The call came in on my Obama phone today, the guy on the line said he needed to speak with the business owner- told him he was. ( I am in a homeless shelter at the moment) He told me I was probably paying too much for my Visa card processing.
"Probably so" I said. "What can you do for me?"
He said, "We can get you up and running for only 5% with no transaction fees- how 'bout that!"
I said, "I have the bookkeeper right here with me, I'll check. Mind if I put you on speaker phone?".
I shambled over to the guy waiting next to me and I clicked on the speakerphone. "OK, go ahead" I said. "You are on with Ed the bookkeeper and me, Ralph. Whatcha got for us?"
"HI Ralph, Ed," he said. "Let me ask, what kind of volume are you doing with your credit card operations?"
"We do about $6500 a day on the cards- a little less on the weekends. We are really interested in your flat percentage rate without transaction fees. Are you for real?" I asked.
"Absolutely sir! We are the number one processing service for over 90 Fortune 500 companies. Exactly what kind of business are you in?", he asked.
I told him, "Transportation- but we are not a big company. We only have 6 vehicles right now."
"Not a problem for us." he said. "In fact, most of our customers experience new growth after they switch over. What exactly do you carry in your transportation business, Ralph?"
"People", I said. "We are a bus company."
Ed chimed in, "Yeppers! We are local to Fresno. We took over the municipal bus contract here. We have launched a brand new strategy and it seems to be working for us. We call our company 'The Urban Rolling Dollar', 'T.U.R.D' for short. We ask that people refer to us a the 'Dollar Line' instead. You can probably understand why."
The guy asked, "You mean you carry passengers like a regular city bus?".
"We do!", Ed said. "We charge a buck to go anywhere the bus goes, but no transfers- nope, transfers not allowed. You pay again to get on another route. And for safety, the driver carries no cash. We use credit/debit only."
"So," I says, " Me and Ed here wanna talk to you real bad about that 'no transaction fee' service you talked about. Right now we be getting killed with over 6000 transactions a day. We will sign with you right now if you are ready..."
The line went mysteriously dead. Just then, the buzzer rang for us and the rest of the guys out here to shamble on in the soup kitchen and get ready for some food. Its clam chowder today here at the mission and me and Ed here have worked up a big appetite inventing our new bus company.
"One of these days", I said as I shoulder bumped a drunk out of my way. "I wanna catch one of these scammers and POW!- Right in the kisser!"
"To the MOON, scammers!" finished Ed as he stepped around another fallen drunk. "To the Moon."