Hardware POS Card Scanner For Web Integration

Looking recommendations/experiences

[riscit]

Howdy folks,

I'm faced with a rather unique situation. I mainly develop custom e-commerce solutions for clients who need more control then what the common off the shelf "solutions" *cough* offer. Recently, however, I've started working for a client who operates quite literally in the middle of nowhere, in the back woods of Maine as a wilderness lodge. They are completely off the grid. No phone, cable, or electricity (they run their own generators, however).

As such, a POS credit card terminal is not practical. Cell phone service is very unreliable, and satellite phones are too pricey. The saving grace for this situation is satellite internet service via direcway.

With that, the plan is to setup a bare bones card processing site for the client which interfaces with Authorize.net. Essentially a custom virtual terminal.

Obviously they don't want to be typing in credit card numbers by hand whenever someone comes in to the store to buy some twinkies and pay for gas, so we need a POS hardware card scanner.

I'm looking for a scanner we can attach, preferably via USB, which will type the card information, tab delimited, as if it had been typed at the keyboard. It would be very nice if there was a control panel for it so we could filter out information we don't need.

My questions are: Have any of you come across this in your travels and have experience with them? How reliable is it? What did it cost? and finally, is there a reputable dealer online who can get me one within 3 weeks?

Important factors are reliability, and ease of setup. I will be at least 3 hours away if this thing ever fails, so the client should be able to setup a new one on their own in the event of a failure.

I appreciate the time any of you have spent reading this, and look forward to any helpful replies you may offer.

[Automan Empire]

Riscit, have you inquired with potential merchant banks as to the availability of custom hardware (aside from the usual roster of POS terminals) as well as their willingness to interface with it? Reason being, it sounds like a trip near a bad neighborhood, the one where card-grabber makers come from (the second machine under counter to swipe card and steal cc info.) I realize *you* aren't going there, but consider the view of the merchant bank. On the other hand, sounds like this is your niche.

Obviously they don't want to be typing in credit card numbers by hand whenever someone comes in to the store to buy some twinkies

Maybe you could sell them an ATM machine that uses that internet connection instead of a phone line. Better to collect a commission for every withdrawal, than to try to amortize the price of this custom hardware setup and ongoing costs over 120,000 $1.59 twinkie sales. HIH

[Corey Bryant]

I am not certain if auth.net is compitable, but I do know that Linkpoint is - google cherry keyboard and then get the merchant account agent to set you up as a swiped account

-Corey

[riscit]

Thank you for your replies.

I was confused after reading this first reply, but I think I understand what you both are trying to say.

The issue is not with the bank. As far as the bank is concerned this is no different then if someone had bought something via an online store and we are billing the card through authorize.net as if it wasn't there and the information had been submitted with an order.

The bank isn't a factor. Heck, authorize.net isn't really a factor either with the correct AVS settings on the account.

I'm really just looking for recommendations for a bare bones card swipe that will behave as I described above. A simple card swipe that connects to my computer (preferably a USB connection).

Again, thank you for your replies.

EDIT: oh.. and re: the cherry keyboards.. Those would probably serve the purpose (though I would still like to hear some experiences with them before buying a couple) but I'd still rather use a separate piece of hardware to minimize the possibility that a card scanner failure will also take out the keyboard, and because one of these scanners will be used at an external gas pump with a lap top where there is already a keyboard present. Might be usable inside at the front desk, however.

[edited by: lorax at 4:38 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2005]
[edit reason] removed link [/edit]

[Corey Bryant]

We have a few clients that use them with the LinkPoint gateway & they have not reported any problems to us so we assume that since we do to hear from them that means things are going good. (Since people usually do not call to thank you for an idea or let you know things are going well.)

-Corey

[riscit]

You got a model name / dealer website for me? I'd appreciate it.