Credit repair companies perform a critical service in helping consumers to return to good financial standing after they have hit a variety of monetary hardships. They are absolutely essential in these modern times. Unfortunately, banks are traditionally unwilling to provide credit repair companies with merchant accounts in spite of their services being so vital to so many consumers.
As a result of this general rule, business owners of credit repair companies can experience difficulty staying in business or operating normally. Above all else, if you own a credit repair business, a reliable payment processor is integral to your company being able to survive and provide your services to the public. The core billing process for almost all credit repair companies relies on a card not present for the payment transactions.
Risky Business
Most credit card processors will not issue a merchant account to a credit repair company. Generally speaking, this is largely due to the credit repair industry being one that is considered high risk. A few of the reasons for the industry being deemed high risk are the volume of charge-backs and reputational risk for the processors and sponsoring banks. Charge-backs are more likely in this industry due to the time it takes to get items deleted or removed from credit reports. Since some of those items can be placed back on to the credit report, some customers might dispute the credit repair transaction many months later.
Charge-backs happen when customers dispute a transaction, such as if there was a fraudulent purchase placed on a credit card. Processors don’t appreciate it when this happens frequently and will even shut down a merchant account if there are too many charge-backs
Many companies that don’t have a regular merchant account use alternative payment processors such as PayPal. However, PayPal and similar services cannot be used by credit repair companies as doing so goes against their terms of service, which means they are not a viable payment processing option.
Use a Credit Repair Credit Card Processor That’s Reliable
The best thing credit repair companies can do when they need a merchant account is to work with a company that regularly deals with credit repair businesses. Flow Payments specializes in offering reliable and industry leading service to credit repair businesses so they can accept credit and debit card payments from customers. Even though credit repair merchant accounts are deemed to be high risk, Flow Payments has the experience necessary to provide your business with what you need.
What Do I Need to Start?
For the initial review by underwriting, the below is required:
- Driver’s License
- Voided Check
- Articles of Incorporation
- Copy of EIN
- Completed Website
- Processing Statements (if you are already processing)
- 3 months bank statements (if you have 3 months of business banking history)
For the benefit of your credit repair business, get a free payment processing quote from Flow Payments today.