The process of enabling businesses to resume accepting credit and debit card payments after their last processor shut their merchant account down is of great interest to many and it also happens to be one of the things we specialize in here at UniBul. All too often, however, merchants are making it unnecessarily difficult for us to work with them, even as we are doing our best to make it possible.
So here are a few suggestions for what you should be doing, should you find yourself in such a position.
What to Do When Your Merchant Account Is Terminated
1. The very first thing you need to do is find out the reason for the termination. Don’t guess what it is, but ask your processor for a written statement, explaining the situation that led to the shutdown. They will also tell you whether or not your business, and you personally, as the business’ owner, would be placed on the MATCH / Terminated Merchant File (TMF) list.
2. Make sure that you save your six latest processing statements, while you still have access to your terminated merchant account’s online reporting system. You will need to provide them later on during the new application process and the processor who shut you down may not feel like taking the time to be digging out your statements, if you no longer have access to them.
3. Contact only high-risk payment processors. At this stage, whether you were placed on the MATCH list or not, you need to start looking for a high-risk processor. The First Datas and Chase Paymentechs of the payment processing world would be of no use to you any longer. Whatever the reason for the termination, it would be enough to scare them away for good.
4. When you start contacting the high-risk processors you’ve selected, be completely honest about your situation. This is where we usually have the most difficulties, as merchants would inevitably try to present their situation in a way that would make it appear better than it actually is. Don’t do that, as it works against you. The processor will find out exactly what happened with your last merchant account during the application process. Having given them false or incomplete information would cause the processor not to trust you and you would end up getting worse terms than you might have been offered, had you been more straightforward.
In particular, tell your processor whether you were placed on the TMF / MATCH or not. Again, the processor will find out anyway, so it makes no sense to keep the information from them. Moreover, setting up a merchant account for a TMF-ed business is a completely different type of thing and by trying to make it seem as though you were not on the list, you’d be wasting everyone’s time, including yours.
5. Fill out all of the paperwork and provide all of the documents and the information the processor asks of you. This is critical! Don’t complain about how much documentation is being requested and how time-consuming it is to go through it all–we know! If there were a way to simplify the process, we would have done it. We have to deal with banks all over the globe, with various regulatory environments, a multitude of national regulations, etc. So just provide the requested documents as quickly as you can and let us do our job.
6. Be patient. The high-risk underwriting process takes longer to run its course than the one for garden-variety merchant accounts. To a degree, it makes sense, as processors have to be extra cautious with merchants who have managed to get their accounts terminated by other service providers. Still, the fact is that the underwriting review can sometimes take much longer than it could be conceivably justified. Yet, it is the way it is and all of us have to learn to deal with it.
7. Once your application is approved and your new high risk merchant account is up and running, be prepared to be under close scrutiny. It is very probable that, at least at the beginning, your new processor will closely monitor your activity to ensure that you are using your service in compliance with the terms of your agreement. You may be asked to provide proof of some of your transactions. If you are, don’t argue with your processor, but give them what they ask for, quickly. Once they are satisfied that you are using your merchant account properly, they will take a step back and let up the pressure.
8. Make sure you remain in full compliance with the terms of your processing agreement. For as long as you do that, you will have little to worry about.
So there it is. The bottom line is that, as high risk payment processors, we have to comply with all kinds of regulations and there are no shortcuts we can take to make the process much simpler or shorter. At the same time, keep in mind that it is in our best interest to find a way to work with you, as we can only make money when you do. If you follow our suggestions, you will get a new high risk merchant account and, more importantly, keep it for as long as you need it.
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UniBul enables American and international businesses to accept payments for the things they sell on their websites.
