| * | Sector calls this meeting to order
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| <Sector> | We'll skip the Treasurer's report due to the absence of the Treasurer...
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| <Sector> | Moving down to Old Business, item #4 Report on status of IBM Apache, Rat-Saladù
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| <Walter> | Too bad there are so few here. We really have a couple of important things to discuss. :-(
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| <Sector> | Ok, moving on. #4 New Business, 1: Report on status of communications with InternetSecure. Walter your up (and hereð)
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| <Walter> | Since our Bank is in Canada and many of the U.S. Merchant Account Providers aren't very friendly toward non-US
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| <Walter> | customers, I started thinking about a Cdn MA provider.
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| <Walter> | BTW, Echo appears to be all but useless. Projects characterizes them as being a few cells short of a brain. :-)
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| <Sector> | Or at least the one he emailed...
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| <Walter> | He says it takes him 20 emails to communicate one point.
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| <Walter> | In addition they only deal with US customers and banks.
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| <Walter> | Anyway, I started looking at Cdn options. The main one that came up was the one used by Jacaranda, which is InternetSecure.
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| <Walter> | Unlike Echo Inc., they specialize in processing Credit Cards for companies with e-Business sites.
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| <Walter> | They are located in Metro Toronto, Canada but have customers in 84 countries.
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| <Walter> | Also there is no special software needed to setup or communicate between our site and InternetSecure. Information is done completely via HTML forms. It would Jeremy no time at all to set up the forms we would need.
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| <Walter> | So you're all probably all wondering, "What's the catch"?
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| <Walter> | In a word: cost.
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| <Walter> | Give me a second to see if I get the costs entered here.
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| <Walter> | Can't do it because they gave me a PDF document. So I'll just give you the main costs on what they call the "Small Canadian Account"
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| <Walter> | One-time Setup Fee: $395
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| <Walter> | Monthly Admin Fee: $24.95
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| <Walter> | Per approved transaction: $1.50
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| <MADeCS> | That is an expensive fixed cost for our volume.
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| <Walter> | CC Discount: 4.25%
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| <Walter> | RMRF: 10%
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| <MADeCS> | RMRF?
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| <Walter> | Nnot sure what RMRF stands for.
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| <Walter> | All costs are in $Cdn which helps a bit, but it's still expensive.
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| <Walter> | I wrote to Jack Troughton, who's taken over the eCS distribution business from JBS about this, and here's what he said:
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| <MADeCS> | The percentage per transaction is high. And if the 10% is also of the top that makes it incredibly high.
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| <Walter> | Here's part of Jack's reply:
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| <Walter> | > Are you going to eventually set up an e-Business page on your site?
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| <Walter> | > What Merchant Account service do you plan on using? Any information
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| <Walter> | > you can give me would be really helpful.
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| <Walter> | That's my intention, and I too was looking at Internet Secure.
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| <Walter> | Unfortunately, they appear to be the only/cheapest game in town.
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| <Walter> | The whole skinny on credit cards on the internet is that it's violently
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| <Walter> | expensive. If you really wanted to do it all in house, basic setup fees
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| <Walter> | (not costs, fees) would easily top the 2
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| <Walter> | with a lot of people
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| <Walter> | coming in to take a piece of the action (bank, certificate authority,
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| <Walter> | inet provider, government). The liability issues are also pretty
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| <Walter> | hardcore... it's very easy to get screwed by your CC provider.
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| <Walter> | So, for the moment, no ebusiness here. It's too expensive, and too
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| <Walter> | risky. I may look at doing it later, but right now it's out of my league.
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| <Walter> | Something was lost.
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| <Walter> | Jack said that "basic setup fees (not costs, fees) would easily top the 2K$ mark,
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| <Walter> | Unfortunately, IS doesn't seem to be a viable option for us at this time. IMO, anyway.
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| <Walter> | Back to you, Sector.
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| <Sector> | Guess we could drop back to #3 Old Business, 3: Report on installation of Powerfail software/hardware on VOICE1 - Bill Rook.
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| <Walter> | Peter and I will do a bit more checking to see what other options are available. However I don't want to spend a lot more time on it.
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| <Walter> | It's beginning to look like the e-Business site may die.
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| <Sector> | Ok, any other new businessù
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| <MADeCS> | Has there been progress on the AV for VOICE1?
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| <Walter> | AFAIK, Peter was going to write WarpedOS2 a cheque for 5 copies of the Norman AV. I haven't checked with him to see if he has.
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| <Walter> | WarpedOS2, have you gotten any paperwork or a cheque?
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| <Walter> | or cyber paperwork
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| <MADeCS> | Is there anything else to discuss?
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| <Walter> | Yes, but we need people who aren't here. :-(
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| <Walter> | I move we adjourn
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| <Sector> | All in favorù
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| <MADeCS> | yes
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| <Sector> | All opposedù
| * | Sector closes the meeting
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