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Posted by Laurie Boucher, Richmond, February 14, 2008:The Town of Richmond is considering accepting credit cards and want to know how many Towns accept them and what the cost is per year.

Responses:

Bangor has accepted credit cards for some time in the Treasury Office, our Golf Course and Bass Park .  The Treasury Office accepted them for everything except real estate and personal property taxes.  For tax payments and sewer charge payments, we use Official Payments Corp., which charges a fee to the taxpayer but is no cost to the City.  The City recently switched banks to Camden National and along with the switch; we expanded our acceptance of credit cards to other Departments.  Once we are done setting them up we will be accepting credit or debit cards in Treasury, City Clerk, Assessing, Code Enforcement, Police parking (for parking tickets), Parking Division, Parks and Recreation, Bass Park, Health and Community Services, Harbor Master, Golf Course, Waste Water Treatment Plant and the School Department (for adult ed.).  Our Code Enforcement Office and the Waste Water Treatment Plant has been set up to accept debit card transactions only (which are .65 each).  We are also going to start accepting tax payments by debit card only.  This means they have to be present and input their PIN number.  We will still use Official Payments for those taxpayers that want to use their credit card for taxes or sewer charges.

The fees are widespread depending on the type of card used and whether it can be swiped or is manually keyed in.  They range from as low as .50% to 3.00% of the transaction amount.  The budget impact for most of these Departments won't be known until we have six months to a year of activity.  I do know that for the Treasury Office our annual expense for credit card merchant fees was around $22,000 with our old bank (TD Banknorth).  Since switching to Camden our fees have dropped by $1,000 during the first two months.  We have had a lot of debit card transactions which has helped cut the costs.

Our Council has looked at credit card fees as a cost of doing business and the acceptance of credit cards as a customer service item for our taxpayers.  We do however; try to keep the fees in check with the revenue being brought in. (David Little, Bangor)

David....How are you? Did you ever get a reply from Dave Ledew about our little Excise Study Group? I asked him for input and he sent it to me. I can forward it to you if you if you like. 

Can you send me data on Official Payments Corp? Do you like the service you get from them? Is it all on line payments only or do you have a machine in your office? (Leo Ouellette, Wells)

We have checked into it, and are waiting for the time being. Difficult to defer to costs. You might want to check woth Hallowell, they accept credit cards. (Debbie in Pittston)

We are expecting to go forward with the acceptance of credit cards later this month.  We will be working with a company called Point and Pay which charges a "conveinence fee" to the customer of approx. 2.5%-3.5% of the transaction amount.  This way there will be no cost to the town.  I know the Town of Fort Kent (which is probably close to the same size as Richmond) accepts credit cards and raises the amount to cover the costs associated with the fees.  You might want to check with Don Guimond there to find out how much they raise to cover the cost.  His e-mail is donald.guimond@fortkent.org (Ryan Pelletier, St. Agatha)

We accept credit cards & use a third party which assesses the "convenience" fee to the user.  Therefore, the town pays nothing.  The group we use is Certified Payments out of Texas .  This is the second town I've used them with. (Barbara Cox, Milford)

The City of Ellsworth accepts debit cards only at a cost of .50 per transaction. (Tammy Mote, Ellsworth)

Laurie........The City of Lewiston accepts credit cards for everything except property tax payments. The merchant fees range from :
VISA card scanned 2.21%
card keyed 3.26%
MASTERCARD card scanned 2.21%
card keyed 3.35%

Our merchant services are provided by TD Banknorth. (Paul Labrecque, Lewiston)

The Town of Woodstock accepts Master Card and Visa.  Right now it is an expense to the Town for a bit over 2%.  We are looking into Point and Pay which will charge the fee to the user and not to the Town.  I have also mentioned a fee to the user of 2% but the Selectmen did not really go for that idea.  (Rose, Woodstock)

Towns could probably be subject to Maine Law (See Below) if they charged the conveinence fee directly which is illegal for merchants to do.  The only way that towns can get around that is to work with an out of state company like Point and Pay or Officials Payments Corp. 

A merchant can give a discount if you pay by cash. However, according to Maine Title 9-A §8-303

  1. With respect to a credit card which may be used for extensions of credit in sales transactions in which the seller is a person other than the card issuer, the card issuer may not, by contract or otherwise, prohibit any such seller from offering a discount to a cardholder to induce the cardholder to pay by cash, check or similar means rather than use a credit card. [1981, c. 243, §25 (new).]

Please keep in mind this is a Maine law; a merchant from another state may claim this doesn't apply to them. They may have to adhere to their home state's law. The rest of Title 9-A §8-303 can be read at http://janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/9-A/title9-Asec8-303.html   Please keep in mind this is a Maine law; a merchant from another state may claim pre-emption (Ryan Pelletier, St. Agatha)