Merchant accounts are needed in order for a business to accept credit card payments. As a merchant, there are two places you can obtain a merchant account; a bank, or a third party provider. For online merchants the most popular, with the most cases cost effective, source is from another party merchant account provider.

A high risk merchant account is required by businesses that, when compared to a ‘traditional’ goods/services business, close to a higher risk of:

Bankruptcy

Fraudulent Transactions

High sum of sales

High rate of refunds

High rate of charge-backs

Other reasons a merchant may be categorized like a high risk are:

Merchants Location – Some merchant account providers will not accept merchants from certain countries.

The Product/Service the merchant sells is illegitimate in some jurisdictions.

Merchant Credit standing – Some providers won’t accept merchants with poor or no credit track record.

Due towards high risk classification, most banks will not provide an account provider to those who are in a high risk industry (such as adult entertainment, replica goods, pharmacy etc). Because of this some vacation providers offer their services to both general merchants and heavy chance merchants.

Merchant account providers of developed to service high risk merchants will normally provide the next stage of fraud protection, with a purpose to decrease expense of their merchants incur. However, in order to cover the advanced level of risk, rates high risk merchant account will always be higher than their lower risk counter-parts.

When hunting for a high risk merchant account providers for online pharmacy account, there are a number of factors to be take under consideration. Rates will be one of the most basic factors, as well as includes fees for refunds and charge-backs, along with transaction fees, the discount rate and continuing fees. You must need to contemplate fraud protection, customer service and reporting available to you as a merchant.