Contact Us   |   305-728-5152 Merchant Accounts - Frequently Asked Questions   Home  |  Bank Products  |  e-MoneyCard  |  Merchant Accounts  |  Broker/Dealer  |  Contact Us Copyright © 2010.The Republic Group of Companies. All rights reserved. 1. When do I get paid? We process and send payments for all merchant accounts on or around the 16th and 1st of every month. Expect to receive payments on or  around the 5th and 23rd of every month.  2. Do I have to purchase anything else? No, when you get a merchant account you can run only a web store or only software sales or only a membership website or all combined.   3. What is a catalog system?   For all merchant accounts the catalog system will group items together. If you are selling computers, you can divide your products into 5 or 6  categories: monitors, hard disks, keyboards, software, etc. You can then define products within the appropriate catalog.  4. What are the benefits of using the Catalog system?   ISC will generate dynamic web pages reflecting all products within that catalog. The pages are available for all merchant accounts within several  different templates. All you would need to do is link to your catalog. All items would be present with picture, description and ability to purchase.  NO HTML programming required. The benefits are many. First of all, you do not need to create HTML pages. Secondly, any changes to your  catalog (add, remove or modify products) would be immediate and reflected within your catalog pages.  5. What exactly is a membership and why would I want it? The merchant accounts membership system will allow you to sell content. For example, in order to access certain web pages you would need a  password. The membership system allows you to sell access or permission to view certain pages.   6. Are there additional fees for recurring charges and memberships? No. Everything is included within one low fee once the merchant accounts are set up.  7. Do we need our own merchant status to use your system?  No, the Merchant Processor will set you up with U.S. Dollar Visa / MasterCard / American Express merchant account.  8. Do you accept merchants outside of Canada and United States?  Yes, we accept merchants for our merchant accounts in countries including Canada, United States, Netherlands, France, Germany, Pakistan,  Belgium, United Kingdom, Russia, India, China, Bahamas, Brazil, Israel, Ecuador, Greece, South Africa, Cuba, Hong Kong, Italy, Denmark,  Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, Egypt, Thailand, Indonesia, Oman, Cyprus, Peru, Malaysia, Malta, Norway and Sweden.   9. Are International merchants required to incorporate and open bank accounts in the U.S. or Canada? No, International Merchants do not need to incorporate or set-up bank accounts in Canada or US. We will wire your monies to your bank  account in which ever country you wish as specified in the merchant account forms.  10. Is there a minimum dollar amount? Yes, there is a minimum dollar amount for all merchant accounts. You must sell a service or product of more than US $5.   11. What is the maximum dollar amount? We have no upper limit to restrict your transactions.  12. Do you restrict the dollar amount processed per month?   No, although our systems have an automatic transaction monitoring capability based on past experience with the merchant accounts holder.  This information is to protect our merchants as well.  13. Do you accept both electronic and physical delivery merchants? Yes, in many cases our merchants will offer both electronic download and physical delivery of products or services from their sites. 14. Is a merchant restricted to sell only to CDN and U.S. based consumers?   No, all merchants can sell products or services to any Visa, MasterCard or American Express cardholder in the world. Our merchants have sold  to consumers/business' in 143 countries!  15. What is the difference between Authorization & Settlement? There are 2 stages in a credit card transaction.   a. Authorization - within seconds we go to the card holder's bank and request approval for a dollar amount. The bank checks the account  requested to make sure the money is available (does conversion of money if required) and if so, sends an approval code back to us! If it is  declined for any reason, it also sends us this message as well. We then interpret the reason for decline and give a message to the cardholder. If  approved, this then reserves the dollar amount under your merchant number and against the cardholder's line of credit. They 'reserve it' but  don't actually pay it yet!   b. Settlement - At the end of a day (after midnight), all our banks go in to the merchants' files on a host computer and capture/settle the file of  approved transactions. This settlement does two things; it tells the card holder's bank to charge the dollar amount to them and puts money  under your merchant number.  16. Does the merchant website need to be hosted in Canada or the United States? No, you may have a website in which ever country you wish. You will simply be hyper-linking to us for the secure, on-line credit card processing,  so whether your site is across the road or halfway around the world makes no difference to us!  17. What is a Charge-back? After the 'Clear Copy Request' process, if the cardholder still says it wasn't them and the merchant has no proof of delivery or authorization in  writing, then Visa, MasterCard and American Express will charge-back the dollar amount of the transaction to the merchant. Under the Merchant  Accounts Agreements with MasterCard/Amex they do not guarantee non-face to face credit card transactions, even though the original  transaction was approved. They only guarantee the transaction if the merchant sees the card and has a signature from a receipt. These are the  rules but the Merchant Processor fights for the merchant in these cases and despite the fact all Internet transactions are non-face to face, the  banks are willing to review each on a case by case basis. We have been able to successfully reverse a charge-back based on various  information we were able to capture about the consumer, from our Risk Management system and the merchant.   18. How do you handle "Credits/Refunds to Customers"?   All credits/refunds are handled by the Merchant Processor! These will occur if the merchant accounts holder is unable to deliver a product or  service, has over-charged or agrees to refund a customer. Details about the transaction are sent to the Merchant Processor and we will process  a refund/credit to the cardholder. A credit or refund can only be done for a transaction processed through our system. The amount cannot  exceed the original dollar amount.   19. Are we paid for transactions a month old or longer like some other vendors?   No, transactions are processed and the processor pays merchants for ISC sales on a bi-monthly basis. All credit card transactions occurring  between the 1st and the 15th days of any month are accounted as transactions occurring within payment period A. Any credit card transaction  occurring between the 16th and the last day of any month are accounted as transactions occurring within payment period B.   The first monthly merchant accounts payment consists of transactions falling within period A. They are processed and paid on the 16th of every  month. The second monthly payment consists of transactions falling within period B. They are processed and paid on the 1st of the following  month. Once payment checks are processed, we send them out via regular mail. You can request overnight delivery or wire transfer at an additional  cost. You should expect to receive checks around the 6th and 23rd of each month.   20. How do we make sure we have received all orders? Each customer that inputs a transaction for approval will be assigned a sequential sales order number from our system, whether they are  approved or declined. Emails are sent automatically to the merchant. In addition, if you lose an email or are unable to retrieve, our online  merchant accounts reports capture all information about the transactions stored by sequential sales order #'s. That way you will see any order  you are missing.