Repost for Managed: credit card qualification

This message has been posted by me before, this is a repost under my managed account for a response by MS.

About 2% of my credit card transactions are clearing as 'hand keyed', which of course bumps them up to some outrageous discount rate. We rarely hand key any transaction, so I have been trying to track down the cause of this downgrade. I spoke with the folks at Vital and we checked out a few of the offending transactions. According to them, the hand keyed status originates from RMS, it is not done at their end end for 'lack of data'.

I am using the Mini-Mag and swiped a card in Notepad and it matched perfectly with the expected info, per theKnowledgebase article, but then again, only 2% of the cards are failing. I did not have this problem with the old Zon dial-up terminals.

Marc Beverly's Pet Center

No pattern I can discern, but I cannot tell what charges are being downgraded from my statement, I only get a count/dollar value.

Yes

All they could tell me is that the of hand keyed status was being sent from RMS, it was not determined by them.

Built-in processing. FD thru Vita

The amount of charges we hand key is virtually non-existent. We only hand key several charges a year.

There are times the cashier gets an erorr message about bad data and must cancel out and re-swipe the card. I am not aware of the situation you descibe occuring. It seems that RMS will often allow the cashier to continue and will process a charge even after the error message occurs. We thought this was the cause of the issue so we re-trained all cashiers to cancel first, then re-swipe card. There was no change in the number of mis-labled transactions.

No

MagTek Mini USB 2104108

Todd, I fixed the managed newsgroup account issue. That was my fault :).

Marc

because the email address you are posting under does not match the email

No pattern I can discern, but I cannot tell what charges are being downgraded from my statement, I only get a count/dollar value.

Yes

All they could tell me is that the of hand keyed status was being sent from RMS, it was not determined by them.

Built-in processing. FD thru Vita

The amount of charges we hand key is virtually non-existent. We only hand key several charges a year.

There are times the cashier gets an erorr message about bad data and must cancel out and re-swipe the card. I am not aware of the situation you descibe occuring. It seems that RMS will often allow the cashier to continue and will process a charge even after the error message occurs. We thought this was the cause of the issue so we re-trained all cashiers to cancel first, then re-swipe card. There was no change in the number of mis-labled transactions.

No

MagTek Mini USB 2104108

Todd, According to Vital, the downgrade occurs at the register by RMS, before it is sent to Vital, eliminating Vital, FD and card type as part of the problem. The tech I spoke to said the transactions we reviewed came into Vital marked as hand swiped. The answers to your question are below.

I believe Glenn Adams was also looking into this issue for a client and he may have more information that could help determine the cause.

Thanks,

Marc

The card is ALREADY MARKED AS HAND SWIPED BY RMS when Vital gets it.

N/A

N/A

When I checked into the issue I called Vital and had them pull a few transaction that came through as hand swiped from that morning. I was told by Vital that the downgrade to hand swiped status originated from RMS - they do not know why and they just pass it on to FD. These downgraded transactions were from both registers.

YES

Todd, According to Vital, the downgrade occurs at the register by RMS, before it is sent to Vital, eliminating Vital, FD and card type as part of the problem. The tech I spoke to said the transactions we reviewed came into Vital marked as hand swiped. The answers to your question are below. I believe Glenn Adams was also looking into this issue for a client and he may have more information that could help determine the cause. Thanks, Marc

The card is ALREADY MARKED AS HAND SWIPED BY RMS when Vital gets it.

N/A

N/A

When I checked into the issue I called Vital and had them pull a few transaction that came through as hand swiped from that morning. I was told by Vital that the downgrade to hand swiped status originated from RMS - they do not know why and they just pass it on to FD. These downgraded transactions were from both registers.

YES

getting all data.

Todd,

Thank you for your reply.

Would it be possible to get an explanation of the algorithm RMS uses to determine if a transaction gets 'flagged' as hand keyed? This may help me in trying to find a cause.

It seems kind of strange to me that all the correct information gets sent, but RMS detects something to say 'hand keyed'. Does a 'hand keyed' flag mean that certain characters are missing in the data stream from the mag stripe reader? If so it is funny that all the other data, card number and expiration data reads in perfectly.

I tend to think the problem is going unreported because it is a tedious and difficult job to read and understand a First Data statement. My statement is about 32 pages a month and they don't exactly make it self explanatory. When I get the time I will get back on the phone with Vital and dig through more of the 'hand keyed' transactions to see if I can come up with a common thread. Even though it is a relatively small percentage, it is still costing me about $200 a month.

Last, is there any way you track something like this, so you can notify me if MS comes up with something at your end?

Regards,

Marc

We occasionally have had transactions to show up on our monthly statement from First Data as "hand keyed" when we don't recall having any. Since this notification is way after the fact, we have not been able to pinpoint any one thing causing this.

Thanks Todd, I will try that when I get a chance. Also, I looked back in the group and it was Jeff from CheckPoint, not Glenn that was also checking into this problem. He was working it from the partner side.

If I find anything I'll report it here.

Marc

Thanks Todd, I will try that when I get a chance. Also, I looked back in the group and it was Jeff from CheckPoint, not Glenn that was also checking into this problem. He was working it from the partner side.

If I find anything I'll report it here.

Marc

Thanks Todd, I will try that when I get a chance. Also, I looked back in the group and it was Jeff from CheckPoint, not Glenn that was also checking into this problem. He was working it from the partner side.

If I find anything I'll report it here.

Marc