Did You Lose Your Merchant Account?

Did you recently discover that your acquiring bank or payment processor has dropped you? Are you trying to figure out what happened to your merchant account, but you aren’t getting many answers from them? Unfortunately, your bank or payment processor is not required to notify you that you no longer have a merchant account, and they are under no obligation to tell you why, either. The tricky part about all of this is that you can lose your merchant account and get placed on the MATCH List without any fault of your own. Want to know how to get your merchant account back and get back to business as usual? We can help. Keep reading to learn more about the MATCH List, why you may have lost your merchant account, and how to get it back as quickly as possible.

You Might Be On The MATCH List

If you no longer have a merchant account and you are not sure why, or if your bank or payment processor is not giving you any information, chances are that you may have been placed on the Mastercard MATCH List. This list is an industry blacklist and can be detrimental to your business. Being on this list should be taken extremely seriously, as it has devastating consequences. There are only two ways to get off of the MATCH List: Waiting the five-year waiting period or seeking early removal through professional legal assistance.

Understanding the MATCH List

The Mastercard Alert to Control High-risk Merchants (MATCH) allows an acquiring partner to look at whether another acquiring partner has terminated a merchant in the past and the reason for that termination to aid in an onboarding decision. This will provide acquirers with the opportunity to develop and review enhanced or incremental risk information before entering into a merchant agreement. The API also provides the facility for an acquiring partner to add a merchant termination event to the system. Further, the API allows an acquiring partner to identify when other acquiring partners have inquired about a given merchant.

MATCH uses customer-reported information regarding merchants and their owners to offer acquirers the following fraud detection features and options for assessing risk:

Acquirers may add and search for information regarding up to five principal and associate business owners per merchant.
Acquirers may designate regions and countries for database searches.
MATCH uses multiple fields to determine possible matches.
MATCH supports retroactive alert processing of data residing on the database for up to 360 days.

How You Got On The MATCH List

In order to get placed on the MATCH List, you need to violate one of their thirteen reason codes. Some of these may not be caused by any fault of your own, such as identity theft. In addition, your bank is not obligated to tell you which one you violated, let you have a chance to rectify it, or even tell you that you have been placed on the MATCH List at all.

The thirteen reason codes are as follows, according to Mastercard:

Account Data Compromise
Common Point of Purchase (CPP)
Laundering
Excessive Chargebacks
Excessive Fraud
Fraud Conviction
Mastercard Questionable Merchant Audit Program
Bankruptcy/Liquidation/Insolvency
Violation of Standards
Merchant Collusion
PCI Data Security Standard Noncompliance
Illegal Transactions
Identity Theft

You Will Have to Start Paying Higher Fees

One of the things that may happen when you lose your merchant account—if you choose to go this route—is that you will become a high-risk merchant. High-risk merchants find it difficult to get merchant accounts due to the fact that they are high-risk. If they do find a payment processor who is willing to work with them, they will find that they pay very high fees—higher than they normally would, which will cut into their profits and bottom line.

According to PaymentCloud, generally, high-risk business owners can expect credit card processing rates of 0.5% to 1% higher than low-risk processing rates, which end up ranging anywhere from 3.49% to 3.95% per transaction on average, plus a $0.25 transaction fee.

Depending on the payment processor, risk level of the business, number of monthly transactions, and a slew of other factors, processing rates can even get as high as 10%.

You Need to Wait Five Years to Get It Back

One of the very frustrating things that happens if you lose your merchant account because you have been placed on the MATCH List is that you need to wait five years before your name is cleared and you’re able to get it back.

People and businesses who have been placed on the MATCH List need to wait a five-year waiting period before their information is aged out of the list. After five years, there is no more record of you having been on the MATCH List, and your name and business have been cleared.

However, this waiting period is very unrealistic for most businesses, especially small businesses. Signing up as a high-risk merchant can keep you in business; however, it can also mean losing large amounts of money and time. Yet, waiting the five-year period could put you out of business altogether.

You Will Be Stuck in Lengthy Contracts

Another difficult aspect of succumbing to high-risk merchant status is that you will be stuck in very long contracts with your high-risk merchant payment processor. These contracts are iron-clad and are difficult to get out of, so even if you do manage to obtain early removal from the MATCH List before the five-year waiting period is over, you might still be stuck as a high-risk merchant paying high-risk merchant prices.

All Your Personal & Business Information is On The MATCH List

The Mastercard MATCH List is very comprehensive. They have designed it perfectly so that if you are placed on the MATCH List, there is no “loophole” to open your business under a new name. Your personal legal name will be on this list and prevents you from doing any other kind of business as a low-risk merchant.

The information on the MATCH List, which all remains for a minimum of five years unless you win early removal, includes:

Your business name in all its forms
Names of the business owners
Names of associates
Business address and contact details

How to Get Your Merchant Account Back

If all of this information has you panicked about the future of your business, your family’s future, and your financial well-being, we can help you. There are ways you can get your merchant account back before the five-year waiting period so that you can go back to business as usual and forget this ever happened.

Talk to your payment processor. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, so call your payment processor and see if you could have any luck finding out why you’re on the MATCH List and prove your innocence. Make sure you have documentation and facts to back it up.
Get legal help. Navigating the waters of merchant law can be frustrating and confusing. By obtaining legal help, you will have the best chances possible at early removal from the MATCH List: Within days.

Early MATCH List Removal with TFM Law

If you have found yourself on the Match List, you have options. Don’t wait for the five-year period to expire.You can get back to business ASAP and forget this ever happened.

The Law Offices of Theodore Monroe focuses on litigation and counseling in the areas of payments, credit card processing, e-commerce, direct response marketing, and Federal Trade Commission enforcement.

Last year, the firm removed 100% of the people who came to us from the MATCH list.

Theodore F. Monroe, Founder of TFM Law, has successfully:

Represented merchants recovering funds from processors
Structured processing relationships to comply with Card Brand requirements
Drafted and negotiated contracts involving payment facilitators and ISOs
Represented continuity merchants in compliance and litigation issues
Fought for numerous companies in suits brought by the Federal Trade Commission and obtained excellent results for firms in the digital products, loan modification, government grant, and nutraceuticals industries

Before opening his firm, Mr. Monroe practiced law with Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May (now Reed Smith LLP) and Lewis, D’Amato, Brisbois & Bisgaard (now Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith), where he defended numerous accounting and law firms in professional liability actions, and insurance carriers in bad faith actions.

Before becoming a lawyer, Mr. Monroe worked as a forensic accountant at Coopers & Lybrand, which provided him with a unique background in forensic accounting and financial analysis among litigators in Los Angeles. Mr. Monroe studied at Duke University Law School, achieved a BS with Honors in Accounting from the University of Kentucky, and is a member of the California State Bar and the Kentucky State Bar.

For more information and to get off the MATCH List as quickly as possible, visit us at howtogetoffmatch.com!