MERCHANT STRONGHOLD Merchant Stronghold is Head quartered in Clearwater, Florida. It provides credit card processing services for businesses of all sizes.
INTRODUCTION With the increase in technology, internet has become very common thing, and it has opened number of opportunities for business/entrepreneurs. These businesses can be product base as well as information base, out of which most of them provide memberships, which assure its customers exclusive experience. However it is not that easy to make this business enterprise work and even more difficult to make it profitable venture as it is way difficult to collect membership fee from customers online, which is done via credit card mostly.
WHY CONSIDERED AS “HIGH-RISK� In the year 2010, the proprietors of many membership websites found their merchant account closed abruptly. The reason for this action was new guidelines released by MasterCard that put certain practices common to the membership site business model under much greater inquiry or analysis. Before MasterCard implemented new rules, many membership sites used techniques that were widely regarded as deceptive or even fraudulent. Not only MasterCard changed its policies, Visa had also issued similar guidelines. This resulted in conceding all the membership sites as high risk merchants.
HOW TO START MERCHANT ACCOUNT Your best option is to work with a credit card processing company that specializes in high risk merchant accounts. Some of the payment processors willing to offer you an account may charge high fees or hold back an unnecessarily large percentage of your income as a “rolling reserve� to cover the risk of charge backs and other losses from unhappy members. While processing companies are taking a gamble by offering accounts for membership sites and need to protect them, these high rates can be painful for small businesses.
PRACTICE FOLLOWED BY MEMBERSHIP SITES Let us discuss the points that make Membership sites as High risk merchant: Negative option enrollment: The customer makes a single payment for a product or service, but in doing so they are automatically signed up for a paid monthly subscription which they must actively cancel or opt out of to avoid being charged. Free trials: The customer or member is promised something for “free” (including “deferred billing” or “just pay shipping!”), but the process of obtaining the “free” item or service results in them unknowingly being signed up for a paid membership or subscription. Burying terms in the fine print : The membership site makes the terms of its charges and refund policy difficult to find by hiding them in the middle of a lengthy user agreement, or in tiny text in some obscure corner of the website.
AFFECT ON BUSINESS Your membership site may be entirely forthright and honest with its members about any charges to their cards, but being part of an industry with a reputation for deception makes it harder to obtain a membership site payment processing account – especially one with decent rates and conditions. Being the part of industry with a reputation for precariousness makes it harder to secure an enlistment site portion taking care of record, especially one with respectable rates and conditions. Your best decision is to work with a charge card dealing with association that has some skill in high peril shipper accounts
Contact Information: Address: 10300 49th Street N Suite 427 Clearwater, FL 33762 Contact No: +1 (888) 622-6875 Fax Number: +1 (844) 465-4723 Email: info@merchantstronghold.com Website: https://www.merchantstronghold.com
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