Merchant Accounts In Turmoil - Is Your Business At Risk?

On 10th of August 2004 another shock hit the merchant account world.

We've had the possibility of third party merchant providers getting closed down because of new Visa and Mastercard regulations last year. We've had Globill go out of business leaving thousands of websites without credit card processing facilities.

The the latest bombshell - one of the net's largest and most highly regarded third party merchant provider not only closed thousands of accounts without warning, but also sent out a press release informing their trusting clients that all funds had been frozen for an undisclosed period of time.

That provider was PaySystems.

Until then the future had looked very rosy indeed.

I know numerous merchants who have been incredibly happy with their accounts, most notably because PaySystems had gone the extra mile to provide a truly amazing account, including:

• Weekly payments
  
• Competitive rates
  
• Wide range of businesses accepted
  
• International merchants accepted

Unlike many other providers, PaySystems required quite a myriad of paperwork to open an account - which they used to assess risk for new clients, keeping themselves "safe" (or so they thought) and allowing them to offer such low rates.

Unfortunately even this careful attention was not enough as their facility was cancelled.

It's not yet exactly clear who is to blame but that's of little consequence to those who've lost not just their accounts but also, for the time being at least, their recent profits.

So what's the lesson to be learned here?

Merchant accounts are a rapidly changing world, where even the strongest can be caught off guard.

No matter *how* good your system is things out of your control will go wrong.

My two favourite third party merchant account providers - Clickbank and 2CheckOut - so far seem safe but who knows what the future may hold.

I suppose the greatest lesson is to have backup. I really do have numerous accounts that I use for different purposes and if one were to go down, I could quickly recover.

And even Clickbank and 2CheckOut have had technical difficulties in the past with power outages and hackers taking down their computers. Unfortunately that's life and no matter who you use these things can happen.

If you're a Clickbank user however, one new tool that can help you, solve these instances where Clickbank's systems go down.

It's a new piece of software that can tell if there's a problem with Clickbank. And if there is, it'll automatically send your visitors over to your backup processor so you don't lose a single order. Then as soon as Clickbank goes back online the software switches your order link back.

So protect yourself, and your business, in this uncertain world. You just never know what's around the corner.

Get a backup account with what's still my favourite third party provider here.

And check out the new CB-Switch software here.