Credit card processing scams come in all forms. They can be a phone call from an alleged merchant service provider saying your card terminal needs updating or an email offering rate reductions.

Accepting credit cards requires a payment processor like Square or Stripe, a merchant account, and hardware like POS terminals. Fees range from 1.5% to 4%.

At Forbes Advisor, our team of experts select and test credit card processing companies across 31 key metrics that matter to small businesses. We analyzed everything from reliability and affordability ...