Credit
cards now accepted at County Clerk's Office
By:
JESSICA SINGLETON
Doing business
at the Owen County Clerk’s Office got a bit easier on Thursday.
The office is now accepting credit and debit cards. Owen County
Clerk Joan Kincaid said a lot of customers were asking to use
credit.
“People just don’t carry checkbooks anymore,”
she said.
Kincaid attended the County Clerk’s Convention in Louisville
and visited a booth set up by VitalChek Network. The company provides
credit and debit card service to county and circuit clerks’
offices all over the country.
Stephen Greer is a National Account Executive for VitalChek and
came to the clerk’s office to set up the equipment. He said
the system will process Master Card, Visa Check Card, Discover
Card and American Express. The company has a fee of $2.50 for
charges under $50 and 4 percent of charges over $50. Because Visa
doesn’t allow extra fees to be added to charges, they will
not be able to accept Visa Cards. He said he hopes to have a contract
with Visa in the near future.
Greer said one advantage is the system operates at no cost to
the county. All the equipment cost and upkeep will be funded from
the transaction fees. He said that all of the fees are from VitalChek
and not from the clerk’s office.
He said before they presented the program at the convention, 90
percent of county clerks’ offices did not accept credit
cards. They now have contracts with 25 counties including Franklin.
Kincaid said the main advantage is that the office will receive
immediate payment. The credit purchases are printed as checks,
so they don’t have to wait 48 hours to get the funds like
other credit card systems.
“We are excited to get this,” Kincaid said.
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