Posted by NationalACH on Jun 26, 2020
Debt Consolidation Merchant Accounts

Quickly and easily accept cards, ACH, and echeck payments.  Debt consolidation merchant accounts with high volume payment processing capacity.  Accept convenient, trusted payment methods from your customers. And watch your business grow.

In this article, you will discover the pros and cons of various payment methods used by debt relief merchants.  Including a proven effective way to process payments if you need greater flexibility for returns and chargebacks than permitted by the card brands or ACH network.

Credit Card Processing for Debt Consolidation Merchants

Credit Card Processing for Debt Consolidation Merchants
Credit Card Processing for Debt Consolidation Merchants

Americans love to use credit and debit cards to pay.  Cards are the most popular payment method for US consumers. 

Debt consolidation merchant accounts give you the ability to accept both credit and debit cards. 

Credit card transactions represent payments where the card holders’ issuing bank has extended a line of credit to consumers.  The line of credit is used to make purchases and the consumer pays at the end of the month.  If a credit card bill is not paid in full, the remainder is charged interest.  As a result, credit cards represent huge profit margins for banks.

It is far easier to chargeback a credit card transaction than a payment made with a debit card.  The consumer simply calls the issuing bank and disputes the charge.  A chargeback can be initiated for up to 180 days after the purchase is made.

The banks are much more likely to side with credit card holders than merchants when a chargeback is initiated.  After all, it is in the banks’ financial interest to side with the consumer on chargebacks. 

The banks make big profits on credit cards, particularly when the consumer carries a balance forward. Therefore, it is logical that the banks want to keep the credit card customer happy.  Encouraging, the customer to continue charging on the card and paying the bank interest on the balance each month. 

Debit Card Payments for Debt Consolidation Merchants

For debt relief merchants, accepting debit cards rather than credit cards is simply smart business.

Debit card payments are paid by debiting the amount of the bill from the consumers’ bank accounts.  In this case, there is no line of credit involved.  The banks are less apt to side with consumers’ disputes on debit cards because the banks face no potential financial losses from debit card transactions.

Debit card transactions are harder for consumers to charge back than credit cards. If a debit card holder contacts the issuing bank within 2 days, liability is limited to $50 or $500 if the consumer disputes a payment within 60 days.  Waiting more than 60 days means that the debit card holder is responsible for the payment and that is the end of the story.  

It is much harder to chargeback a debit card transaction than a credit card.  Lots of documents are required.  The process is time-consuming since it is up to the consumer to prove that a transaction was not authorized, or the service was not delivered.   Because the banks have no risk of financial loss when consumers pay from bank accounts, there is little motivation to credit funds back to the consumer’s debit card.

High Risk ACH Merchant Accounts

ACH is the lowest cost method of accepting payments for debt consolidation merchants.  There is no “interchange” involved in ACH processing as there is with card payments.  As a result, rates for ACH merchant accounts are 50-80% less than card payments. 

ACH is also great for recurring transactions.  Bank accounts rarely change because direct deposit of wages and payments for household bills are tied to the bank account.  Recurring billing ACH transactions continue uninterrupted since payment data does not need to be updated.     

Compare this with card payments.  More than 20% of card are reissued each year.  If card data is not updated, a recurring billing transaction will decline. 

The downside of ACH payments for debit consolidation merchants is that the ACH network has an extremely low tolerance for revokes (the ACH equivalent of a card chargeback) and returns.  Revokes must be less than 0.5% and returns less than 15%.

These low ratios make it challenging for debt relief merchants to successfully obtain or maintain ACH processing accounts.   

Benefits of Echecks for Debt Consolidation Merchants

Echecks are extremely helpful for protecting your card & ACH merchant accounts since revokes & returns can be significantly higher than allowed by any other payment method.  

Echecks and ACH work in a similar fashion.  Both electronically debit funds from consumer bank accounts. The user experience is the same. The consumer provides routing & account numbers for the bank account from where payments are debited on a one-time or recurring basis. 

With our unique echeck merchant accounts, the processor assumes liability for returns and revokes (chargebacks).  All transactions clear through the processor’s bank account.  Cleared funds settle to the debt consolidation merchant’s bank account, like the way card transactions are settled.

Because the transactions are processed outside the ACH network, debt relief merchants have far greater flexibility on revokes & returns with echecks than any other payment option.  

Some debt consolidation merchants use echecks for the first few recurring payments to make sure there are no revokes or returns.  Once the debt relief merchant confirms that the consumer will not revoke a transaction and has a good payment history without returned items, the consumer can be transferred to ACH or card payments. 

Conclusion

The more ways consumers can pay you, the more money you make.  Cards, ACH, and echecks are all proven solutions for debt consolidation merchants to electronically accept payments. 

Offload riskier transactions to the echeck processor.  Once you confirm customers will not revoke or chargeback transactions and have no returned transactions, customers can be transitioned to card or ACH payments.

Want More Information?

PaynetSecure is one of the only merchant account providers in the country that offers debt repair and consolidation merchants multiple payment options to increase profits, reduce risk and protect processing accounts.  Including an effective way to reduce risk of high chargebacks, revokes, and returned transactions. 

Interested in finding out more?  Contact us today at  info@NationalACH.com or call 866-ACH-7600.