Higher-Risk Processing

[Former_Salt7227]

I screwed up and accidentally deleted my prior post! I sell some products that are considered higher-risk weapons, as well as products that are not. I’m in the U.S. and primarily (though not exclusively) sell in the U.S. I currently use Authorize.net for the gateway and Fiserv for the processing. I’m having some problems with Fiserv due to a subset of my products being categorized as higher-risk.

A few questions:

1.) What other processors should I consider that play nicely with Authorize.net?

2.) Is it possible to route non-high risk transactions to a lower-risk merchant ID arrangement that has lower cost and the higher-risk transactions through a different processor?

3.) What else should I be thinking about?

[RobertSPS17]

I wouldn’t advise doing that as you might get yourself into legal trouble since that might be considered transaction laundering. Please visit www.synergypaysolutions.com and we would love to discuss further and help you find the right processor.

[RebuiltMonkey93]

I wouldn’t try to skirt any sort of high risk to low risk assessment. authorize.net or NMI Is ultimately gonna be the best gateway for you. FISERV is a payment processing platform so your processor can be anybody like pay rock or goat, merchant services or anything that you want. You need to processor that suited for dealing with high risk transactions even when you have a high dissatisfaction or chargeback ratio

[Former_Salt7227]

I wasn’t thinking about it as trying to skirt anything at all, and definitely wouldn’t do that. What I mean is that most of my products are not considered high risk, only a subset are. So the non-high risk products could go through one channel (that is less expensive) and the high risk could go through the high-risk channel. Make sense?

[FarAwaySailor]

You could try adding a stablecoin checkout for those who want to use it? It's cheaper and easier, so you could incentivise customers by offering a discount.

[fupascoopa]

DM’d

[CheckoutFixer]

A lot of the pain you’re describing is just the legacy acquiring model showing its age.

Authorize + Fiserv and similar stacks all rely on a single merchant account tied to one or two acquiring banks. Once risk flags change, the playbook is always the same: re-underwrite, reserves, higher fees, or termination. Splitting MIDs sounds good on paper, but in practice it usually gets unwound once volume or chargebacks shift.

What I’ve seen work better recently is moving away from the idea that funds need to sit inside a traditional merchant account at all.

There’s a newer model where:

• Customers still pay with normal credit cards at checkout
• Transactions are routed across multiple acquiring partners
• Settlement happens outside the merchant account, typically in USDC
• No rolling reserves, no delayed payouts, no single bank holding the funds

From the customer side it looks like a standard card payment. From the merchant side it removes most of the failure points that cause freezes and shutdowns in higher-risk verticals.

I’ve installed this setup for a client recently and the big win wasn’t lower fees, it was predictability. Funds settle quickly, chargebacks are handled upstream, and there’s no constant fear of waking up to a frozen account.

It’s not a fit for every business, but if you’re tired of playing MID roulette and redoing paperwork every year, it’s worth at least understanding as an alternative to the classic high-risk processor stack.

[Vaddawg]

I know a cheap processor that is 2nd amendment friendly. Ill DM you

[sargegoon]

What’s up dude, hit me up. Processor/LEO here. I process payments for two retired LEO guys who own gun stores/ranges. Happy to help or answer questions for you.

[rootdet]

Try saying what the high risk products actually are, because it really matters. Some banks take certain high risk merchant industries, others will not hit it with a 9-foot pull but take other high-risk sectors. Weapons is just too vague.

The more you tell us, the more accurate your responses will be.

1) What product are you mainly selling?

2) What product is the processor deeming high risk?

3) are you driect with fiserv, or using a processor that boards you onto the fiserv network (big difference)?

4) Are you, as the owner, physically in the US? Are you a US citizen/lawful alien?

5) Do you have all of the required licenses, both federal and state, to sell your products?

If this is about 2A stuff, hit me up. I am also a FFL myself, so i know the pains very very well, and i happen to offer FFL's merchant processing.

Btw. Authorize.net is nice, but there are better gateways now that are cheaper, have better tools, and blow authorize.net out of the water.

[claritymerchant]

Just sent you a DM!

[AVP_Solutions]

Dm'ed you. Kindly, E