There are many reasons a business may be considered too high-risk for a standard merchant account.
Unfortunately, the payment processing landscape is full of shady account providers that prey upon this often-desperate group of business owners. These providers promise quick or guaranteed approval, only to lock merchants into a long-term contract with extremely high account fees and processing rates. How how can you tell these predatory companies from the ones that truly have your back as a high-risk merchant?
More specifically, where does PaymentCloud fit in? Youll be glad to know that PaymentCloud is in the has your back category of high-risk merchant account providers. Established in 2010 and headquartered in Sherman Oaks, California, PaymentCloud has recently opened a regional office in Miami, Florida.The current Executive Vice President, Shawn Silver, was previously the VP of High Risk at iPayment, Inc.
PaymentCloud specializes in providing payment processing solutions for ecommerce, mail order/telephone order (MOTO), and other generally high-risk businesses. The vast majority of PaymentClouds merchants are based in the US. Although PaymentCloud serves lower risk and brick-and-mortar establishments as well, this merchant services provider really shines in the mid-to-high-risk space.
As PaymentCloud knows very well, processing risk is spread across a spectrum. Many new merchants arent aware that if most of their transactions are card-not-present, theyll immediately get bumped into a slightly higher risk classification than in-person retail. While this factor alone is not enough for a fully-fledged high-risk designation, a greater susceptibility to card fraud is the main reason ecommerce and MOTO transactions carry higher processing rates than card-present transactions from the get-go.
Beyond the inherently higher risk of online processing, your particular industry may also carry more risk than others. For example, perhaps your industry has a historically high chargeback ratio. Even if youve never experienced a chargeback yourself, your business could easily be placed in the high-risk, hard-to-place category before youve even sold a single product or service.
PaymentCloud specializes in serving these types of merchants, along with anyone whose risk is deemed higher than normal for any number of reasons. PaymentCloud has been so successful working with these hard-to-place merchants that the ecommerce processing giant Stripe has started referring many of its declined clients directly to PaymentCloud complete with a link to PaymentClouds website right inside Stripes rejection/cancelation emails. In addition, one of our favorite low-risk merchant account providers, Dharma Merchant Services (see our review), also refers businesses it cannot place over to PaymentCloud on a regular basis.
In our opinion, a positive referral from Dharma is worth its weight in gold due to the companys outstanding reputation for ethical business practices. So, what makes PaymentCloud a quality high-risk specialist? Well, much of the companys success in this area is due to its extremely hands-on approach during the initial application and underwriting process, as well as the intensive follow-up support and advocacy provided to existing clients.
Well take a closer look at PaymentClouds methods in the rest of this review. Well also cover pricing for both high and low-risk businesses, the contract terms you can expect in either case, PaymentClouds reputation among real-world merchants, and more.
