Larry Richmond

Most if not all Oil and Propane companies assume when signing up with a payment vendor that all will go smoothly , which is often the case . But the data associated with the credit / debit cards is owned by the payment provider and / or the gateway company , not you . What does that mean at the end of the day ?

Nick Warren , President of Arrow Fuel , a secondgeneration family run energy company in Seekonk , Mass ., decided to switch payment providers as the additional efficiencies and cost savings derived from a new updated FinTech platform were just too appealing to pass up . This is what he had to say :

“ I ’ ve spent the past 5 years updating our company ’ s technology in pursuit of a better customer experience and more efficient back-office operations . The last piece of that puzzle was streamlining our credit card processing .

Over the last 13 years we have accumulated thousands of stored credit card tokens with two separate processing companies . The task of migrating my customers ’ data to our new processing company has proved to be harder than finding qualified oil drivers .

I was told by one of my processing providers it would cost me thousands of dollars to rescue my own credit data and send it to my new payment provider .

To say the least , I was bewildered to hear this as later I discovered it ’ s my data and I should have the right to transfer it in a secure PCI compliant manner to any payment provider of my choice .

The situation was so unpleasant , out of principle I chose to no longer communicate with my outgoing processor , leaving my team with the arduous task of entering cardholder data for thousands of customers instead of negotiating with a company that was not acting in good faith .

As a business owner , I view it necessary for me to put trust into my vendor relationships to run my business effectively . But when a vendor acts in a selfserving manner because they were going to lose a customer , enough is enough . I am in the heating oil business , and my biggest blind spot is thinking other vendors would service their customers the same way we do . As a result , I was probably more naive than I should have been , which ended up costing me a lot of aggravation and stress .”

I have been receiving phone calls from Retail Fuel Dealers and vendors regarding credit card data and the right to port the information to a new vendor of choice . Prohibitive posturing by payment providers is unnecessarily complicating that process and , in some cases , includes charging exorbitant fees as a means of restricting dealer choice . This is disturbing and an unethical business practice .

Healthy client / vendor relationships are built on a foundation of trust and it is paramount that the client ’ s best interests are the top priority of the payment vendor . I would be remiss not to note that many payment providers adhere to their clients ’ wishes , remain cooperative and assist in the data transfer process while ensuring it is conducted in a secure PCI-compliant manner that properly protects the client ’ s credit card data .

Vendors not acting in the best interest of their clients can wreak havoc , causing stress and expense , almost like a ransomware-type scenario forcing the client to buy their way out . Keep in mind we are talking about credit card data that belongs to the client .

Back in 2009 , to protect consumers , Congress enacted The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act , requiring more transparency in credit card terms and conditions . This included adding limits to charges and interest rates .

In 2010 , Braintree ( then a leading technologist in the payment space ), recognized the issue and addressed the problem by creating the Credit Card Data Portability initiative . It is an opt-in community of payment providers that agree to allow a merchant to port credit card and other associated information if the merchant decides to move to another provider . Payment providers are encouraged to make all terms and conditions available , clearly indicating willingness to transfer credit card data without incident or unjust fees . This initiative proved quite effective in the world of general credit card processing .

The time has come to level the playing field . All Fuel Dealers and Payment Providers need to come together to advocate on behalf of the Heating Fuel Industry . l FON

BIO :

Larry Richmond is president of payments processors Richmond

Financial Services ( www . richmondfs . com ).

He can be reached at 617-843-5700 x200 or by email at larry @ richmondfs . com .

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