MOTO
Also known as: Mail order / telephone order
Taking card payments by phone or mail, keyed into a virtual terminal.
MOTO (mail order / telephone order) covers payments a business keys in manually after taking card details by phone or mail. It's a card-not-present method usually run through a virtual terminal, and keyed-in rates are higher than card-present ones.
How it works
MOTO is the most expensive routine way to take a card. Keyed sales fall into the highest interchange categories and carry full fraud liability, and the compliance cost lands on top. The moment a member of staff hears a card number, your phone handling and your call recording come into PCI scope, along with anything anyone writes down. Numbers left on an order pad, or sitting in a stored recording, are a common compliance failure.
The sale itself is ordinary enough. The customer reads out their card number, expiry date, security code, and billing address; your staff key those into a virtual terminal or a POS screen and flag the sale as a mail or telephone order, which sets the indicator the issuer sees. From there it authorizes like any remote payment, returning an approval alongside AVS and security-code match results. One precondition: your merchant account has to be approved for MOTO during underwriting.
Your processor approved you for a declared mix of channels, so a retail account that suddenly runs a third of its volume by phone can trigger a review, and with it a reserve or a hold on funds. The other thing worth knowing is that keying is often avoidable. Send a payment link during the same call and the customer pays on a hosted page, which keeps the card number away from your staff and usually prices as ordinary e-commerce.
Worked example
A commercial cleaning firm keys 60 phone orders a month, averaging $250, so $15,000 of volume. At a typical keyed rate of 3.5% + $0.15 that is $525 plus $9, or $534. The same $15,000 through payment links at 2.9% + $0.30 costs $435 plus $18, or $453. Roughly $81 a month saved, and card numbers stay out of staff phone calls.
Frequently asked questions
- Is taking card details over the phone legal and PCI compliant?
- Legal, yes, and compliant as long as the details are never stored. Key the number straight into a virtual terminal while the customer is on the line. Do not write it down, do not save it in a CRM note, and do not leave it sitting in a call recording. The security code can never be stored after authorization.
- Do I need a special merchant account for MOTO payments?
- MOTO is a setting on the account you already have with most providers, not a separate account. During underwriting you declare the share of volume you expect to key in, and the processor prices and approves on that basis. Some high-risk categories are refused MOTO outright, and processing well above your declared share can trigger a risk review.
- How much more does a MOTO transaction cost than an in-person one?
- Roughly half a percentage point to a full point more than a card-present sale. Keyed transactions fall into the highest interchange categories, and flat-rate processors typically publish a separate keyed rate near 3.5% + $0.15 against 2.6% + $0.10 in person. On $10,000 of monthly phone volume that difference is close to $90.