Declined Merchant Account? Can’t Get Credit Card Processing? Read This!
In recent years many merchants find it difficult to obtain a merchant account for their business. Although the industry is very competitive with thousands of merchant services companies available to choose from, many of them have strong parameters they are unwilling to bend. Reasons for a declined merchant account could be from credit history to industry type and business model. Once you find out what is your reason for denial, that is how you would be able to setup a plan of getting a merchant account quickly and fairly easily.
Filling Out The Merchant Application
Over the years in the merchant services industry I have reviews tens of thousands of merchant applications. Some merchants insist on filling out the application themselves, being scared of their sales agent to rip them off. The credit card processing industry is well known for its hidden fees and merchants that would like to get the best deal usually are very skeptical when speaking to one.
Although it is not easy to find an honest sales representative in the merchant services industry, once you are able to find one you would need to trust him on filling out the application. This would be your first step in getting an application approved. Many merchant services applications are long and generic, making it difficult for someone new to understand their structure. As a sales representative, we know the structure and can help you fill out the app easily, quickly and most of all, correctly!
Many merchant applications can get declined for the simple reason of filling it out wrong and then underwriters are dependent on the information provided on the application, which if wrong will give you less of a chance to get the account approved.
Personal Credit History
Another very important thing while researching for a merchant account is your credit score and credit history. Many merchant account providers deeply depend on that for liability purposes with an account. If your credit history is not clean, or you have no history, you may find it extremely difficult to obtain an account. A good way of going around that is simply going with a merchant account provider that handles bad credit merchant accounts. There are a few of them out there, including us here at MagicPay.
Prohibited / Restricted Industry Type
The next category is one of the most important ones as the entire merchant account is based off just that. Your industry type. Many merchants are considered high risk, or hard to board, due to many controversial concerns most merchant account providers have a solid list of restricted and even prohibited merchants.
If your business type is listed in this kind of list then it would be very difficult to get an account with a typical merchant account provider. Again, you will need to go on a search of finding a hard-to-board merchant account provider. Just like MagicPay. There aren’t many of them here in the US, and if you would look too deep into it you will find yourself going in circles around the same companies, one way or the other.
TMF Match Merchant
Last parameter credit card processing companies look at is the well-known TMF MATCH list. The TMF list is like the blacklist of merchant services companies. Being a TMF merchant will give you problems for about 5-7 years. 99% of merchant services companies do not deal with TMF merchants and get their account declined right away. The TMF Match lists all the merchants that have disobeyed PCI compliance regulation, have a debt with their credit card processing company or were terminated for a variety of reasons by a merchant services firm due to violation of the merchant services industry.
Although it is not good being on this list, by all means! It is not the end for your search on a merchant account. Some merchant services companies still consider dealing with TMF merchants, but under certain limitations. MagicPay provides a solution for TMF merchants as well, the solution varies between domestic and offshore bank depending on your TMF status.