Payment Processors or Aggregator/Facilitator for Social Media Marketing

[chuchu]

Hi guys!

I've found very helpful resources here, however, I have to make this post‌ because of having found different approaches to being able to accept payments for high-risk businesses.‍

Basic info about my processing:

Monthly volume: $500-600k USD
Chargeback rate: 0.07%

We do social⁠ media marketing business, however, due to the recent FTC Rule banning "Fake Social Media Indicators",⁤ we're unable to process payments in the US by our processors (we have multiple ones).⁣

I've found three approaches to be able to solve this issue:

1. Cloaking Payment Processors (Miscoded⁢ MCC)
   1. We'll white-label something and make everything look legit.
      
   2. We're PCI-DSS Level 1, so we︀ can do server-to-server integration without the need of "redirect", probably just proxy the API requests.︁
      
   3. Not necessarily Stripe, because they are too smart and not long-term.
      
      
2. Using Payment Aggregators or︂ Facilitators (Payfac)
   1. This method, we don't have to create our own Merchant account, so less︃ chance of being terminated.
      
      
3. Cosmonaut Processing (or whatever it might be called)
   1. Having around 100︄ merchant accounts, and your payments goes through these merchants. This service typically costs more, around︅ 15% in fee.
      

What do you guys think? What's the best approach? Finding Cosmonaut processing︆ is really hard, it's basically through connections, nothing really available online.

Do you have other︇ suggestions?

I'll also keep updating this thread as I find solutions, in case anyone else︈ is in the same situation!

 

[daniels27]

You state that you have 0.07% chargeback, which is low. But what is the actual‌ number per month? I am asking because if you go with proper cloacking and have‍ low number of chargebacks, I see little problems if you use proper processors (this specifically⁠ excludes stripe).

The norally do not care much until you have chargebacks and even then,⁤ if you are LVMH and Rimowa GmbH gets a chargeback for a Kenzo item, they⁣ won't complain about the wrong merchant account having been used.

I would probably take number⁢ 1 and have a white-label website with a similar service / product being offered.

 

[CoinMaster]

best if possible, have you found processors that want to accept your business ?

Cloaking if‍ everything else fails.

 

[chuchu]

PayFac's and "Cosmonaut" processing, I've found‍ through someone who is very trustable, but those kind of setups are very hard to⁠ find and usually private. I don't know what their name is either. I've just received⁤ a proposal for now.

I will let you know how it goes, but I'm not⁣ 100% sure of it being the best approach because they enforce 3DS (bad acceptance rate⁢ in the US).

 

[chuchu]

We do around 70 000 transactions per month, so around 40-50︁ chargebacks.

We're now also utilizing Ethoca/RDR to automatically fully refund pre-chargeback, hopefully it goes below︂ 0.07%!

 

[bountymounty]

What you look for here is‌ a 3.party payment processor I assume?

Have you tried some of the billers like chronopay‍ and Instabill ?

 

[chuchu]

PayFac is 3rd party processing yes. But "Cosmonaut processing" is basically you're processing under hundreds of‌ different MIDs, very rare (or impossible) to find on Google.

I've reached out to Instabill‍ and +20 other high-risk PSPs for now, while trying to create a proper cloaking website.⁠ Thank you for your recommendations!

 

[bountymounty]

very good, let us⁤ know the outcome.