merchant services | merchant accounts | small business

Heartland Payment Systems and RBS Worldway,   processors who recently suffered massive data breaches,  had their PCI DSS compliance standards revoked by Visa Inc on March 13, 2009, according to industry trade journal The Green Sheet.

Visa also announced that merchants who continue their business relationships with these two processors are not expected to be fined.  Merchants generally are required by PCI DSS regulations to work with PCI compliant processors, just as they are required to be compliant to security standards themselves.

RBS disclosed that their breach occured in December 2008; Heartland in January 2009.

Each company has indicated that they expect reinstatement in the future.

Having difficulty obtaining a merchant account? Have you applied for a credit card merchant account and been declined?

Many prospective merchants, particularly those with poor credit,  who process or are located overseas, or who are otherwise undesirable for mainstream US processors, find themselves in this predicament.  Unfortunately for everybody, all too often out of desperation these merchants end up in the hands of scammers.

The good news is, there ARE processors who offer legitimate programs for many of these merchants.  The trick is to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys.

Automated Merchant Solutions has earned the reputation that if they can’t write a merchant, nobody can write that merchant.  With very few exceptions,  most notably merchants in  travel, adult, import/export and other ultra-high risk business categories, AMS is successful in finding legitimate  homes for hard-to-place merchants with little or no upfront cost to the applicant.

For details or assistance,  go to the AMS website http://www.merchantservices-help.com/offshore-merchant-account.html