CARD NOT PRESENT

[MUDE]

Customer has made a payment through my website and it has been recorded as a card not present transaction with a higher transaction fee, this is the first time i have seen this when a purchase has been made through the site, surely they would have had to put the card details in which always classes as card present, not sure if its the fact its an AMEX that makes a difference. Any explanation to understand this would be appreciated. 

[Breffni · Accepted solution]

Hi @MUDE 👋 I'd be happy to help.  

The fact that the card is AMEX wouldn’t affect the fee in this case, as the processing fees don’t change based on the card brand. For online sales, these are considered "card not present" transactions, since the card isn’t physically tapped or used with chip and pin.

When a customer makes a purchase through your Square Online Store, Square Online Checkout, or eCommerce API, the fee is 1.4% + 25p for UK cards or 2.5% + 25p for non-UK cards. 

Could you double-check where the card was issued and see if the fee is closer to 2.5% + 25p?

If that doesn’t seem right, please send me the transaction amount and date, and I’ll take a closer look. You can share that via DM.

[MUDE]

Hi, the fee is 2.5% but thats my question, every single other transaction through my site is 1.4%, the only difference here is its a AMEX, how has this fallen into card not present 2.5% and every other single transaction hasn't ? 

[Breffni]

Hi @MUDE, were you able to confirm the issuing country of this card?

It seems that most of your transactions are from the UK, and therefore are charged at the 1.4% rate. However, this particular transaction sounds like it might be from a different country, which explains the 2.5% fee. You can find more details about our fees here.

As I mentioned in my previous post, transactions made via contactless, chip and PIN, or swiped methods are considered card-present, while online sales are categorised as card-not-present. This is also noted in the article attached.