[Chambo]

Isn't that kind of what we see going on everyday?

[TheShitzuofMCA]

Joe, I think that is a great case as to why funder/broker relationship is so important. Most brokers will get burned by a funding company at some point. I think you need to look out for the brokers that are willing to close on your deals. Prioritize those brokers and even make exceptions for them. Today the competition is worse than ever I could string a merchant along for two weeks every day taking baby steps and lowering rates or lengthening terms with different offers coming in. I can then use that offer as leverage and so on. A big problem is we have a lot of greedy and/or dishonest people in this industry. They have no business etiquette or respect for their fellow ISO's. These guys want to push deals without the merchants or the funding companies best interest and it has lead to all of this. I can say the brokers have most of the leverage in today's market, so take advantage but don't abuse.

[jotucker1983]

Isn't that kind of what we see going on everyday?

I wouldn't say to this extent. In my opinion the problem comes when the reps selling a deal are both operating off of the same "base floor", so what ends up happening most of the time is that the reps just keep cutting closer and closer to the bone.

You see this on the merchant processing side where everybody is operating based on the interchange "floor", thus, agents just walk into a merchant's shop cutting closer and closer to the bone, until eventually there's no more profit left on the merchant account in particular. This is why selling merchant services to mom and pop shops isn't anywhere near as profitable as it was before.

While we have pricing pressures going on, everybody isn't operating on the same base floor/pricing. When your competition (other brokers) know exactly what your base floor is, they can easily undercut your deal by cutting it closer to the bone.