Having been in the global merchant account processing space since 2001, we’re all too familiar with how widespread and common e-commerce fraud is. Just when we think it can’t be more rampant than it is, we see increasing numbers to merchants’ collective disadvantage. We’ve read and blogged extensively on the many effective steps merchants can…
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Credit Card Merchant Services 101: The Differences Between Domestic and International
When it comes to credit card merchant services, we prefer to respond to inquiries by phone, and we’re going to be forthright about our payment processing solutions. For us, any other way is a waste of time. We periodically find ourselves conducting somewhat of a merchant services 101 class when we receive an inquiry from…
Internet Merchant Services for Dietary Supplements: Why it’s High Risk
Recently, out of the blue, quite a few inquiries have come to us about internet merchant services for dietary supplements and what we have available. Whenever we receive an influx of calls on a particular industry, it usually means that an acquiring bank somewhere has ceased offering merchant account solutions, leaving industry merchants scrambling to…
New York Proposal Could Mean More Oversight in Online Lending Merchant Services
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) wants more regulations for online lenders. We’re wondering if such a move could lead to changes how acquiring banks give approvals for online lending merchant services. The proposal doesn’t name payday lenders by term – actually, the proposal doesn’t reference any specific type of lender –…
In Merchant Account Services, False Declines are More Damaging Than You Think
For more than a decade, the majority of merchants classified chargebacks as just the cost of doing business. It’s no longer the case anymore as merchants who hover around the 1 percent of sales/100 chargebacks-per-month threshold risk losing their merchant account services. We have a question, however. Are false declines the new ‘cost of doing…
My 3D secure online payment processing experience: seamless, secure
If a global sneaker company is using 3D secure during its online payment processing, certainly it’s a viable option for small business merchants who wish to securely process transactions via their website. For years, we’ve seen e-commerce merchants shun 3D secure payment processing, believing it was a hindrance, a gateway to shopping cart abandonment. In…
Deciding an acceptable fraud level in US merchant services
We don’t mean to slight our homeland, but there’s a quote from former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that describes the US payments ecosystem we tend to agree with. He famously said: ‘You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.’ There is plenty to support that…
California Ruling to Impact Recurring Payment Merchant Account Solutions
We’re not in the business of making predictions, but we wholeheartedly feel that recurring payment merchant account holders are going to have to adjust their models in the very near future. Since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enacted in the European Union, we’ve always had the feeling that a trickle-down effect would spread…
We’ve got several CBD merchant account solutions. Can marijuana be far?
As the talk about marijuana goes, so goes CBD. There is so much going on with the cannabis industry, we can barely keep up. Seemingly, every other inquiry we get – phone, e-mail or web-generated lead – is one asking about our CBD merchant account solutions, of which we have several. We wish we had…
A Lesson: Internet Merchant Services is Best Done P2P
Recently we wrote about why we prefer connecting with prospective merchants and partners via the telephone to discuss our internet merchant services solutions. Many payment service providers utilize automated application and onboarding systems. Not that we need reminding, but a recent inquiry from a merchant seeking payment solutions enforced our reasoning for having initial conversations…