Commerce Payment Systems DO NOT GET SUCKERED INTO USING THIS COMPANY! Hewlett, New York

My wife and I have both had a number of small businesses and come to the conclusion that taking credit cards is risky for a service type business.

You didn't provide us with dollar amounts for the transactions, but if they were for construction work, I would guess that they were at least 4-figure amounts.

The problem from the credit card processor's standpoint is that you have no previous history with them andyou have only a few transactions buthigh dollar amounts. As you note, you are a high-risk customer. What will happen if just one of your customersdisputes the charge withthe card issuer? If the card issuer agrees with the customer, they charge the amount back to the processor, and the processor charges you. But if the processor no longer has your money he has little chanceof recovering it. He has no reason to pay you until he is certain that the charges will not be disputed.

Credit cards work best for merchants who make a lot of small transactions. Few customers dispute small charges and there is always money in the pipeline to cover sustained disputes.

Persons providing services that routinely cost more than $100 are usually better off not accepting credit cards at all just because they will sooner or later run into the same situation you are now in.

You did yourself no favors by hiding your customers' phone numbers as you have prevented the processor from verifying that the charges were authorized. You made yourself a really-high-risk customer by doing that. The processor is not going to release payment to you now until the time has expired for the customers to dispute the charges. You won't see a dime of it for at least 90 days.