Is it true that you can type a credit cards information into a credit card terminal or do you have to "swipe" the card? If you can type in the information then why not just get a back account, wire it to the terminal, sell products online, get the credit card of the buyers and manually type it in the credit card terminal?
You can manually key credit card information into a virtual terminal. Virtual terminals are only available when you sign-up for a merchant account with an actual merchant account provider. There are no 3rd party processors (Standard Paypal, 2checkout, etc.) that support virtual terminals.
If you have a swipe account and key in a transaction, this transaction will be upgraded to a non-qualified rate because you keyed it. Unfortunately, merchant account providers do not completely trust a merchant. (Why should they - I have seen merchants allow teenagers work at convenience store. Some of these teenagers might actually key in someone else's credit card number to get money. And the merchant won't find out until the teenager is long gone. How did they get the numbers? They can buy them on the Internet, look in their parents' wallet / purse, or maybe a customer gives the clerk their credit card while he pumps gas) And with you keying a transaction suggests to the merchant you did not have the credit card and you did not verify the owner / signature, etc. You can get a cherry keyboard and swipe the cards on an electronic payment gateway and get the swiped rate actually. And you should also review your merchant account agreement. Usually you tell the processor that 10% of the transactions will be keyed. If you consistently go above this amount, the processor might raise your rates.