What to Do if You Are Placed on the Terminated Merchant File

Getting placed on the Terminated Merchant File is one of the worst things that can happen to you if you are a business accepting credit card payments. It means that you have had your account terminated by a merchant bank and have now been placed on a list shared by merchant banks such as Solid Trust Pay. This could be for any number of reasons including suspicion of credit card fraud, not fulfilling orders or paying refunds and a high percentage of chargebacks.

No matter what the reason, being on the Terminated Merchant File is a disaster for businesses. Once you are on the list, almost all other merchant banks won’t take you on as a customers. This means that you either have to set up a merchant account with a disreputable merchant bank or simply not accept credit card payments. For many businesses, not being able to take credit card payments is a death sentence.

So what can you do if your business is placed on the Terminated Merchant File for reasons you don’t think are legitimate? The only way that you can get off of the list is through the same merchant bank that originally placed you on the list. So if you had an account with SolidTrustPay that was closed and led to you being placed on the Terminated Merchant File, you’ll need to go back to Solid Trust Pay to convince them to remove you from the list.

As you can imagine, this is a very arduous process — merchant banks usually don’t place a business or business person on the Terminated Merchant File unless they have a very good reason. So you’ll need to give the merchant bank some good reasons why you should be off the list. If you believe you were placed on the list by accident, you can ask the bank to open an investigation. This might take some time but you’ll eventually be able to get off the list. If you are suspected of fraud, your chances of getting off the list are very low; they are better for issues such as excessive chargebacks that can be corrected over time as the chargebacks are resolved.
The bottom line is this: you don’t want to be on the Terminated Merchant File. If you do get on the list, fight your case if you think the listing is unjustified but be prepared for a long process in order to clear your business’ name.