Since the 31st March 2011 card issuers do not accept Solo cards anymore. This is a result of MasterCard’s Maestro Alignment Migration program. To make the long story short – here are the details:
What’s the migration program?
In general, it means that MasterCard is cleaning its Maestro closet. Apart from the changes to Solo Card Scheme, this also includes the fact that domestic Maestro users are being transferred to the international Maestro platform. Maestro UK is quite a significant transfer here. It’s now sort of aligned under Maestro International, so merchants shall offer Maestro International without distinction into domestic UK.
I’m a merchant – what does this mean for me?
If you haven’t done this already, you should stop offering Solo as a payment method; also remove the Solo card type and logo wherever it is displayed. Furthermore, you should be aware of some issues.
- Since the 31st March 2011 you’re not able to do Solo refunds.
- If you’re still processing any recurring payments with Solo cards, you should contact your customers and request alternative payments from those cardholders.
- Ensure all pre-authorised transactions are submitted for settlement.
What about card numbers?
All BINs from ranges 676703–676799 are ceased since the 31st March 2011. Also two BINs in the “6767” range have been allocated to Maestro cards, and these are: 676770 and 676774. This information is particularly important if you validate BIN ranges.
This information means that also PayLane stopped offering Solo as a payment method.
For further information you should contact your acquiring bank.
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More than 4200 companies from over 70 countries, 339,000 visitors from 90 countries, 5000 journalists, 45 hours of tradeshow exhibits, and 20 open halls – that was CeBIT 2011! Soon Hannover will be gearing up for the 2012 mega-event. The Hannover trade area can certainly handle the crowds. It’s pretty impressive – a city within a city, with its own bus lines, railway station, catering service and hard-to-find hotel rooms, especially during CeBIT. It’s so big and so important that many companies time their product launches and special offers specifically for CeBIT. The question is: can small and midsized businesses get noticed alongside giants like Google, IBM, Comarch, Kaspersky and Microsoft?
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Ever wanted to buy some credit card numbers? Actually, you may now have a chance. If you’re into video games, you might have heard that Sony’s PSN was hacked and personal data of 77 millions customers was stolen.
As for now, we knew that hackers got logins, passwords, addresses, birth dates and so on. It was unknown whether they also got credit card numbers, transaction history etc. But now it seems that 2.2 million credit card numbers (including their CVV2!) are for sale!
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A chargeback means returning funds to a customer. It’s forced by the issuing bank and causes merchants a lot of problems, wasting their time and money. So obviously nobody likes a chargeback. Most merchants will do a lot, to avoid them. Even if their policy doesn’t allow refunds, they’ll probably give one to a client just to make him cancel the chargeback request.
So how to avoid chargebacks?
I won’t delude you that there is one efficient method. Sorry, chargebacks are troublemakers for all merchants and it’s going to stay that way – at least for some time. But it doesn’t mean, that you can’t do anything to avoid them.
If you get a chargeback request, than you usually have some time to prove your innocence. This means convincing the bank, that the client’s request is unjustified.
But that’s fighting the symptoms. It’s just saving your hide, not avoiding the danger. Let’s focus on the causes.
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Is it rewarding to take care about good quality and prices? ‘Sure’, you’d probably say. ‘It attracts the costumers, puts you ahead of others and so on’. That’s all true. But about a month ago I learned at work about one more advantage.
Every day a catering company delivers breakfasts for us. About 9:30 AM two guys walk into our kitchen with a few boxes filled with a large variety of different sandwiches, salads, cocktails etc. They sell the food at reasonable prices, we get to choose from different products, sizes, tastes.
And everybody was happy that way. That is until one day.
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Do you provide your employees free coffee? I’m sure you do. Who on earth would work without an aromatic dose of caffeine in the morning, right? But what kind of coffee do you provide? And why?
I’m not asking about whether anyone can have a coffee break at any time or whether there are no limits etc. I assume you run at least a small firm and you’re not fanatically strict (nor despotic). So the only question that’s left is…
Is it instant coffee, ground coffee or maybe fresh coffee beans?
‘What?! Are you nuts?’ – yes, I can read your mind. Of course I know you’re an employer, not a cafeteria. But please, let me just analyze this subject and simply follow my thoughts.
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Since the 31st March 2011 card issuers do not accept Solo cards anymore. This is a result of MasterCard’s Maestro Alignment Migration program. To make the long story short – here are the details: