I’m designing a web site that lists rental units. I also have a site that rents equipment. Can both these sites go to a single merchant account for fees paid on them?
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Can I have one merchant account for 2 web sites?
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One Response to “Can I have one merchant account for 2 web sites?”
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No serious merchant account provider is going to establish one merchant account for multiple websites. The chargeback potential is too enormous to do so. The fact that only one website will have the proper name shown on the other statement means that the one that won’t have their name on the customer’s statement will experience a high rate of chargebacks just from customers not recognizing the DBA on their statement. This doesn’t even take into consideration the high rate of chargebacks internet-based businesses experience anyway.
And, if you want to try to avoid that by putting the corporate name on the statement you make the problem even worse. Now on both websites your customers will not recognize the business name on the statement. You might think you can put the corporate name prominently on each website or saying on the checkout page, “Your statement will say ABC Corporation” will mitigate that problem. Not true. Customers associate the business name with their purchase and having the wrong name on the statement is a proven way to get lots of chargebacks.
The bank, and the merchant, will want to have separate accounts as if one experiences a high rate of chargebacks (greater then one percent) that account will be closed but the other one will be unaffected. If both accounts are rolled up into one, if the chargebacks from one get too high and bring the collective total over one percent they both will be shut down. Obviously bad business for the merchant.
Additionally, each website is judged on its own merits. One website might be readily accepted by a merchant account provider but the other might due to its elevated level of risk.