Merchant Account Gurus?

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mccc27

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Apr 27, 2009
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Hi Everyone,
I have some questions regarding merchant processors for a continuity offer we are launching. Sorry if the post is a bit long as I know I am noob on the WF forums, but I'm not new to internet marketing.

We have launched other continuity offers in the past dating all the way back to 2007 (before google cash offers exploded, before anyone knew what the hell an acai berry was and when crest whitestrips was enough to whiten someone's teeth).

We have run our offers several ad networks, but we were constantly plagued with merchant accnt. issues.

Despite talking to a billion merchant processing companies, ad networks and researching online.. running a rebill offer is still somewhat of a black art.

Anyways, here are my questions:

1)

- MeritUS
- TransFirst

Could anyone comment on them? Having had bad experiences in the past with shady merchant processing companies, I am being a lot more cautious this time around. Both of these companies were recommended to us through two different ad networks.

TransFirst is taking a healthy %, and claim that I could do $50k / m volume... and if I were to exceed this, it would not be a huge issue.

They said risk wouldn't pull the plug on me. How likely is this to be true?

From my research, it appears that they are a very large company (which could be good or bad). The underwriting bank is Columbus Bank and Trust Co. Sounds somewhat shady to me?

MeritUS is a lot smaller of a processing company, but the people sounded more competent and knowledgeable. I could process more cheaply through them as well. The underwriting bank for MeritUS is Wells Fargo which is really solid from what I've heard when doing card not present rebills (hell clickbank uses them??)

If you have some other recommendations on who to process through, I'd like to hear it.

I plan to start small with a domestic account and scale to our needs. We're not working with a shoe-string budget, but we're definitely not ballers like some of the other members here who do insane volume with their offers. We are also not running a resV, acai, muscle builder etc. type offer if that affects your replies to my question. It is a standard biz opp.

2)

I know it sounds noobish to use authorize.net for a gateway, but is there any real reason not to?

We have developed our own inhouse tools to analyze lead quality, rebill rates etc for networks/subids which I know some gateways provide.

I planned on using the CIM feature of auth net to retain our customer data and switch out MIDs if necessary. auth net claims this is possible and fine but I am reluctant to trust some joe smoe who answers phones at auth net and want to make 100% sure.

3) I heard TMSpay / chargeback guardian are great... anyone use them? How extensive is their database in regards to the negative match card database (people that are known to do chargebacks)? Who is better? Currently we only use maxmind to help fight fraud, but they really can't do anything that some built in fraud tools from auth net couldn't do...

4) Rotating MIDs: I hear it's against card issuer's policies, and I also hear that it isn't... it's really a grey area from what I can tell. I know merchant processors don't like you to do it (at least not with other companies besides themselves because they lose out on revenue...) but could that be a reason for them to shut you down? Should you mix up the companies you process through, or just find a company that will issue you multiple MIDs as needed?

Ok, that's it for now... I'm sorry for the long post but I couldn't really find the answers to my questions looking at other posts on WF.

Looking forward to some replies!
 


You really shouldn't run a continuity program at all. From the sounds of it, you'll blow up within 5 months of running traffic. Save yourself, the networks, and the affiliates the headache and the money, because your set up is going in the completely wrong direction. Even if youve run an offline continuity program the internet is very different than DRTV consumers.

i would guess that more than 70% of advertisers in this space are failing at being profitable, save yourself the headaches move on to something else. Create the next big market
 
mkrongel said:
You really shouldn't run a continuity program at all. From the sounds of it, you'll blow up within 5 months of running traffic. Save yourself, the networks, and the affiliates the headache and the money, because your set up is going in the completely wrong direction. Even if youve run an offline continuity program the internet is very different than DRTV consumers.

i would guess that more than 70% of advertisers in this space are failing at being profitable, save yourself the headaches move on to something else. Create the next big market
Click to expand...

Seconded.
 
Why not just use TMSPay as your CRM and gateway? They seem to know the continuity space pretty well over there and I demoed there CRM and it appears to handle a lot of things I hadn't even considered. They can also help get you set up with domestic and offshore MIDS, a call center, fulfillment, upsells etc through their contacts. However, I'm certainly not a "merchant account guru" as your thread title asks for, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
 
Unarmed Gunman said:
Why not just use TMSPay as your CRM and gateway? They seem to know the continuity space pretty well over there and I demoed there CRM and it appears to handle a lot of things I hadn't even considered. They can also help get you set up with domestic and offshore MIDS, a call center, fulfillment, upsells etc through their contacts. However, I'm certainly not a "merchant account guru" as your thread title asks for, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Click to expand...


Right, they seem really decent, but this is only half the battle. Being able to scale for volume, having the correct underwriting bank for your processing all come into play too.

If you don't have a system to help minimize chargebacks, the whole thing CAN blow up as mkrongel stated. Which is why I am making sure to do everything right this time.

If you lose your merchant account and don't have a way to re-bill your current customers, you can get screwed big time... I'm talking about being left to foot the bill to the ad networks you're promoting through (you'd be insane not to pay up if you care about your reputation)... but that is not the worst part.

Not being able to re-bill your leads again in the future is going to cost you a HELL of a lot more than paying the networks for the leads.. from my experience.. the 2 month mark is where you usually break even with the cost of generating the lead (you can do it sooner if you monetize the backend real well or have a real solid upsell).

Its possible to bill some customers for over a YEAR.. so think about the amount of revenue you're losing out on. Its a dangerous game.
 
They have a system for reducing chargebacks and load balancing too. I believe you can move rebills off of one MID and to another so you can continue to bill them, but this is where my knowledge gets fuzzy so you'll need to ask someone that knows more than me.


edited to add: I would think a good call center/customer support infrastructure can go a long way with reducing chargebacks. Actually - a solid upsell should help too.
 
Not sure what you are asking, this is basically rebill 101

Money talks, if they know what you're about when you sign up with them than you should have no problems scaling. If you are expecting to do 300k a month, tell them its possible you will hit 600k, switch merchants on rotation, use a combination of high risk accounts for awhile, along with normal ones. You need mone, lots worst comes to worst your money is reserved. You need to establish a good relationship with them, i understand your need for the underwriting bank but in the end they all make money so your relationship with the iso is most important. Also make sure they are a REAL ISO.

Def need a good call center to eliminate the possibility of a charge back, this is probably your biggest risk management.


As for software/continuity well just google, or build your own.
 
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