhibit at the reception and expo and we will host an ISV session. This year, we are adding to the excitement by giving away seven prizes over three days. Prizes include iTunes gift cards, VISA gift cards, and even an iPad 2!

You must attend ChargeLogic’s ISV session on Friday, October 14th to be eligible to win the iPad 2. Just stop by our table at the reception and expo on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and drop off your business cards for your chance to win one of six other prizes. The prizes will be drawn on the following days and times:

Wednesday October 12, 2011 @ 8:45pm:

• $100 Visa Gift Card
• (2) $50 iTunes Gift Cards

Thursday October 13, 2011 @ 8:45pm:

• $100 Visa Gift Card
• (2) $50 iTunes Gift Cards

Friday October 14, 2011 @ 1:59pm:

• iPad 2

ChargeLogic is already known for its easy e-commerce integration with NAV, but if you attend our session during Directions 2011, you will see how much more ChargeLogic’s suite of products offers. Our session will demonstrate ChargeLogic Connect, a leading cloud-based service integrated with NAV that helps businesses maintain PCI compliance while obtaining and processing payments in an easy-to-use, secure environment.

We’ll demo new features like Click-to-Pay Invoicing, which eliminates paper invoices and enables one-click payments, and Secure Remote Storage, which takes NAV out of the scope for PCI Compliance through the tokenization of credit card data. We’ll also demo ChargeLogic Shipping—a streamlined application that incorporates all the key functionality needed for packing and shipping.

Be sure to stop by and say hello to Debbie and Jon. You’ll not only leave with information on new ChargeLogic offerings, but possibly an iPad 2! See you all in Orlando!

Visa is currently preparing to launch a smart card campaign -a credit card implanted with a PIN-encoded chip- in the United States within the coming year. To attract businesses to the newest trend in business-to-consumer transactions, Visa plans to offer financial incentives to businesses that install a system that can read smart cards.

If a business converts most of its terminals to smart card friendly units, it will not have to pay each year for audits of its payment system security. However, those businesses that choose to keep their traditional magnetic strip terminals will be held responsible for all fraudulent smart cards processed within their business.  Visit http://consumerist.com/2011/09/visa-will-incentivize-stores-to-install-smart-card-terminals.html for more details.

As a leading provider of payment processing software for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, ChargeLogic plans to support smart card transactions in future product versions.

ChargeLogic provides all business that process credit card payments with secure systems.  Contact us to find out which one of our products can help your business stay PCI compliant.  Visit www.chargelogic.com.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently launched a Credit Card Complaint Portal on their website, consumerfinance.gov. This easily accessible service will makes the process of resolving issues with credit card companies much less painful for consumers and merchants.

The way the portal works is fairly simple. First, users provide an overview of the situation, state how they would like the situation to be resolved, and submit pertinent data.  Once this information is submitted, the CFPB alerts the credit card company of the situation. Users can track the status of their complaints via updates from the CFPB. The portal specifically covers a wide range of issue categories including collection debt dispute, customer service, credit determination/reporting, application processing delay, bankruptcy, identity theft, and fees. The CFPB hopes to expand their consumer response center with additional services like the Credit Card Complaint Portal in the near future.

As PCI compliant software, ChargeLogic provides retail distributors with highly secure credit card payment software to help avoid potential discrepancies that lead to disputes.  Visit ChargeLogic for more information.

Sources: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/, http://consumerist.com/2011/07/cfpb-launches-credit-card-complaint-portal.html

 

Chase Paymentech, an online payment processing company, recently released an outline of the final rules from the Durbin Amendment (AKA Section 1075 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act). The new rules were decided by the Federal Reserve Board on June 29, 2011 and go into effect October 10, 2011.
The rules follow:

Rule #1 – Debit interchange fees are capped at 21 cents per card transaction, plus five basis points upon ticket amount, plus one cent for card issuers who have implemented fraud prevention procedures.

Rule #2 – Debit transactions must be able to be routed through two unaffiliated networks and merchants can designate preferred routing.

Previously implemented rules noted in the Amendment:

• Companies have the right to set a minimum amount ($10.00 or less) for which they will accept credit cards (not debit cards) as payment options.

• Merchants have the option to offer discounts for cash payments, but cannot favor one card over another.

 

To view the Chase Paymentech overview, click here:  Durbin Amendment: Understanding the Federal Reserve Board Rules

 

ChargeLogic is certified on the Chase Paymentech platform. Visit the ChargeLogic website for secure payment processing solutions.