HELP! Merchant ID/ MOTO and credit rating conundrum

[Brix]

Dear all

We have just set up a charity Wills scheme at our law firm (and have sightsavers and action for children signed up for it, and some other household charity names in serous discussions to join very soon). The idea is our firm gives the charities 50% of our fees, and picks up all the overheads - 24 hr call handling, admin, and the legal work etc - from our half to give a scheme that can run for them all year round and bring in much needed income for the charities.

Naturally we hope to make a little after we've paid the bills, but mainly, in the long term, the benefit for us is to hope to retain the goodwill of the clients.

We applied to Lloyds to get a system to do card payments - because to process people from all over the country we'll need it. I believe we need a MOTO virtual terminal, but we've never needed such systems before, so apologies for incorrect terminology.

After dithering for weeks our wonderful, bankrupt, bank Lloyds turned us down yesterday, citing a few CCJs (from supplier disputes).

Such irony from the banks, having gone tits up themselves, huh? Not to mention that our scheme is set to benefit our firm and increase our turnover and sales, which you'd have thought they'd see as a good thing if they think our "credit rating" isn't up to scratch.

The question is - who should we apply to? Are there any more enlightened banks? Are there Payments Gateways where you can simply have an account that bypasses the need to deal with the banks?

I found a company called Universal Payment Gateway that appears to do all of the process of setting up a MOTO facility and making the transaction completely arms' length so there are no Data Protection or fraud or any other "issues" for a bank to have. Does this kind of thing mean we still need to beg for a Merchant ID or does it solve the problem? Is there some other solution anyone can recommend?

We simply must get the facility sorted asap. It will bring in thousands of pounds for charities in a cold economic climate, and although we can run it in a cumbersome "send us a cheque" fashion it doesn't make any sense in an e-commerce age, particularly as we're running the scheme online.

Any help would be very gratefully received.

Very many thanks, and apologies for a long (and boring) post.

[Brix]

Okey Doke.

Well I didn't get the sagely advice I was hoping for from the forum, however after 3 days of running around and by appealing to the better natures of some bankers (yes, I know... think a pig just flew by...) we have managed a result.

For anyone with a similar problem to our original one, who doesn't have the ability to point out their endeavour is aimed at charity, I did find a company that will provide a merchant account that does away with the need for your bank altogether. If you just need an internet payment page then NoChex can provide that. If, like us, you need a Virtual Terminal too for MOTO payments, then Axcess Merchant Services can also provide that.

Anyway, thank you all for reading my post. It is still relevant I suppose for anyone in the position of having a truculent bank, and maybe there is someone who can make even better suggestons than the potential solutions above.

[TWD-Tony]

PayPal also do a Virtual Terminal that allows you to take card payments over the phone or even face to face...

[Brian Turner]

Yep, apologies for the delayed reply - most internet businesses can only take out direct banking with the high street names once they've traded successfully for a number of years - in the meantime, processing services are required, of which Paypal is one of the best, but Google Checkout, Worldpay, NoChex, are all viable.

[-=seth=-]

careful of NoChex, i would advise anybody using them not to rely on them, have a back-up such as paypal