An authorization hold—also know as a card authorization, pre-authorization, or pre-auth—is when a customer’s issuing bank authorizes a debit or credit card transaction and holding the balance as being unavailable. The transaction remains in this state until the merchant clears the transaction. This is also known as capturing or settling the transaction. With debit card…
Category: Support and Services
Ensuring Smooth Credit Card Processing
As a merchant, you know that the entire e-commerce process consists of details—purchasing goods, keeping track of it, selling it, shipping it, and answering customer inquiries. The list is extensive. Here are a few tips that can help ensure a smooth credit card processing experience. Chargeback Prevention Chargebacks are one of the easiest ways to…
New Onshore Processing Solutions for High Risk U.S. Merchants
Think that offshore acquiring banks are your only choice for high risk merchant accounts? Think again! The tides have changed and Instabill now offers several onshore processing solutions to U.S. merchants working in high risk industries. Contact us for your FREE consultation regarding a domestic merchant account for the following types of businesses. Travel Agencies…
Understanding Credit Card Processing Problems
One of the most frustrating experiences a merchant can encounter is setting up and integrating their merchant account, and then being unable to process credit cards. While this blog has already discussed declined credit card transactions in depth, here we will go beyond these instances to help you understand credit card processing problems. Sometimes we…
How Online Payment Processing Can Rock Your Small Business World
We understand that not all small businesses are also e-commerce businesses. Maybe you own a storefront, but no website. Maybe you own both a storefront and a website, but you don’t want to sell your goods or services online. Maybe you tried applying for online payment processing services, but the acquiring bank denied your request…
7 Deadly Sins of E-Commerce Credit Card Processing
Like all things in the business world, online credit card processing and maintaining a merchant account have their challenges. There’s a lot of room for error and making mistakes, but we’re here to help you prevent them. Below, we’ve listed what we feel are the seven deadly sins of e-commerce credit card processing and provided…
Payment Processing Terms Untangled
Are you up-to-date on all the features and components of a payment service provider? The marketplace for credit card processors has experienced some changes over the past decade. Modern technology, however, continues using several of the industry’s original terms. Conducting customer transactions through a merchant account could possibly generate some confusion, especially when used in…
Why Banks Label Your Business High Risk
I frequently talk with merchants who don’t understand why their business is high risk, but to me, knowing is second nature. Working closely with Instabill’s banking partners has given me the ability of knowing exactly what acquiring banks look for when determining a business’s risk factor. Banks look at the different features of your business…
The Process of Processing Credit Cards Online
We spend a lot of time on our blog sharing tips to help your business succeed. We help you with the marketing as well as the technical aspects of your e-commerce business. However, we’ve never actually blogged about the process of what it is we do: processing credit cards online. Sure, you accept credit cards…
Card-Not-Present Processing: Web-Based vs. Virtual Terminal
Payment processing tools for card-not-present transactions — web based and virtual terminal — allow merchants to accept and manage credit card transactions without their customers having to be there. The tools needed to accept these payments are minimal–an Internet connection, a Web browser, and possibly a shopping cart. Let’s take a look at the different…