High Risk Merchant Account for Telemarketing Firm

Gone are the days of telemarketing, when you had to coax your customer to send a check across. And even if you succeeded in doing so, you had to wait for the check to reach you through snail mail and then get processed in the bank. In many cases, you go through the hassle of waiting only to find out that the check bounced.

Now fast forward to today’s world where everything is super-fast. Credit cards have madelife easier for both you, the merchant and the customer. With credit cards, there is no need for a customer to even walk into a store or be in the same geographical location. Online merchants and online products and services are fast becoming the norm today.

What is a High Risk Telemarketing Friendly Merchant account?

A Merchant account is a bank account that is required if you want to accept credit card payments from your customers. This is a temporary bank account that will hold all the payments from your customers before they can be deposited into your own personal bank account.

Who offers the best Credit Card Processor Services?

A Merchant account is issued either by a bank or a merchant service provider. Banks have their own underwriters who will check to see if your business is eligible for a Merchant account. This is because, some businesses can be considered high-risk or may involve a lot of chargebacks due to customer disputes over charges or requests for refunds. Also banks will not risk underwriting newly set-up companies, as they will not have a transaction history.

Call Center Friendly Merchant Account

If your business involves telemarketing of services or products, then you will need a telemarketing merchant account to accept payments from your customers over the phone or on your online account. This is applicable for both inbound as well as outbound calling.

There are a few other things that you will need in addition to a merchant account for your telemarketing business. They are

1. A payment gateway

2. A virtual terminal

A payment gateway acts like an intermediary between your ecommerce website or online account and your merchant account. This is the portal through which all customer information and credit card details are transmitted to the merchant account in a secure manner.

A Virtual terminal is an online website that allows you to enter customer credit card information into the payment gateway easily.

Mail Order / Telephone Order (Moto) merchant account

As part of your telemarketing business, you will be required to accept payments from your customer over the phone. A MOTO account or a Mail Order Telephone Order account lets you enter your customer’s credit card information manually. The information is entered into a payment gateway via a virtual terminal.

High-risk telemarketing business

The telemarketing industry is a multi-billion industry that sells everything from services to products under the sun. Despite this, many banks and Merchant service providers are not ready to underwrite merchant accounts for telemarketing businesses.

If you have already tried to apply for a telemarketing merchant account, you might already be familiar with the fact that your business is considered as ‘High-risk’. Here are the reasons why

1. Customer’s credit card information is obtained over the phone

2. Most of the time, the transactions end up being unsuccessful

3. A high number of chargebacks are associated with the business

Startup/New Business

If your telemarketing company happens to be a new or a start-up business, then too it will be difficult to obtain a merchant account. This is because, you won’t have a transaction history that is required by bank underwriters to approve your application.

But many merchant services companies understand that all companies started off as a new company at some point or the other. Such companies will help you with you merchant account even if you are a start-up telemarketing company.

What is a Denied/Shutoff/closed business?

Many a times, even if you managed to get a merchant account for your high-risk business, you may find out that your credit card processing company shut-off or closed your account.

This is because popular credit card processors like FirstData or PayPal will not risk taking businesses that have high chargebacks. Instead of having to deal with a separate merchant account and a separate credit card processing company, you can choose a merchant service provider.

A Merchant service provider can help you in getting your merchant account as well as setting up your payment gateway. This way there is no risk of your account being shut-off.

What’s even better, when your merchant account gets terminated, it gets listed in the TMF list or the Terminated Merchant File. TMF accounts too also have a tough time applying for a new merchant account. But this problem too can be overcome by choosing a Merchant services company that deals with terminated merchant accounts.

Domestic & Offshore Options

Most banks and merchant service providers consider telemarketing as a high-risk industry. Even if you are an established company and have a good financial and transaction history, you will still end up getting rejected.

In these cases, an offshore merchant account may be the only option. Domestic banks are preferred by merchants as they have certain advantages such as lower rates and high security due to being in the same geographical location.

But when you are classified as a high-risk business, then even if your anage to get a domestic merchant account it will have higher rates.

Offshore accounts on the other hand have advantages such as a higher or unlimited volume processing caps, relaxed underwriting. But they can also have high decline rates for your transaction and the costs can be generally much higher than a domestic account.

A merchant account services company that deals with high-risk merchant accounts can however offer both domestic and offshore account options for your business.

We can help you get approved

There is no need to waste your time trying to apply for a merchant account only to be denied or rejected by your bank. Our merchant services will provide you end-to-end solution for your telemarketing business as we specialize in high-risk businesses.

Here are the features of our merchant services

• Quick and free online application

• Fast approval

• PCI DSS compliant payment gateway and virtual terminals to protect your data and customer’s data from fraudulent activities

• Unlimited processing volumes

• Accept all major currencies and accept payments from over 150 countries

• No hidden costs

• Domestic and Offshore merchant account solutions

• 24/7 customer support for merchants