After speaking to a few merchant account providers and buzzing a bunch of associated websites I think it's fair to say that the big name merchant providers that claim to cater and understand the webhosting industry don't really understand anything.

I spoke with one today that after hearing about how we annually bill said "visa and mastercard frown upon that type of billing". I said to her really, so I guess Visa and Mastercard frown upon that ssl certificate purchase for your website and domain name(s) since those are annual purchases.

The tone of the conversation didn't change much, these companies simply don't understand the business & just use it for a keyword.

Anyone suggest any merchant providers that will do ach and "understand" the business?

I really dont see a problem getting hosting providers placed if they are genuine and are established.

When you say "they dont understand hosting business"; exactly what aspects are you referring to?

After speaking to a few merchant account providers and buzzing a bunch of associated websites I think it's fair to say that the big name merchant providers that claim to cater and understand the webhosting industry don't really understand anything.

I spoke with one today that after hearing about how we annually bill said "visa and mastercard frown upon that type of billing". I said to her really, so I guess Visa and Mastercard frown upon that ssl certificate purchase for your website and domain name(s) since those are annual purchases.

The tone of the conversation didn't change much, these companies simply don't understand the business & just use it for a keyword.

Anyone suggest any merchant providers that will do ach and "understand" the business?

I've found that nobody truly understands the industry, and it's best to provide just the information they ask for when applying.

First, a quick response to the post by Lars who suggests only tell the processor what they ask you. Wrong wrong wrong! If there are any misunderstandings about the nature of the merchant business, you might get accepted initially, but after about 90 days or so the merchant will wish he'd never been born. You have NO idea the grief that follows when processors realize the business model isn't what they expected. Funds held in excrow. Account shut down. CTMF. Don't even THINK about going there.

I don't think you know what you are talking about. Most providers ask about what industry you are in, basic business information, and financial data. That's the information they need. They don't care about how often you bill clients or other such information, like the OP was talking about.

We hold a merchant account with one of the world's largest processors, and have gone through the process before, so I know exactly what I am talking about.

I think it is important to partner with Merchant provider that understand the nature of selling intangible items. The risk of receiving fraudulent order in web hosting business is higher (at least in theory) compared with online stores that sell goods.

Let's see.... you not only know more about the processing industry than I do even though I've been it it for a couple of decades , but on top of that you are ALSO an expert in effective professional communication skills. By choosing to caustically insult me with "you don't know what you're talking about" instead of something more educated such as "I respectfully disagree" speaks volumes about who you are and the value of your thought process, if any. Learn how to communicate.

Your reply to me left much to be desired as well, with you caustically stating that my real-world advice was "wrong wrong wrong!". Only a child would say such a foolish thing.

Regardless, you misinterpreted my first post, which simply stated that he should provide only the information the merchant asks for. It is the merchant's responsibility for asking thorough questions. If they claim to support the web hosting industry, they should know how the financial side of it works.

Anyone suggest any merchant providers that will do ach and "understand" the business?

Try CDG Commerce. They are also a member of WHT Forum and I am pretty certain they understand the domain/hosting business industry.

Try CDG Commerce. They are also a member of WHT Forum and I am pretty certain they understand the domain/hosting business industry.

Agreed. PSIGate and WorldPay may be 2 others that you can talk to as well.

We use CDG Commerce / Authorize.net and they dont have any issues with web hosting.

James, you may want to look towards a hosting company that also provides merchant services. I would also recommend to always disclose what the exact nature and process of the business is regardless if a particular question is asked by the Merch rep. I think getting turned down initially for whatever reason is better then later after you have other resources, customers, vendors etc depending on your service. Best of luck

I think it is important to partner with Merchant provider that understand the nature of selling intangible items. The risk of receiving fraudulent order in web hosting business is higher (at least in theory) compared with online stores that sell goods.

Short, sweet and a very good point!

Agreed. PSIGate and WorldPay may be 2 others that you can talk to as well.

PSIGate is a good company and in fact I have a close friend that works there at a management level.

Thanks Jason_CT. I would share with you our experience with 2 merchant providers. Hope this would help anyone reading the thread. My company used to use CardService for years (LinkPoint gateway) and they were fine. Now we are happy to be use the merchant services of ChasePaymentech and they are pretty good, although I didn't sign up for their business analytical tool at the time. It costs $10/month only and I should call them to add it to account!

I should add there are plenty of excellent merchant providers these days. I remember that it war hard to find one 6 or 7 years ago. I remember we used to use a Canadian company called Paysystems (check the WHT archive for them) that didn't pay us settlements for around $6,000 dollars. It no longer exists. I should go find the owner and to buy him a beer ;) he probably went for a bankruptcy!

We've been in business since 2006, we got our first merchant account in 2008. To clarify, we aren't having trouble finding a merchant account provider and have never had a dispute/chargeback.

Alot that has been said in this post makes alot of sense. If your merchant provider doesn't understand the business (but claims to) then you'll find yourself the victim of the TOS you agree to giving them right to change things at anytime. This really becomes an issue if you have an early termination fee.

I really dont see a problem getting hosting providers placed if they are genuine and are established.

When you say "they dont understand hosting business"; exactly what aspects are you referring to?

This has been addressed by someone else. If they don't understand the business, then they come off with expectations or questions that simply don't match the industry.

For example a merchant provider provides service to a shoe store. That shoe store sells shoes that will last a customer probably 2-3 years. The customer probably isn't going to come back in a year and say these shoes are bad I want a refund.

However in the hosting industry, a customer might opt to pay a year up front to get a better discount. We had a rather large processor tell us that Vica/MC frown upon this kind of activity.

That doesn't make any sense. Pretty much anything larger companies sell (verisign, arin, etc...) all sale are based on annual payments. So that tells me they don't understand the business.

We use CDG Commerce / Authorize.net and they dont have any issues with web hosting.

Yeah but unfortunately I have a problem with CDG and Authorize.net. Authorize.Net charged our bank account for unknown reasons. We contacted them several times asking for an invoice or to simply know what it was for and they refused to answer. This was after we closed our authorize.net account so we had no access to check reports since they close you out of that system.

CDG we have a problem with since as soon as you first make contact with them, it's like stopping by a car dealer and leaving your business card. They never quit.

Also getting them to quit is usually quite a feat since you'll confront someone about it however your on so many lists with them it's nuts and doesn't stop.

The other problem with them is as i've stated in a previous post they call from fake numbers. Why someone associated with financials has to call from fake numbers has to raise a few flags.

That seems very strange, our total transactions with CDG/Authnet are in the 6 figure range and we have never had any type of issues like that.

We have several merchant processors and we prefer them.

Yeah well we were awarded a chargeback against Authorize.Net. It wasn't much so im not sure at this point if the bank just absorbed it or if it went back to Anet.

I hope they got it.

There are a number of payment gateways out there that hopefully don't require you to talk into a telephone computer when trying to get help with something.

And that also invoice you for service.

Doesn't seem like anyone has anything else to add to this, I think it's fair to assume this is a tough industry to get processing for where you won't eventually find yourself at odds as your processing increases.

We don't do much with credit cards, im more focused on accepting e-checks at this point.