I know this issue is irritating to my Canadian customers, so I thought it might be worth explaining the details.

I originally started selling books on the internet in 1994. I realized fairly quickly that I was going to need to a merchant credit card account, especially for my international customers. It's just too slow and cumbersome for the internet generation to mail payments.

When I spoke to my bank (12 years at that branch - including a business account for my bookstore), they informed me that the risk factor was very high as I was doing business on the internet, and they would require a $10,000.00 deposit. They later offered to reduce the deposit to $2,000.00.

In the meantime I called a US merchant provider on a whim... turned out they were willing and happy to have my business. No deposit, no problem. They had me set up in a week. I've been with them ever since.

One of the terms of my contract is that since the credit card will be processed in US dollars, I must actually list my inventory with US dollar prices.