Comments on: TMF MATCH List or Terminated Merchant File (TMF) List

By: Michael Brooks

Michael Brooks — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:48:18 +0000

Jared, this is becoming a common occurrence in the affiliate marketing arena. A bad affiliate network, or even a good one with bad sub affiliates, can not only cost you a tremendous amount in marketing costs, it also can cost you your reputation within the card associations and your processor. You have become a victim of a very real and scary industry problem. Here is some background of what might have happened;

1) An advertiser marketed his products online via trial offer with an affiliate network
2) Customers accepted his trial offer by signing up with a credit card
3) The advertiser ran into cash flow issues so he sold the customer’s credit card information to a data broker so that the data broker could rent the data to various companies for the purpose of card on file sales.
4) One or many sales floors rent the data from the data broker and call the card holders and sell them products. The sales floor sees a higher call to sale ratio if all they have to say is “would you like to buy this using your credit card ending in 9830?”
5) One or many of the sales floors or the data brokers themselves, have an employee or employees that steel the cardholder’s data.
6) The data thief becomes a sub affiliate of an affiliate network.
7) The data thief signs up the cardholders for your, and other, trial offers through an affiliate network.
You pay the affiliate network for what you think are real sales and they pay the data thief.
9) The cardholder disputes the charges and you are responsible for the fees and losses of the merchant account. You are also looked at as a scammer and placed on the industry’s MATCH File.
10) In many cases, not necessarily yours, Jared, you get fed up with the industry and sell the data you have to a data broker and cut your losses.

This is an obviously damaging cycle and is happing everyday in this space. We have met the changes of this cycle by indentifying bad traffic before it’s approved and in other cases immediately after. In order to play in the affiliate space you need to be prepared with the best systems in place. That is the reason we have developed and have been successful with our TransGrade CRM. It’s designed to keep your conversions high with quality traffic and manage your customers in a responsible manner.

You went out to do good business and suffered at the hands of reckless fraudsters. It’s not your fault, albeit to the card associations, you might as well be the fraudster yourself.
Your question is; how do I get off the match list. With a 26% chargeback ratio it’s unlikely that you will get off any time soon. You see, if a bank puts you on the MATCH list they are the only ones that can take you off. If a bank puts you on the list then takes you off, that bank is responsible for any fees and negative actions associated with your activity for the next 5 years. That’s just some of the politics of the industry.

That does not mean you don’t have options. There are processors that understand this type of issue and will work with you. It sometimes costs a little more but the alternative of not accepting credit cards online is not really an option.
If you are planning to get back into this arena with your eyes open to this type of problem, then the first thing you should do is call our office and ask to speak with me. We can provide you with a system that protects you against these and other type if pitfalls with our extensive experience and technology. We also have relationships with processors that will accept your business, even if you are on the MATCH list, just because you are working with us.
I know this must have been a difficult and expensive lesson. I can tell you that the most successful people in this industry have similar experiences and overcome them. I’m sure you will be able to also.

We’re here to help.

By: Jared Harris

Jared Harris — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:55:26 +0000

My merchant account was terminated. My charge back rate was sitting at 26% due to a CPA network that I paid to send traffic to my website. So basically paid them to shut down my business. How do I go about getting off the TMF.I owe them no money just my charge back rate was high. I really a little help on this one thanks

By: Sabina Keil

Sabina Keil — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:07:40 +0000

Tom,

There are ways to resolve processor issues and have your name removed from the TMF list. The key to staying off the list is making sure you are staying on top of where your chargebacks are at all times. I suggest you attempt to resolve this issue with your previous processor. If you can not resolve the issue you always have the option to search for an offshore account.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:54:53 +0000

Without telling me my processor witheld $14,000 from me and caused major problems. They refused to return phone calls for weeks and this action caused a snowball effect. We weren’t able to ship many products because there was only so much money we could borrow and this caused alot of chargebacks. They terminated our account and put us on the tmf. They said they terminated us because of excessive chargebacks and yet they are the ones that caused the chargebacks.

Please help. This business supports a family of 5 and we need to process credit cards.

By: paul

paul — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:56:12 +0000

My blood, sweat, and tears business of 6 years (sole proprietorship) has just now failed, and I will soon be filing personal bankruptcy. Unfortunately, while my bank merchant account is still open at this moment, I’m getting a large number of chargebacks (too many I am quite sure) for failing to process returns and honor warranties. Also, funds will soon cease being available to offset any chargebacks. I suppose the bottom line is that I am destined to find myself on the TM list. Is that list virtually “forever?” Is there any hope of salvaging myself at some future point, or will I be a financial leper? What do people do as a practical matter who find themselves in such a predicament but who hope to eventually open another business one day? I suppose starting a corporation and enlisting a trusted and credit-worthy friend or family member to be the principal may be the only viable way? Any thoughts?

By: Sabina Keil

Sabina Keil — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:48:32 +0000

Brian,
Frequently I hear of merchants being placed on the match list based on incorrect information on the discriptor. You typically get a letter in the mail to notify you that a charge back has occured. If you contact your customer and resolve each customer issue you can avoid getting dinged for chargebacks. I would contact your merchant company and speak to someone who is in charge posibly even the owner. And get your name removed from the list.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:38:20 +0000

What if the merchant company that put u on the match list, made the mistake of putting the wrong phone # to appear on customers credit card statments, n for that reason I was hit with many chargebacks at once.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:22:12 +0000

What can I do to fight a company that is threating to put me on the “match list”?

By: Sabina Keil

Sabina Keil — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:39:04 +0000

What type of product do you sell? There are ways of preventing chargebacks based on what is sent out to your customer when a purchase is made, what types of follow calls are made etc…

By: RA

RA — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:15:13 +0000

I have just been advised that my business will be listed on the match file because of too many chargebacks by barclays. Every transaction on my website was fully authenticated by verified by visa and secure by mastercard howver i was still getting chargeback letters from the bank for trasnactions.

A years after we commenced business barclays wrote to me saying that they know that we have the 3D secure but cannot do business with us as there is 70% fradu on our website event when all trasnactions are fully authenticated. I was very confused.

They have advised that my business would be blacklisted on the match file and my merchant account cancelled.

I see it as quite unfair as I particularly wrote to barclays requesting information on a lot transaction which were fully authenticated but suspicious and they only advised that I go to the police if i suspected anything but as far as they are concerned all my transaction were authenticated and are approved.

How do I fight against barclays on this. It will be extremely diffiult for me to trade or get another platform.

I get the blame whatever I do.