Hi all,
I have been in business now three years selling auto parts on the internet. Up untill last June, my sales were steady in the $20-$40K a month range. Starting around last July, I began adding new product lines and advertising much more aggressively. In October I had my limit I of transaction I could process through Ipayment bumped to $75K. It was a dog and pony show, but not too painful. Now in January, my sales have jumped to $100K and they want me to bump my limit again. I sumbitted all the paperwork, and they came back this time saying I had to give them a $10K deposit that the could hold just incase, and then they would up my limit to $125K. I have been in business three years, and have had no fraud, chargebacks, and very few returns. He said they are hitting me with this because auto parts is a high fraud segment, and I am "growing too fast". Also he said the amount of money I kept in my bank account was too low...despite the fact that is an amount in the tens of thousands. This is because I pay for everything in cash...including the tens of thousands in inventory I have.

If I do not pay the $10,000 by the time that I hit my $75,000 limit this month, they will stop depositing finds from my transactions in my bank account and hold them.

Is it me, or is it insane they are requesting $10K of my hard earned money when I have had a spotless account. Is this the normal....or do I need to get a new processor?

I used to sell for them. Ipayment is a big company. They got this way by taking on a lot of brick and mortar companies. They dont particularly like internet /MOTO companies at all, and if you got a couple of chargebacks like the average online companies get, they would terminate your account plain and simple. I know first hand.

If you are doing volume that high. Depending on how high you plan to go, its time to get a new merchant account with a better provider. Ipayment doesnt like risky business. Risky being high volume.

They are asking for the deposit, specifically, because if you were ever to have a chargeback issue, since you dont keep a lot of funds in your account to cover the volume, it might cause a major negative balance, which of course your bank would return, and Ipayment likes to have a "0" risk environment.

Then again - long ago I found out the hard way - there are MSPs that can handle the extra growth, and dont go dippin into your account too much , as long as you have good credit and stable history.

How is Bank of America as a provider? I may call them. I am dead set against giving I payment $10K considering I already pay them $2K a month in CC processing fees. I keep plenty in my bank account (five digits), but it fluctuates $10K-$20K depending on how mcuh inventory I have. Right now inventory is high because it is the slow time of the year for car parts. If anything, randomly taking $10K from my business would make it more untable that before.

Are you a virtual company, or have a storefront? I can look into this for ya.

Can tell you now, if you get it direct from a bank you are gonna pay dearly. They dont just up and offer the motherload. Thats 90% of the time.

We do have a warehouse and will meet with customers by appointment, but currently almost 100% of our sales are online. I need to get this resolved fast.

Are you a virtual company, or have a storefront? I can look into this for ya.

Can tell you now, if you get it direct from a bank you are gonna pay dearly. They dont just up and offer the motherload. Thats 90% of the time.

Its either that, or you answer these questions in the open:

1- Whats your projected monthly volume - or what volume do you want to have set on your account?
2 - What is your credit like? Fair, Good, Excellent are applicable here.
3 - What payment gateway do you currently use?
4 - What are the current rates you pay (Seeing if theres room to have a meet/beat fight)
5 - I would need to see your website to verify that you have a posted returns policy, and how your payment processing is structured to the public view.

It is now 12:15 AM CST. I will be killing over in 45 minutes. Id like to help as much as I can before then because I have a few accounts to process in the morning that are high volume and will not be watching WHT.

Sent a request through the form on your site.

Try giving www.cdgcommerce.com a call and see what they can do for you. They have an excellent reputation in the forums here, and we've used them for years with great service.

CDGs Parent ISO Cant handle this guys volume without drama.

Seeing as I send people to many different MSPs depending on their needs I can be opinionated against all of them.

CDG does great with the under 1mil crowd, and they dont seem to cause a lot of drama when chargebacks come through. But the poster of this thread isnt in the Web Hosting Industry, and hes harder to place, and his sales type is harder to get approved with the volume without the underwriters getting too personal. Hes already been taken care of.

To clarify something posted here, we have no issue with merchants who process over one million or more and we have quite a few merchants who more than fall into that category.

Neonerd, I am not sure what you are basing your comments above on but they are not accurate with respect to our company. While we certainly have a very large number of merchants in the "under 1 million dollar crowd" (since most merchants fall into that category based on the average volume that most merchants process), we have no issue with larger accounts whatsoever.

Now, if you are referring to very high risk merchant categories - such as adult, outbound telemarketing, online casinos & travel - we do not accept those merchants whether they process very little or a very lot of volume.

Hes already been taken care of.Care to enlighten us as to how you know this and just exactly how he's been handled?