MasterCard charging add'l $1K for adult site

I have just been informed by my Merchant Service company that Wood Forest bank, they process my credit cards, etc, that MasterCard has refused to process any of my transactions until it receives an additional $1K. They claim that since it is an adult site and I have streams that this is the justification. I was also told Visa is charging up to $500. This is an extra charge on top of the monthly charge paid to them just for the ability to process cards.
The company I went with last November, Merchant Services USA out of Phoenix are the absolute worse company. They never contact me, return my calls, inform me of new polices, and my account with the bank was recently cancelled and they never even called me back when I contacted them.
THe bank closed my account last month because they mixed me up with someone who has a site with "upskirting". I didn't even know what it was. I had to have the woman explain it to me. I guess it is when guys have cameras attached to their shoes and take pictures up woman's skirts. Anyway I cleared that up and they re-instated me. This after customers were placing orders and being declined. Now it seems that whole thing has raised a red flag on my site. It shouldn't be long before Visa closes me down also.
I guess what I will have to do is remove the streams from the site. I have a feeling though MasterCard will still find an excuse to charge more money.
For me in my first year a grand it a lot of money.
What really pisses me off is how they take advantage of adult companies because not everyone will take our account. Seems like it should be illegal.

So, I am in need of a new Merchant services company. My year is about up and I want to fire them. There is not much I can do about the bank or MC though. I love how on the invoices they all say:"we value your business and understand you have a choice in your processing and appreciate that you have chosen us".

As if VISA and Mastercard dont make enough damn money.

Discusting.

i haven't heard about this charge from ccbill or epoch.

have you contacted netbilling regarding finding a merchant account?

I don't know about now, but I was told while we were looking for membership site processing that for a number of years, Woodforest Bank was claiming (according to several merchant account resellers I spoke with) that their adult membership sites are not high risk, and they were misclassified by Woodforest when they were reported to Visa.

It's possible that they just got nailed by the card association and are now having to bring everything into compliance, or something else is going on, because otherwise, you can bet that CCBill and Epoch, both of whom have close relationships and connections with the cardmember associations, would have told us this if it was applying globally to everyone.

I very highly recommend Victoria at ECSCommerce.com if you're looking for a new merchant account. Back a while ago, we talked to about a dozen people selling merchant accounts, and EVERY ONE of them gave us a load of crap, a million promises, and never delivered... even ones recommended to us on this board. Victoria was the first who took the time to understand our issues, ask the right questions, and was actually able to talk to the underwriters at the merchant processors to find out why we were having problems. (Turned out our domain name for our video sales site was raising red flags.) And she's been in adult for a long time and really knows the marketplace both domestic and offshore. I get nothing from recommending her, just she was the first no-BS person we ran into who really knew her stuff.

This charge has been around for 3 years now, most processors charge $1,250 for Mastercard and $750 for Visa (for the first year).

I know we changed processors when ours tried to charge us $2k for Mastercard and $1,500 for Visa, and we'd been with them more than 10 years. They got too greedy.

Visa won't shut you down for streams. The issue is your processing bank fucked up by not charging you the yearly fees, and now they're being penalized for it.

PM me for a solution of either your own merchant account or a 3rd party processor who charges just $375 for Visa and they take it as 1% out of your check until it's paid, and nothing for Mastercard. See, Visa charges $375 but the processor gets their cut, too, for processing the paperwork.

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Originally Posted by basschick

i haven't heard about this charge from ccbill or epoch.

have you contacted netbilling regarding finding a merchant account?

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CCBill and Epoch are 3rd party credit card processors, so they have different rates then if you have your own merchant account directly from a bank. Woodforest has been in a lot of trouble lately with Visa/Mastercard becuase they don't follow (or else know) the rules.

I know of 3 other banks that are taking adult merchant accounts besides Woodforest. It'll still cost the $1,000 for Mastercard and $500 for Visa.

I spoke with Victoria at ecs commerce. She was very helpful and thorough. She basically advised me to try and contact Woodforest Bank and set up the account directly with them. What that will problably mean is that current account will be closed and I'll be charged an early termination fee. She said that they have the best rates and there is no getting around the annual charge of $1500.00 for Visa/MasterCard. She also suggested Net billing.

I still get a little confused over all the companies involved in this. I went through Merchant Services USA for them to set up the account with the bank, then there is eprocessing network that I guess is the gateway, then there is the bank. All 3 withdrawl their fee from my account every month.

Does anyone have a simpler approach?

You're pretty much stuck with a gateway fee and a monthly maintenance fee for the merchant account, and the high risk fee IF you are selling memberships or digital content. If there's an additional monthly fee on top of that, you're probably getting hosed... though some accounts are now charging "annual" fees in addition to monthly fees, just another way to gouge the merchant.

If you're selling physical product, you shouldn't have a high risk registration fee as far as I know, but you'd need to separate your streams and such onto a different domain. Visa regulations generally prohibit linking the site with the physical product to the site with the VOD or streams or membership.