Who Needs a High Risk Merchant Account?

Merchant accounts are needed in order for a business to accept credit card payments. As a merchant, there are two places you can obtain a merchant account; a bank, or a third party provider. For online merchants the most popular, in addition as in most cases cost effective, source is from an additional party merchant account issuer.

A high risk merchant credit card is required by businesses that, when compared into a ‘traditional’ goods/services business, have a a higher risk of:

Bankruptcy

Fraudulent Transactions

High sum of sales

High rate of refunds

High rate of charge-backs

Other reasons a merchant may be categorized being a high risk are:

Merchants Location – Some merchant account providers will not accept merchants from certain countries.

The Product/Service the merchant sells is prohibited in some jurisdictions.

Merchant Credit standing – Some providers will not accept merchants with poor or no credit foundation.

Due towards the high risk classification, most banks will not provide your free account to people in a high risk industry (such as adult entertainment, replica goods, pharmacy etc). As such some third party providers offer their services to both general merchants and heavy risk merchants.

Merchant account providers that are developed to service high-risk merchants will normally provide the next stage of fraud protection, you will notice that decrease might their merchants incur. However, in order to cover the higher level of risk, rates with a high risk merchant account will always be higher than their lower risk counter-parts.

When looking for a high risk merchant account, there are a number of factors take into consideration. Rates will be one of the most basic factors, as well as includes fees for refunds and charge-backs, along with transaction fees, the discount rate and continuing fees. Require need to contemplate fraud protection, customer service and reporting available for as a merchant account providers for online pharmacy.