10 ms·

Why would a merchant account provider have your personal social security number/be doing credit checks? Assuming its an incorporated C corp?

tptacek 14y ago
Because merchant banks require them. Anyone can create any number of C corporations at any time. Merchant accounts are one of several business services that young companies can't set typically set up without somehow binding the contract to the business owners themselves.
- ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
  > one of several business services Could elaborate on the other ones?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Depending on the market, leases are another example. If you think about this for just a second, you can see that incorporation can't possibly be a "get out of credit checks free" card.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  Merchant accounts are one of several business services that young companies can't set typically set up without somehow binding the contract to the business owners themselves. I've noticed a disturbing trend in this respect recently, with seemingly everyone from law firms to banks wanting personal guarantees from someone to back up the company. This practice should, IMHO, be prohibited by law, and this should be impossible to override via any contract. The entire point of a limited company (in UK terms) structure is that you know you are running a legally separate entity, and everyone else knows they are dealing with a legally separate entity. Everyone should judge the risks they are willing to take and offer terms that factor in those risks accordingly. This is done to incentivise people to start new businesses where there may be some degree of risk, without having to risk literally the roof over their heads to do it, and is universally acknowledged to be in the interests of economic development, which is why every major economy in the world has a concept analogous to that limited company. Checking the credibility of the principals and asking for things like business plans and company financial statements is all perfectly reasonable so that a potential business partner can judge the level of risk. However, allowing piercing agreements is simply a completely one-sided deal: the little guy is now back on the hook for all of the risk, yet still takes the hit on all the bureaucracy associated with running a formal company. If such agreements were banned, the banks and lawyers and other high-powered services would still have to deal with other businesses or they'd have on customers. They'd just have to be more realistic about what they charged if they wanted to continue working with profitable customers in the long run. [Edit: Incidentally, piercing agreements do not seem to be completely universal. We've seen some fairly unpleasantly one-sided terms while investigating payment services, frequently including things like requiring direct control of your main bank account so they can grab whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it, but not everyone has asked for personal guarantees (as opposed to a personal credit check) at least at the stage we've got to with them.]
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Banks already do ask for financials and corporate track record. You're required to stake your own credit when your financials are inadequate. You want that to be illegal? It's better than those companies not be able to obtain merchant accounts?
    - marshray 14y ago
      You're begging the false dichotomy here. Insisting on personal liability for a corporate account is equivalent to denying the account to the corporation. Bankers would prefer to have you sign away your first born children too (sounds like something out of Dickens). But we've made such practices illegal and there's no evidence that the money supply is suffering for it.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Help me understand. What you're suggesting is that, simply by having paid a couple hundred bucks to incorporate, regardless of my personal credit, I should be able to establish a merchant account?
        Silhouette 14y ago
        No, we're suggesting that if you're going to offer a merchant account to a company, your decision and terms should be based on the nature of that company. You might reasonably do a credit check on the principals, since someone running a company who has a track record of bad debts is obviously a warning sign. Likewise you can check them against the databases of people who've been kicked off payment services before. But in the end, you should be looking at whether a company has a credible business plan and people who are likely to execute it well. That's apparently good enough for other major financial transactions, including attracting investors and things like company credit cards for principals on the day you open a bank account. How come everyone else in the world can use common sense and make an informed judgement about risk, but merchant account providers can't?
rscale 14y ago
If you're a relatively small or young company, the merchant account providers often demand that a principal signs a piercing agreement and personally guarantees the account. For the first few years I was in business my corporate credit lines were effectively personal credit lines that happened to have my company name on them.
meanguy 14y ago
Requested it as part of the application. Perhaps I could have avoided the disclosure, but since a merchant account is effectively offering you credit (think about it) leveraging my personal rating yet incurring no liability was a pragmatic win. The issue is that fraud prevention--like terrorism prevention--means the side that's doing the groping isn't going to tell you exactly what they're doing and why. This leads to a lot of confusion.
dangrossman 14y ago
No merchant account provider will open a new account without the personal social security numbers of the principals. Otherwise you could defraud one bank then the next your whole life by simply forming a new LLC/corp each time for $100 a pop. When a merchant is terminated for fraud, breach of contract or excessive chargebacks, they can be placed on the TMF (Terminated Merchant File) and MATCH (Member Alert to High-Risk Merchants) lists which all Visa/MC member banks have access to. The social security numbers of all the principals are added to that list, so that if they apply with a new business somewhere else, the bank knows they've previously been a principal of a business some other bank terminated, and the reason.

tptacek 14y ago

Because merchant banks require them. Anyone can create any number of C corporations at any time. Merchant accounts are one of several business services that young companies can't set typically set up without somehow binding the contract to the business owners themselves.

ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
> one of several business services Could elaborate on the other ones?
- tptacek 14y ago
  Depending on the market, leases are another example. If you think about this for just a second, you can see that incorporation can't possibly be a "get out of credit checks free" card.
Silhouette 14y ago
Merchant accounts are one of several business services that young companies can't set typically set up without somehow binding the contract to the business owners themselves. I've noticed a disturbing trend in this respect recently, with seemingly everyone from law firms to banks wanting personal guarantees from someone to back up the company. This practice should, IMHO, be prohibited by law, and this should be impossible to override via any contract. The entire point of a limited company (in UK terms) structure is that you know you are running a legally separate entity, and everyone else knows they are dealing with a legally separate entity. Everyone should judge the risks they are willing to take and offer terms that factor in those risks accordingly. This is done to incentivise people to start new businesses where there may be some degree of risk, without having to risk literally the roof over their heads to do it, and is universally acknowledged to be in the interests of economic development, which is why every major economy in the world has a concept analogous to that limited company. Checking the credibility of the principals and asking for things like business plans and company financial statements is all perfectly reasonable so that a potential business partner can judge the level of risk. However, allowing piercing agreements is simply a completely one-sided deal: the little guy is now back on the hook for all of the risk, yet still takes the hit on all the bureaucracy associated with running a formal company. If such agreements were banned, the banks and lawyers and other high-powered services would still have to deal with other businesses or they'd have on customers. They'd just have to be more realistic about what they charged if they wanted to continue working with profitable customers in the long run. [Edit: Incidentally, piercing agreements do not seem to be completely universal. We've seen some fairly unpleasantly one-sided terms while investigating payment services, frequently including things like requiring direct control of your main bank account so they can grab whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it, but not everyone has asked for personal guarantees (as opposed to a personal credit check) at least at the stage we've got to with them.]
- tptacek 14y ago
  Banks already do ask for financials and corporate track record. You're required to stake your own credit when your financials are inadequate. You want that to be illegal? It's better than those companies not be able to obtain merchant accounts?
  - marshray 14y ago
    You're begging the false dichotomy here. Insisting on personal liability for a corporate account is equivalent to denying the account to the corporation. Bankers would prefer to have you sign away your first born children too (sounds like something out of Dickens). But we've made such practices illegal and there's no evidence that the money supply is suffering for it.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Help me understand. What you're suggesting is that, simply by having paid a couple hundred bucks to incorporate, regardless of my personal credit, I should be able to establish a merchant account?
      - Silhouette 14y ago
        No, we're suggesting that if you're going to offer a merchant account to a company, your decision and terms should be based on the nature of that company. You might reasonably do a credit check on the principals, since someone running a company who has a track record of bad debts is obviously a warning sign. Likewise you can check them against the databases of people who've been kicked off payment services before. But in the end, you should be looking at whether a company has a credible business plan and people who are likely to execute it well. That's apparently good enough for other major financial transactions, including attracting investors and things like company credit cards for principals on the day you open a bank account. How come everyone else in the world can use common sense and make an informed judgement about risk, but merchant account providers can't?

rscale 14y ago

If you're a relatively small or young company, the merchant account providers often demand that a principal signs a piercing agreement and personally guarantees the account. For the first few years I was in business my corporate credit lines were effectively personal credit lines that happened to have my company name on them.

meanguy 14y ago

Requested it as part of the application. Perhaps I could have avoided the disclosure, but since a merchant account is effectively offering you credit (think about it) leveraging my personal rating yet incurring no liability was a pragmatic win. The issue is that fraud prevention--like terrorism prevention--means the side that's doing the groping isn't going to tell you exactly what they're doing and why. This leads to a lot of confusion.

dangrossman 14y ago

No merchant account provider will open a new account without the personal social security numbers of the principals. Otherwise you could defraud one bank then the next your whole life by simply forming a new LLC/corp each time for $100 a pop. When a merchant is terminated for fraud, breach of contract or excessive chargebacks, they can be placed on the TMF (Terminated Merchant File) and MATCH (Member Alert to High-Risk Merchants) lists which all Visa/MC member banks have access to. The social security numbers of all the principals are added to that list, so that if they apply with a new business somewhere else, the bank knows they've previously been a principal of a business some other bank terminated, and the reason.