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What does it cost to actually process
these transactions, even on the crypto side.

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At some point somebody's going to get
the gimmick Visa MasterCard did it.

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They're like, we give rewards to
the consumer, the consumer will fight to

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keep those things, and then we
can put in whatever other fees we need

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to at that point. And that's
what's kind of occurred at this point,

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like I'm not giving my two percent
cash back either, and I'm like on

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the other side of the fence advocating
not to charge that much. So it's

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a it's a really unique problem.
All of the law right now is focused

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on the Visa MasterCards of the world. That's not the problem. You are

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listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you just

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00:00:37,399 --> 00:00:43,039
can't find anywhere else to thrive in
today's trying times. You need the Financial

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00:00:43,119 --> 00:00:49,240
Survival Network now more than ever.
Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and get

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00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:59,159
your free newsletter and gift. Financial
Survival Network now more than ever, Ed

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and welcome. You are listening to
and watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm

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your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, Jeremy Lasarus is with us. Now.

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Look, if you take credit cards
in your business, and you're taking

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in more than fifty thousand a month, you have to hear what Jeremy has

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to say. You're paying a ton
in merchant fees, and Jeremy can save

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you big bucks here. Jeremy,
welcome to the show. Really appreciate you

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coming on helping the FSN community.
I know there's a bunch of you out

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there that live on credit cards,
literally on receiving credit card payments and debit

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cards as well. Jeremy, how
do you save people money on their merchant

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fees? So I think it's really
important to start with saying that in the

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industry, when you talk about credit
card processing, everybody need jerks. I'm

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not switching. I don't want to
switch my process, sir. I don't

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want to go through underwriting and set
up a new account. I don't want

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to get into terminal. I don't
want So it's important that I kind of

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start this conversation at least by saying
what I do has nothing to do with

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changing credit card processing at all,
because I'm immediately tied to the stigma of

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that industry, which is really not
good. I work with existing credit card

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processing vendors and we use a machine
learning tool to identify the profitability of that

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processor, and we use that data
to negotiate. So it's just data driven

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negotiation. And okay, we can
call it AI, but it's machine learning

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where we're identifying the cost of those
transactions. All those transactions are routed a

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lot of the technical pieces of what
the card cost is, and then we're

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taking that data back to the processor
and using it to negotiate the price down.

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So it's a pure plain cost reduction
exercise. Interesting. Interesting, what

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kind of savings can you get?
People? Leader? So I know that

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this is a weird one to say, but every deal is like a stealthflake.

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There is no two deals that are
the same, and so revenue to

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profitability or revenue to cost there is
no such thing. I have a small

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dental practice in Miami. They do
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month.

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We were able to save them six
thousand dollars a month. On the

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other side of it, we had
a national hotel train that everybody would recognize.

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They do millions of dollars a month. We're only able to save them

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three hundred dollars a month. So
there's no direct correlation between revenue and potential

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savings. The one thing I challenge
companies to do is to take a copy

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of their credit card processing statement,
take the total fees, divide it by

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the total that they have in terms
of revenue from their sales, and see

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what the percentages and anything above let's
say two percent, something that you should

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take a look at. Okay,
So it's interesting that that it so some

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people are actually getting a good deal
already and they just don't know it.

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Huh. And you know, that's
my favorite conversation have is, look,

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your processor is honest. They're charging
a reasonable fee for the volume that you're

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doing. So I don't think you
should make any changes or try to negotiate

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at this point. But we'll look
at it again next year. Because the

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thing that we do know about processors, they change pricing at will and in

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some cases with no notice, because
that's what the contract says. Visa MasterCard

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has three hundred different rates and fees, right you and I know, because

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like we swipe a card, I
want two percent cash back here, I

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get like one point seven five percent
cash here if I use it for fuel

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purchase. Like, there's very complicated
interchange that's what it's called. So they

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have the credit card processing companies have
to be able to change their price structure

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at will, because Visa's like,
hey, when we'rew out a new card,

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or I'm going to change the interchange
fee, so they have to be

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able to change their pricing. The
problem is that it became predatory years ago

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when they realized no one's paying attention, so we can change the fee at

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will, and it doesn't have to
be in step with when VS. MasterCard

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does it. So they'll add five
basis points here and two cents there,

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and five dollars a month here,
and no one's paying attention because they'll look

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at it and go, it's like
three ish percent. That's the cost of

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doing business, is what I hear
way too much. And more recently the

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companies came out with simple payments.
It's just a flat two and a half

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percent and thirty cents of transaction,
which everybody loves because like I get a

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statement, I can read it,
I get it. The problem is like

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a debit card only costs point two
five percent, a very low rewards card

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costs one point nine percent, So
how much are you paying? Simple payments

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doesn't make it cheaper, that's all. So we we try to take the

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complexity and simplify it to find where
the cost savings could be without making changes.

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That's the number number one thing that
we do, all right, So

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I would think this would be sweeping
the world now your system. Yeah,

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So it's just a matter of getting
introductions right. And also, as much

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as I love being on podcasts and
talking about it and getting it out to

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the world, I also don't want
it to get full attention. We're not

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running ads, We're not trying to
be big in front of all these banks

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and processors, because the last thing
they need to know is there's a company

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like us that's out there trying to
take their profits away. There's fifty billion

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dollars a year above the profit margin
line of of research study that we did

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that we believe is falling on the
shoulders of small to medium sized companies,

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not the big boys. Those guys
are all negotiating and constantly staying on top

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of their vendors. They have sophisticated
supply chain folks that are dealing with us

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every year. I think that most
of that burden falls on the companies that

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can't afford it. They don't have
supply chain people, they don't have you

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know, somebody doing vendor and elysis
every year. They don't have the sophistication

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or education enough to understand the statement, so they're just they're just paying it.

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So I'm trying to bring that to
the masses. But we're trying to

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also fly a little bit under the
radar. I don't want the attention of

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you know, the big banks and
processors. It's saying, hey, there's

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a company like this, let's not
negotiate with anybody. So our hope is

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to try to reach those people under
the radar as much as we can.

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Seems to me there's like anti trust
issues here too. There is. I

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mean they've signed real treaties with software
companies to not change pricing, to fix

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pricing, to stop free market choice, like all of the things that you

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hear in these anti trust suits.
They're doing at all, but they're just

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not getting caught in it because they're
talking it up to like, well,

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we secure the payment and we bring
a lot of value and all these other

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pieces. But I see you know
processors charging five and six percent. That's

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a silent partnership. I mean,
we're moving money here. This isn't as

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sophisticated as they've made it out to
be. Don't get me wrong. I

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love what they do. I love
that I can go in and thumbprint or

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you know, scan my face and
pay for something in a seamless way.

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That's awesome. They've done a great
job and it's secure and I don't have

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to worry about my money and if
somebody steals my identity, all that's taken

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care of in a very seamless manner. Now that's great. But six percent

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it just seems too much when there
are companies that are paying some too.

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So our goal is to help people
get the transparency and see what they're paying

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one and to give them some power. I mean the power should rest in

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the small to medium sized company.
Are they companies? So how do you

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get paid? Do you get a
percentage of what you save that we're performance

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only so if we don't save you
any money, we make nothing. So

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it's a performance based pay. And
the way that we work is we do

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the analysis. We show people what
we might be able to negotiate. We

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can't guarantee we can get one hundred
percent of it. If we get it,

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we analyze it every single month and
show them how much money we saved

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them if we split the savings with
them. We do it for a short

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period of time so they have,
you know, a period of time where

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we make money. And then after
that, if they want us to analyze,

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we can charge for analysis. We
can help them continue to monitor and

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negotiate. It's totally up to the
customer. I love that. I think

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you could keep it ongoing because it's
just the kind of I don't want to

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call it theft, but it's a
game. If I change a pricing two

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basis points, you can't tell I
mean attention to it. No, I

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can totally get this. Unfortunately,
I've never been in a business where we

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relied on credit cards or unfortunately,
on the one hand, you sell more

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and you get you know, you
get paid instantly, have no receivables hand

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you're getting screwed. And this is
a global problem because as more business has

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have gone to electronic payment systems,
basically the potential for mayhem here is increased

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geometrically. It's what's even worse,
we're hyper inflating the market now because what

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what just happened recently? There's an
article I posted this on our website as

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well. But I think what you've
seen more recently is merchants identifying the problem.

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They're like, why are we paying
four percent? I'm passing this on

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my customer. So now you see, and i've if you've been in Miami

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or other you know, vacation zones, you see this cash discounting thing.

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It's like, what's this three percent
charge? Is paid by credit card?

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And so Visa MasterCard initially had a
knee jerk. They're like, we don't

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want our merchants to be able to
do that. So they started fighting them

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and they realized they're like, wait
a second, on average, we're getting

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two percent. Let's start charging direct. So now they're in endorsing to charge

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your customer three percent. Hey,
we'll even help you. We'll embed that

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in your software and make it very
easy for you to do that. So

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I think that's even gotten worse where
we're going to then hyper inflate the market

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and start charging three four percent to
the customer directly. It's like, this

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is not this is not the direction
we want to go. And you know

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this is like making the argument for
cryptocurrencies and cutting out the banks. They're

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going to cut their own throats and
the clearing houses, right, because all

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Visa and Master Corridor are clearing houses. Right. Yeah, I'm not so

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on the crypto side, I think
that the bigger challenge will be when there's

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no mining, what is the cost
of transactions. That's a different discussion for

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another call. I love that stuff. I could talk about that all day

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too, but I think in general, like because I've looked at I've looked

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at it objectively and said, what
does it cost to actually process these transactions?

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Even on the crypto side, at
some point somebody's going to get the

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gimmick the some massacred did it.
They're like, well, give rewards to

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the consumer. The consumer fight to
keep those things, and then we can,

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you know, put in whatever other
fees we need to at that point.

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And that's what's kind of occurred at
this point, Like I'm not giving

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my two percent cash back either,
and I'm like on the other side of

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the fence advocating not to charge that
much. So it's a it's a really

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unique problem. All of the law
right now is focused on the Visa Master

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cards of the world. That's not
the problem like paying two percent for cash

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back rewards isn't the problem. It's
what they charge above that. And that's

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not Visa master Cards problem. That's
the credit card processors problem. And so

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yeah, these clearing house are making
and you can see them. They're gobbling

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up all of the other ones and
making these incredibly large companies. So it's

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it's dangerous. Sold. Where do
I sign up, Jeremy, I'm sold

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the business. I just get the
wires and ah's I don't do credit cards

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because I don't want to pay three
or four percent. So it's they're coming

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after you next. And by the
way, so you take AH. Yeah,

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you know, AH costs nothing if
you look at the actual national laws

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and how how those transactions move,
there's no cost of these things. Now

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they're like super secure and there's no
like there's really no risk. So phosphor

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risk and compliance and other things are
huge hurdle. And I understand that cost,

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So not trying to discount that.
Visa master Cards shouldn't charge some of

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these fees. But they're now going
after AH and I more recently, what

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it used to be ten cents of
transaction or twenty cents flat rate, now

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they're starting in charge a percentage and
you're going to start seeing that number move

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up really quick. So I've now
seen that Stripe and others have gone down

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the path to charge you know,
a percent per transaction for ACCH. That's

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not that used to not be the
case. So I see what's happening now

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because people are understanding how to do
this cheaper? Can you negotiate with like

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Quicken into it? No, QuickBooks
not happening. This non negotiable. They

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00:13:41,759 --> 00:13:45,960
have a flat rate system for a
reason. If you have significant volume,

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it's worth the shot. But you're
going to have to be doing you know,

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one hundred two hundred thousand dollars a
month in transactions to have any kind

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of clout, to have any leg
to stand out with them. I've done

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successful negotiations with quick Books directly.
But it's also when you look at it

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in terms of business, it's not
really a commercial grade processing company, right,

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Okay, we're a small, small
to medium business sized company. All

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right, it's really exciting. I
think a lot of you out there can

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profit by this. Jarmey, what's
the website? How do we connect with

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you? Super easy payment Brokers dot
com, Aiman Brokers dot com link in

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00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:26,080
the show notes. Make sure you
go take a look at the show notes

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00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:28,840
at Financial Survival Network dot com.
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