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Perhaps, you have received the termination notice of your merchant account. You might have suspected that this would happen after having the account activities scrutinized heavily over the past weeks but you did not have any indication of this possibility. You may have also not even suspected that your account would be terminated.

Regardless of the reason for having your merchant account terminated, the most important thing at the moment is finding the answer to the question; what should you do once your merchant account has been terminated?

Surviving the termination of a merchant account

Just like setting up an original or new merchant account, opening a replacement merchant account is a process but a more involved one. Here are steps that you should follow to go through this process successfully:

• Inquire about the reason for termination of your account: Any prospective processor that you approach will be interested in knowing the reason for termination of your account. Therefore, get a written statement from your former processor to avoid guesswork. Also find out if you or your business is in the MATCH list. Avoid hiding the information from prospective processors because they will find out eventually.
• Get the last statements of your account: Have at least six statements of your latest processing from your terminated account during the period when you can access your online reporting system. Future processors will ask them and if you cannot produce them will create a bad impression of you.
• Contact high-risk processors only: As long as your account has been terminated, mainstream merchants will be scared of you. Therefore look for a high-risk payment processor.
• Be honest: Do not try to make your predicament better than it is. Be honest with the processor because if you lie to them they will eventually know and you will lose their trust. Thus, they will give you worse terms for your account.
• Complete all the paperwork properly: Provide all supporting documentation requested and do it within the shortest time possible.
• Be patient: Unlike the regular merchant account, high-risk underwriting is a process that is likely to take longer. Therefore, be patient and let the processor do their work.
• Be ready for scrutiny: After approving your application, the processor will scrutinize your activity carefully. This is aimed at ensuring that you are complying to the terms stated in the agreement and you might even be required to produce evidence of some transactions. However, the pressure will reduce once the processor is certain that you are running your account properly.
• Comply with the terms of your account: In most cases, high-risk merchant accounts are terminated within 3 months of existence. However, you can avoid this by complying with all terms of the agreement. This way, you do not have to worry about having your account terminated. These are the simple basics that you need to observe once you realize that your merchant account has been terminated. By following these tips, you will get a replacement merchant account and run it as long as you wish.

Filed under agents, e-books, publishing industry tagged with barry eisler, e-book publishing, indie publishing, joe konrath, read full review self-publishing ad bane says april 14, 2011 at 2 50 pm thank-you