Voice Authorization is a security measure used by the credit card industry to ensure that a particular purchase is being authorized by the actual card holding customer. Voice Authorizations are usually triggered by unusually high dollar amount transactions that deviate from the customer’s or merchant’s normal transaction behavior, but can be caused by other unusual transactions as well. It is useful if your terminal or software isn’t working and you need to perform an authorization.
Voice Authorization is done to protect both the customer and merchant against fraud; however, the merchant account holder pays the service fee for it. Fees for Voice Authorization vary widely by merchant account provider but are typically a flat fee. Host Merchant Services has a Voice Authorization Fee of $0.75. Merchants only incur this fee if a Voice Authorization is initiated, and for most merchants, it is a rare occurrence. This fee is only charged when a transaction is called into an 800 number for authorization.