Then there are the charges 3% here, 2% there, a transaction fee here, another fee there.

Honest to goodness, I have to admit that I rarely take the time to reconcile all the fees and see if they are correct. So the bank could be ripping me off. Hardly ANYONE has the time to sort it all out.

Want an alternative?

All right, there's a quick, cheap way to be able to accept credit cards from your customers, or on your websites, or even to have family members send you money. (Great if you have kids off at college, or parents who need funds once in a while.)

Is free cheap enough?

PayPal is accepting new merchants again. Not only is it free, they will pay you AND your customers $5.00 to open your accounts. The not only have no set-up fees, monthly fees, or other garbage fees, they even pay you interest on the money you have in the account. Naturally, they charge you the merchant fee for each charge, but it's only about 3%. When you consider that you're saving about $50 in monthly bank and gateway fees - and still getting the same discount rate, that's pretty cool. Check out PayPal here.

PayPal is so easy you can get set up in one day.

They are owned by the eBay folks - so you know they know how to make things easy and make sense.

As to the transaction fees? They are deducted from each deposit you receive (not your transfers to your account). So you can see the fee as it is associated with the specific payment to you. Period. There's nothing to reconcile.

You don't need a website. Just give your customers your PayPal e-mail address and they can send you money instantly.