Getting A Merchant Account

[ChiangMaiThai]

If I want to accept credit cards in the US is there any regulation that says my bank must be in the US also? Or can my bank be located anywhere in the world? If the latter is the case, do you simply give your routing number and account number at the time you sign up for a merchant account?

[asinah]

You must have a company and a bank account in the US.

So what we did is register a company in the US (we bought before a shelf company that was three years old already) changed the board and shareholders and then asked our CFO who was based in new Jersey to file all documents)

Took us around 3 weeks to have the Merchant kit mailed to us. We used surepay.com which I believe is still one of the best services I came around)

Make sure you signup for a D&B number as it helps to establish credibility.

[ChiangMaiThai]

You must have a company and a bank account in the US.

Are you sure about this? So every comapny on the internet, whether they be in Europe or Asia or wherever, that accepts online credit card payments from US customers, has registered a company in the US and opened a US bank account???

This doesn't sound right to me.

[asinah]

CMT,

That's how we did it. Of course you could go via a 3rd party and they collect the money on your behalf and pay you once or two times a month plus hold back a certain amount of money for possible charge-backs by your customers.

I was reffering to surepay.com and they want u to be a US or a Canadian company.

Just think of this as you posted it:

** If the latter is the case, do you simply give your routing number and account number at the time you sign up for a merchant account? **

If you have merchant facilities via 3rd party they will pay you once or 2 times a month. Surepay credits the funds within 24-48 hours in your bank account without any T/T or whatsoever. We kept the funds in the bank account and wired once a month the funds to our suppliers such as Diethelm and Asiatrails via our Online Banking A/C in New Jersey.

[asinah]

You must have a company and a bank account in the US.

Are you sure about this? So every comapny on the internet, whether they be in Europe or Asia or wherever, that accepts online credit card payments from US customers, has registered a company in the US and opened a US bank account???

This doesn't sound right to me.

OK, my mistake. If you just want to charge US clients their creditcard, of course u don't need a US company. I was thinking you want to setup US merchant facilities.

Sorry about that.

Your best solution is to talk to a local bank in Thailand.

[asinah]

CMT,

With wich overseas bank do you want to setup a merchant account?

[ChiangMaiThai]

CMT,

With wich overseas bank do you want to setup a merchant account?

Not Thailand and not the US. Still looking into it.

[El_D]

Yes, without US citizenship you'd probably have to have a US company in order to get a US bank account, and then be able to get a US, online merchant account.

Not sure where you're from Asinah, but I have a US paasport & bank account & got my merchant account thru www.charge.com They're an agent for Linkpoint.

Hope this helps,

El D

[ChiangMaiThai]

Maybe a stupid question, but can someone explain to me the difference between having a merchants account and simply being set up to accept credit cards? I thought they were one in the same, but from the replies here it seems that they are not. Thanks!

[Apothecary]

Please talk to us.

We can provide online Credit Card Services at cost 3.5-5% depending on volumes.

No other fees at all (unless there is chargeback).

www.clarityforms.com

[ka12345]

Check out this one:

http://www.thaiepay.com/

[roamer]

A good place to start to learn about the intricacies involved is a forum like this one. http://webhostingtalk.com/search.php .

You can't get a US merchant account without a US bank account. You don't need one either to take US credit cards. You do need a merchant account or a third party operator in order to process your accounts. PayPal is a good example of the latter but do not operate in Thailand and even if you manage to set up the account be aware that even accessing it from a Thai IP address can result in funds being frozen. Merchant accounts are more difficult to set up....there is a lot of stuff about the situation on Thailand in this forum if you do a search. One possible solution for you is www.2checkout.com , they are a third party provider that deals with Thailand and its a recognized name in the US which is very important for customers. really recommend you do some research in forums like the above in ecommerce sections.

[Darknight]

only one worldwide cheap and good one , chaingmaithai.

2checkout.com gets you accepting credit cards in 5 minutes.

[ChiangMaiThai]

Thanks! This 2checkout.com site is perfect. They take 5.5% and only pay twice a month, but your company and bank account can be located almost anywhere. Excellent.

But what happens if the customer sends you their credit card info by mail as is often the case in mail order? What then? From what I understand, the customer has to personally input their info. Any ideas?

[Soboringtochooseaname]

5.5% is more than Paypal ! It's too much !