High-risk merchant service providers making it easy to open a Merchant Account for Telemarketing, Call Centers, Magazine Subscriptions

Technology and the internet, in particular, have revolutionized the way businesses operate. Today nearly every business that operates and wishes to attain stability in the erratic market has a merchant account. This makes it possible to accept payments and handle refunds if any. But not all businesses have to go through the same set of steps to get a merchant account setup. Telemarketing firms, call centers, and online magazine subscription services are some of the businesses that are considered to be high-risk accounts by credit card processors.

High-risk Online merchants

In the physical stores, most of the transactions that occur are Retail / Card Present / Signature authentication possible type of transactions. There is a physical card being used to make payments and some of the transactions call for PIN verification. For the online merchants, however, card not present transactions are the most common type of payments. The user simply enters the card details or uses the saved card information to make payments with the Visa/Mastercard/Discover/Amex through a virtual terminal for payment. Cases of the transactions being rejected due to technical errors failed transactions due to network issues and plenty of other situations can lead to complications. Sometimes the user’s account gets debited of the amount but the order doesn’t get through. In such cases, despite the chargebacks involved the credit card account provider has to initiate a quick refund process within the given time. Sometimes the refund will have to be initiated even before the actual amount gets credited in the merchant account. Taking all such scenarios into consideration merchant account providers, even the very popular ones who are trusted globally, often deny the application submitted by high-risk businesses and online merchants.

What should you do when a credit card processing company doesn’t approve your merchant account application?

If you wish to make the process simpler, make sure that you first understand whether your business belongs to the high-risk category. If you look at the telemarketing companies and call centres, there is a lot of cold calling involved. This is not something that even potential customers like. With online subscriptions, payments are made several months in advance. This leads to the subscription companies processing the orders according to the count required based on the payments received. But there are many customers that might end their subscription before the lapse of the period and then demand a refund amount for the pending issues. This means that the expenses that were incurred will have to be handled in some other way and the chargebacks would also have to be tackled. A high-risk merchant account provider would be able to assist in such cases by having the support of multiple underwriting banks. So even if the customer takes the business for a ride or if there is a sudden refund to be handled, the merchant account provider would be able to cover up the expenses. This tactical way of handling such high-risk situations which the conventional banks are afraid of is learned by the high-risk merchants from their experience in handling such diverse types of risky payments.

So, with the usual benefits that a business can get from a traditional credit card account, like the quick ACH Processing/Check Processing and check to draft support, there are plenty of other benefits that high-risk merchant providers are known to offer.

Business history has no influence

Finding a high-risk merchant who is ready to work with a newly established business means that you would be able to seek the support of a merchant service provider who can handle a business no matter how its credit performance has been. Startups in the telemarketing, call center and subscription service industry all find high-risk merchant accounts to be smoother to work with. There are no application fees charged for initiating a request to open a merchant account. High risk vs low-risk businesses both have very high rates of approval of the merchant account application. The high-risk merchant provider makes the whole financial transaction part convenient for the business itself and for the customers by providing a robust payment through iPhone/Droid Mobile Apps and a secure payment gateway. There are plenty of types of merchant accounts to choose from and each might come with different rates and a different set of additional features. So even the businesses in a high-risk industry and those that are on a tight budget would be able to avail a suitable merchant account.

Choosing a suitable domestic or offshore account

If you look at some of the major differences between the offshore accounts and domestic account, the rates and the ease of maintenance are the most common factors. There are certain laws that result in flexible tax breaks when a business chooses an offshore account. There is also a higher risk of acceptance when you are ready to open an overseas account. Given that the acquiring bank is located in a different region the handling fees, on the whole, might be slightly higher than the case of domestic accounts. But if you are looking for the quickest and the simplest process of application and approval domestic accounts have their competitive edge. The credit card processing rates being low for a domestic account, the financial burden on the business also comes down in this case.