Dharma Blog

Merchant of the Month – Sungevity

Posted in Merchant of the Month, Social Responsibility.

Merchant of the Month – Sungevity This month we are recognizing a merchant that has been with Dharma since early 2007 and whose business has grown exponentially. Sungevity is an Oakland, Ca.-based provider of solar energy systems that has revolutionized how solar systems are evaluated, marketed, and financed. They developed the technology to assess the feasibility and […]

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AMEX Violated the Law

Posted in Customer Support, Industry News.

AMEX Violated the Law Earlier this summer, a federal court ruled that American Express violated the law by prohibiting merchants from influencing a cardholder’s payment choice. As a result, merchants may now favor any card brand, with some restrictions, such as: not making untrue statements about the cost of accepting Amex; not disclosing the relative […]

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EMV Lack of Preparedness

Posted in Customer Support, Industry News and tagged with , .

EMV Lack of Preparedness EMV is … the … bane … of … our … existence these days! For those brick-and-mortar merchants that are affected by the migration of the card industry from mag swipe technology to chip-embedded cards, Dharma is flabbergasted by the lack of preparedness of our industry to make a smooth transition. […]

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Terminal Issues With Hypercom

Posted in Customer Support.

Terminal Issues With Hypercom This is related to our recent EMV blog, and affects any merchant that is currently using a Hypercom (also known as Equinox) terminal at the point of sale. Dharma has been informed by each of our back-end processors to notify such merchants not to re-boot or re-start the terminal as doing so […]

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Yes, Philanthropy Matters

Posted in Dharma's Culture, Nonprofit, Social Responsibility.

Yes, Philanthropy Matters I am picking up on a recent posting and theme, Business as a Force for Good, challenging business to be the change we seek and to shift from small world thinking to a whole world mindset. Since then I moderated a panel for the San Francisco Conscious Capitalism chapter on the topic of Philanthropy in […]

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EMV: How will it affect Nonprofits?

Posted in Industry News, Nonprofit and tagged with , , .

EMV – What is it? EMV stands for Euro – MasterCard – Visa. EMV is a set of standards designed by the credit card associations to help increase security and reduce fraud in the world of credit card transactions. EMV was initially adopted in Europe, over a decade ago (hence the name). It’s become the […]

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Merchant of the Month – Back To The Roots

Posted in Merchant of the Month.

Merchant of the Month – Back To The Roots Back in 2012, we began processing for a merchant that we met at the San Francisco Green Festival. At the time, Oakland-based Back to the Roots founders Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora had discovered a use for discarded coffee grounds by seeding oyster mushrooms in innovative packaging […]

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Business As a Force For Good?

Posted in Dharma's Culture, Social Responsibility.

Business As a Force for Good? As we enter into this autumn season, there is a lot going on in the world that may be distracting, like the euro immigrant crisis, polarizing political primaries, incredible deception of Volkswagen, possibility of a government shutdown due to congressional bickering, income inequality in America … and the list goes […]

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EMV Chip Card Process

Posted in Customer Support, Industry News.

EMV, EMV, EMV We have addressed the coming of this chip card initiative a number of times, but due to industry-wide confusion, we will continue to address the relevancy and issues that surface. First and foremost, the acceptance of chip enabled credit and debit cards do not affect the way that card-not-present (e-commerce, mail and […]

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Beware of Verifone SCAM

Posted in Customer Support, Industry News.

Beware of Verifone SCAM Dharma has been made aware of a scam that is relevant to our recent EMV Process posting. Dharma has been notified by one of the largest manufacturers of POS equipment ­– Verifone – that scammers posing as Verifone Help Desk agents are calling merchants to “test their payment terminals with phone cards.” Here’s […]

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