Karen Erdelac

Recent Posts

Fraud Schemes Target Small Merchants

Sep 5, 2013
Former federal prosecutor Kim Peretti says indictments of five cyberthieves with alleged connections to Heartland Payments hacker Albert Gonzalez and network break-ins that affected Global Payments and others reflect a growing migration of payments fraud from major merchants to smaller and mid-sized retailers. She notes that the advantage of hitting smaller targets is the accumulation over time of a substantial number of stolen payment cards to resell. The latest indictments revealed that one defendant was tasked with breaching systems to steal large amounts of card numbers as well as accessing certain processors to acquire a small number of prepaid cards to be exploited via ATM fraud.
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Topics: Retail

Mobile Credit Card Readers Accelerate Payment Revolution

Sep 5, 2013
Traditionally cash-only businesses such as taxi drivers and street vendors are quietly adopting mobile credit card payments, with a recent BIA/Kelsey survey finding that 40 percent of small- and medium-sized businesses now accept point of sale payments with a mobile credit card reader attached to an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet. 
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Topics: Growing Your Business, Mobile

Back to school spending rates decrease

Aug 31, 2013

For many retailers, the back-to-school season offers a rush of customers buying new products, services and wardrobes to help see them through the latest semester. However, customers are spending in smaller volumes this year, demonstrating that business owners need to devise new ways of attracting shoppers and driving their customers toward their checkout registers and credit card processing services. 

Families with school-age children will spend an average of $634.78 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics for school purposes this year, down from the $688.62 recorded in regards to the same statistic at this time last year, according to a report from the National Retail Federation compiled by Prosper Insights & Analytics. Total domestic back-to-school spending is expected to exceed $26 billion. When you include back-to-college spending, then the number increases to over $72 billion. 

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Topics: Growing Your Business, Retail

Survey: email most effective way to reach online shoppers

Aug 27, 2013

Many business owners think that the latest social media websites are the most effective way to drive consumer attention to their products - and toward their online credit card processing terminals. 

However, a more classical form of digital communication may still be the preference of the average customer: aside from search engines, consumers would rather learn about stores and promotions via email than they would by any other means, according to a new survey conducted by Millward Brown Digital.

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Topics: Growing Your Business, Retail

Some consumers now paying their medical bills online

Aug 23, 2013

Many Americans are looking for new ways to optimize the manner by which they make payments. 

United Healthcare is hoping to innovate such things in the medical field. The firm announced earlier this week that they will allow its customers to pay their medical bills online with a credit card, making them the first national insurer to offer such capability.

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Topics: Funding Your Business, Ecommerce

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