_Credit Card Payments Over the Phone
On occasion, you may receive a phone call from a patron wanting to pay his fines over the phone. Perhaps he has graduated and moved away, but requires a copy of his transcripts for a job application. It would not be realistic to expect him to fly/drive home just to pay his fines in order to have a Banner block removed. Therefore, we do accept credit card payments over the phone.
Ideally, this issue should be handled by a full-time staff member. There are many things to consider when deciding what the total amount owing will be (lost books, outstanding items, etc.) and the accounts can quickly become very confusing. Through the week, ask a supervisor to handle these situations. If you are a Student Assistant working the weekend and there is no supervisor readily available, advise the patron that a supervisor will call him back shortly.
If you are required to accept a payment over the phone, the cash procedure is:
- Locate the patron’s record in Aleph. Ask for his Student ID number or barcode and then, once you have the record up on the screen, ask for his name and address. Verify you have the correct account.
- Confirm that the record is up to date, by checking we have his current address and phone number. He may request that we mail the receipt to him, so we need to be sure we have current information in Aleph.
- Discern what the total amount owing will be.
- Key the amount in the Moneris machine. Press OK.
- When the machine asks you to ‘Insert the chip or swipe the card’, you will need to manually key in the card number given to you by the patron. When you press ‘OK’, you will be prompted to enter the Expiry Month/Year.
- You may be prompted to ‘Obtain a Signature’. Just press ‘OK’. When the receipt prints, you will write on it that it was ‘Processed by Phone’.
- A ‘Merchant Copy’ of the transaction will print next. Also, note that it was ‘Processed by Phone’.
- Key the transaction in the register, as you normally would any fine payment.
- Attach the receipt printed by Aleph to the ‘Fine Payment Form’.
- Attach the receipt printed by the register to the ‘Merchant Copy’ from the Moneris machine. Place in the drawer (under the Cash Register) with the other Debit slips for the day.
- Paperclip the ‘Customer Copy’ from the Moneris machine to the ‘Fine Payment Form’, noting in the ‘Notes’ field on the form whether or not the patron wants the receipt mailed to him.
- Place the Fine Payment Form (with receipts) in the designated spot at the Circulation desk. It will be retrieved by the assigned staff member.
- Shred any patron information that is not accompanying the ‘Fine Payment Form’ (i.e. – if you wrote the card number on a scrap piece of paper).
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