Establishing an adult merchant account is notoriously difficult.
In comparison to a “traditional” business, it’s like pulling teeth to find a merchant account you can get approved for and then maintain without being shut down. Let alone find a merchant account you are happy with!
Even though as business owners you are professionals and are running perfectly legal businesses, you are frequently treated poorly by the banks and the salesmen representing them. Banks are worried about their public image and their level of risk. Because it’s an industry that’s under constant debate in International politics and law, and, of course, religion, banks worry about public perception and may feel that it is “brand-damaging”.
When it comes to the risk associated with the accounts, the adult industry more than any other business type tends to carry a higher percentage of chargebacks. Oftentimes, a customer doesn’t want to admit they paid for something or pay for a recurring billing and calls their credit card provider to deny a charge as either fraudulent, unpurchased, or unfulfilled. Then the bank who processed the transaction must refund the customer. And this kind of thing just happens to go hand in hand with the stigma associated with the adult industry
Unfortunately, another thing that makes the adult industry high risk is its tendency to attract criminals.
Criminals just love to target this industry. Hackers attack the payment gateways of legitimate adult business owners hoping to skim credit card information, bank accounts, and Identities. They also trick people into paying for services that are not really available by putting up false adult websites and collecting payment information for the fake services. Because of these reasons they are considered higher risk than normal for the bank to take on. Almost all of the major payment processing platforms, or acquiring banks, will include adult industries, such as strip clubs, on their restricted merchant list and many of them actually list them as a prohibited merchant type. In addition, other payment processing platform options, options like PayPal, Stripe, and Square, choose not to provide merchant accounts to adult industry businesses, including gentlemen’s clubs.
High risk adult industry is often taken advantage of.
Because you are considered high-risk unscrupulous salesman often take advantage of the situation and strap you with astronomical fees of up to 25% to accept credit cards and provide little or no customer service! These agents don’t take the time to truly understand traditional credit card processing or the interchange system, let alone the complexity of high-risk accounts. Reps tend to come and go quickly in high-risk payment processing, leaving you with high processing rates, poor service and a big contract you can’t get out of.
The Adult Industry encompasses many types of business models from adult bookstores to dating services to stripper services, novelties and toys as well as adult membership or pornography content websites. Bankcard Brokers is able to provide a solution for just about any of them. Whether you need domestic, offshore, or international merchant account we have a reliable solution for you.
The goal is to establish a high-risk merchant account with a provider who is service-oriented and will treat you like a professional.
You need a processor who knows the industry, specializes in high-risk accounts, and knows how to get your business not only the best rates and terms but a payment processing account that you can depend on. At Bankcard Brokers we pride ourselves on the fact that all of our business dealings revolve around the 3 R’s- reputation, reliability, and respect.
These are the things that you should look for when deciding on a Merchant Service Provider.
Reputation- Your Merchant Account Provider should have a minimum of 5 years of experience in the High-Risk merchant services sector. The sales rep should have his/her ETA Certified Payment Professional degree. This is the only certification in the industry and shows that they are professional enough to dedicate themselves to its completion.
Reliability- There is nothing worse than having your high-risk merchant account shut down. Your Adult Industry business needs a provider with a long history in high-risk payments as well as the portfolio and services options to back it up.
Respect-You are a professional business owner and you deserve to work with someone who treats you with respect and cares about the success of your business. Without respect, you can expect poor service, consistent rate adjustments, and unreliable services.
There are several key ingredients that make up the perfect Merchant Service Provider for high-risk accounts.
Having an experienced processor who understands the ins and outs of a difficult industry will help take you a long way towards getting approved.
ETA-CPP certified representatives are a must. We have created partnerships to provide high quality and dependable high-risk merchant accounts.
We know that having more in-depth underwriting processes and installing things like robust fraud protection software will help you to gain bank acceptance. Additional steps such as these help legitimate adult business owners, protect the consumer, and protect the bank from risk.
They need to have options for both domestic and international solutions. This will give you the best chance of finding the right solution for your business that can offer the prices you want with the reliability you need. With multiple solutions available, a good processor can help assist with load balancing to diversify or mitigate risk and chargeback ratios.
Our Chargeback Prevention and Management program is an important way to lower your risk of chargebacks and keep your account from getting shut down, thereby increasing its reliability.
Capabilities such as Multi-Currency/Dynamic Currency Exchange Processing will enable you to conduct business efficiently across international channels.
Websites, such as adult video, chat, and toy sites, tend to work in an international space, which provides challenges all its own. Working on an international scale means that multiple layers of fraud protection are required. A business will need to have multi-point ID confirmation, and the capability to accept payments in the customer’s currency while at the same time funding into the business owner’s currency.
There is also the need for a robust and secure gateway. This ensures that your customer’s information is protected while every transaction meets the lowest qualifying interchange category.
Recurring billing capabilities may also be something you require depending on the type of business you are running.
Domestic 24/7 support is invaluable.
Bankcard Brokers, together with our dependable network of banking partners, has been providing both domestic and international high-risk merchant accounts to the adult industry since 2007. We have solutions for just about any adult business model. Our ETA Certified Payment Professional staff is dedicated to providing you with world-class service and the guaranteed low rates your business deserves.
Give us a call today to see what we can do for you!
