The Payments Experts Podcast
Expert payments attorneys discuss the electronic payments industry from a legal perspective.
The Payments Experts Podcast
VAMP Caps & Chargebacks: The New Rules to Survive in 2026 | Guest Maurice Griefer of MyCPO | PEP084
The payments game has changed, and winging it is no longer an option. James Huber and Jeremy Stock sit down with Maurice Griefer of MyCPO (https://www.getmycpo.com/) to unpack what it takes to scale a high-risk ecommerce brand without getting crushed by chargebacks, caps, and the new Visa VAMP rules. From the wild energy of early ISO call centers to today’s distributed agent networks, the throughline is clear: honest setup, realistic limits, and proactive dispute prevention beat short-term hacks every time.
We trace the journey from old-school ISO bullpens to today’s agent-driven portfolios, then dig into VAMP, chargebacks, MATCH, and how merchants can scale without getting shut down. Maurice shares why he launched My CPO, the realities of going solo, and how to build a resilient payment stack without losing your shirt.
• evolution of the ISO model and sales ethics
• common setup mistakes that trigger MATCH
• planning limits, caps, and multiple MIDs
• VAMP thresholds, portfolio risk, and fees
• alerts, RDR, and dispute prevention tools
• building SOPs, hiring, and merchant support
• long-term trust versus short-term tactics
• hope is not a payments strategy
Maurice shares what he learned growing up around merchant services and later helping build Maverick, then explains why he launched My CPO to stay close to merchants on the front lines. We break down the mistakes that get good businesses on MATCH—like pushing a second website through an existing MID or accepting bad MCC advice—and show how early discovery, accurate underwriting, and multiple MIDs create resilience when Q4 spikes hit. If you’ve ever had a processor freeze funds after a viral campaign, this conversation gives you the playbook to avoid it.
We also dive into the VAMP era: tighter thresholds, pass-through fees, and hard choices for acquirers balancing revenue against portfolio risk. The solution isn’t magic—use alerts and RDR, improve customer service, fix product pages and disclosures, and plan realistic caps that won’t trip alarms. You will pay either way: in tools and process now, or in penalties and lost processing later. Ethics and transparency still compound: the companies that do it right keep the same team at the booth year after year because trust scales better than churn.
If you’re building in high-risk ecommerce or advising merchants who are, this is your roadmap for sustainable growth. Subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a review telling us the one change you’ll make to your payment stack this week.
**Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.**
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A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm
These companies where they blow up and they, you know, sell for a hundred million dollars just from robbing people. And you're going like that is so messed up, but I'm going to you like, yeah, it'll it'll come around. But yeah, I mean a lot of these people just get away with it. Um, but it's not it's not sustainable growth. I mean, obviously if you sell for a hundred million dollars, uh hopefully it's pretty sustainable, but uh but but if you know the companies that do it the right way, those are the companies that you see that have, you know, the same guys work in the same booth at the trade shows of you know, though you know, you see the other companies where it's like, oh, this this person has a different colored shirt this year because they're pushing too hard and they're cramming.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to the Payments Experts Podcast, a podcast of global legal offer. We hope you enjoyed this episode.
SPEAKER_01:Today we've got to join us in studio management partner of the firm James Cooper, as well as our special guest joining us, Maurice Cleoper of My CPO. Maurice, I think we have changed. I've known each other a long, long time. I'm really excited about this podcast. Welcome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, likewise. Yeah, we we go back for sure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Mo I was thinking about this morning what to talk about, and I thought one of the interesting things is you're one of the few people who probably grew up with merchant processing being discussed at the dinner table. I don't know if it was discussed, but your dad, Alan Griefer, is you know one of the OG's bond-sold huge company. So what was what was that like growing up uh growing up right in the middle of the hurricane?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So yeah, the you know, the the story's funny when people ask, you know, how I got into it. I was just you know born basically, and I'm literally literally born in uh, you know, I don't think I had another you know path really. It's kind of funny too. So, you know, in college, I I joined uh, you know, uh my uh you know, my start in the payment space was at you know, Maverick, um, who you know everyone kind of knows now at this point. So I started literally the day after I graduated college, but you know, in in college, I did a couple internships, like just wanted to see like, yeah, is there anything else I might like? And you know, no, I didn't like anything. Any internships that I did, I just you know didn't like it. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna, you know, payments are meant for me, clearly. It's in my blood. Um, but yeah, so when my dad started, I was only 10. So, you know, I I really grew up in it. Um, and I always thought it was really interesting. I didn't really, you know, pay attention too much, obviously being that young. But you know, I remember like going in when I was in high school, going into the you know, the office of his the first ISA that he he started, and they had that you know crazy bullpen, you know, 75 salespeople, something like that. And like that energy was was really crazy to see. And um and then you know, really getting into it full time was was fun. Because when I started, you know, back at Maverick, there was just a couple of us, and obviously I was I was there for 12 years. So seeing that growth, um, just that that crazy growth that that uh you know Maverick had. We're obviously working alongside uh my brother and dad was was a crazy journey. Um but uh yeah, it's uh it's a fun industry. I mean, it's it's really hard to like, you know, once you're in the industry to get out and do something else. You know, it's it's it's a crazy industry that we're in, but it's it's a lot of fun, and you know, I just uh I love it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I do too. I always love the energy in those call centers also. When we first got in the space, yeah, we'd go into those places and it's literally like paper flying around, you know. And back when we first got in, it was like Wolf of Wall Street, and I would joke with people and I'm like, did you guys like? I just tell people it was like our clients are like they watched the first three quarters of Wolf of Wall Street and they got bored and didn't see how it ended up. Because it was it was like that, and then we were going like I'd walk in there and be like, This is a nightmare. Like, get me a mop because I'm drooling, because I'm going, this is there's so much compliance work, and and they they're going, we don't want to do the compliance work, we just want to make money. And I'm like, Well, you're gonna get sued a lot, and they're like, Well, that's why you're here. So we're going, Great. And it's, I mean, the industry's changed. I haven't seen a call center like that. I know that they're still out there, um, but it's not the same, you know, not to say that you know, your dad's company was smash and grab, but kind of everybody was back then.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but it's yeah, a lot's changed, you know, from like the 90s to like early 2000s to now. I mean, the the ISO model is so much different. I mean, a lot of ISOs now just outsource sales, so like you don't even have that crazy bullpen of salespeople in-house. It's all, you know, a lot of those ISOs, the the big ones, especially, they're getting their deals through agents and you know, companies like you know, my CPO and myself. So the the structure's changed a lot. Um but you know, I'm sure there's still some of those crazy, you know, crazy companies out there. But it's yeah, you you can't, you know, do a lot of that stuff. And even, you know, with with yeah, how much the industry's changed, um, you know, there's a a lot more, um, there's still not a lot of it, which I always you know thought it was kind of interesting. There's just like no regulation for like the sales, you know, side of it, the sales agents. There's really not. It's all, you know, I guess kind of reputation based. But you know, I hear a merchant saying, hey, this agent told me this and that. Like um recently, so I was talking to a merchant that was you know high risk, you know, they're in that nutrition space, and like, hey, just get a mid and put like you're a furniture MCC. I'm like, that that's not possible. One, that's you know, the the merchant doesn't like decide what MCC they're gonna use. And I'm like, that agent you're getting advice from, you probably shouldn't be working with him. I don't, I don't think he really knows what what he's doing. So, you know, obviously then you know he's starting to get into Vamp, which obviously we'll talk about, and just kind of the the current landscape of the payments industry. Um you just got a lot of these knuckleheads out there that you know they're they're thinking short term, they just think dollar sign's right, and they're not really setting up their merchants, you know, properly, and they're just burning relationships with the ISOs that they work with. So there's still a lot of craziness in the industry, um, but that will never go away.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, that's that's one of the bigger problems that we see in this space, particularly, you know, we do a lot of match work getting people off of match, and we see it, we're going, you shouldn't, you shouldn't be on match, but it's because you were set up wrong. And I find it interesting because these, you know, the high-risk guys, the guys that are running, you know, multiple merchants that are, you know, moving transactions between websites and stuff, they're it's almost like they just expect things to go up and go down every three, four months and they move from here to there to there. But there's a right way to do it. There's a right way if you're actually selling a real product. You know, as long as you're selling a real product and you're not, you know, selling what we were looking at a website the other day. It was like we sell guitar picks and toasters. And I was like, the fuck did this make it through underwriting?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, that's that's very weird, but you know, and too, you know, we we see weird stuff all the time. And, you know, I always kind of like to give you know merchants, you know, benefit of the doubt, and you know, just I don't like to make quick judgments because I, you know, I've seen weird things all the time, and it ends up being a legitimate merchant. They're like, hey, I just was on social media and TikTok, and like I see these kind of trending pro these trendy products, and like they're all not related at all, but I just want to sell it on a website and see if I can make some money and kind of start a business. Like, okay, it's kind of weird, but you know, like, you know, prove me wrong otherwise. Um, but the the match issue, that's you know, that's been an ongoing, you know, you know, uh struggle, I think, for many high-risk merchants. It's probably gonna get worse with now with Vamp, but it sucks too, because a lot of merchants, I I don't, you know, they don't have bad intentions and they're not bad actors. Um, kind of, you know, uh going on to like, you know, transaction laundering, you know, which is a common one we see merchants, they don't realize it. Like, I was literally talking to a merchant last week too that we know we recently unboarded its uh they have two neutral websites and they just said, Hey, we got um our, you know, we boarded one, and then they after they said, Hey, we got another website that we have that we want to get processing for. Um, we're just gonna use that mid for our other website for now. I'm like, no, no, no, no, you cannot do that. Like, you're just uh and there was no, I don't think there was any bad intention there, but um, you know, the merchants don't really know, like they don't know all the rules and like what you're not supposed to do and you know um what can get you in trouble. So like, you know, you you're with the wrong processor and you do something like that. Um not even you know, not even trying to have any bad intentions, but intentions, but the processors, you know, can be really quick to say, you know what, we caught you selling uh on another unapproved website. We're closing your mid, we're holding all your money, and we're gonna throw you on mashless for transaction laundering. And that that can just totally cripple a business, which really sucks to see. Um, and obviously you guys do a lot of work there. So it's just, you know, part of the challenges and stuff we're dealing with every day.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, we see it too. Like I like what you said of a lot of these merchants don't have bad intentions because we see a ton of it where they didn't have bad intentions, they're getting punished because their business was too successful. You know, the ISO set them up as a you know, 50k limit, and they're going, well, we're selling hundreds of thousands of dollars of was it three years ago? My wife bought a it was like a it looked like it was an animatronic live pig for like$12, and she got there and it's like one of those little wind-up like and I was like, these guys sold the shit out of this thing. Oh yeah. Because the video, I thought I was getting a live robotic pig. But now that's a little bit deceiving. So maybe that was a bad example. I just wanted to bring that one up because my wife watches this podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you got a lot of those impulse buying merchants made. You know, they they make money off of those in those, you know, kind of those gadget type of accounts where just really impulsive, low ticket, you see, you know, you're you're you know targeted a an ad or you come across a you know creator video with a link to buy one of these things, you probably don't really need, but it's like, oh, it's kind of cool. It's you know 15, 12 bucks, like whatever, I'll just buy it. But it comes to you and it's like just not at all what you thought you were.
SPEAKER_03:It's not at all, but like, are you really gonna do a chargeback? But my point on even the mechanical pigs is the if if the if you're not set up correctly, that thing's gonna go bang gangbustered. So your ISO should be looking at this and looking at the video, and you're probably going, eh, you chargebacks are gonna be an issue. I've seen the pig. But the when they ramping up, you're going, you're gonna sell the shit out of this product product right before Christmas. And a lot of us uh you know, white people sit here and we're like, I just gotta fill up the room with presents, like more plastic shit. I know I'm gonna throw it away, but just fill up click, click, click, like we gotta spend this much. And then now one kid's got a bigger present, so I've got to spend more to make it even on that kid, more pigs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, it's that's that always sucks when you're you're getting penalized for being successful. Um, but that's where it all kind of goes down to you know, those early conversations, whoever you know, as the merchant, whoever you're working with, your um agent, whoever, you know, you you gotta be, I think you have to have those conversations like here's our plan. Like, I you don't know my background, like we just got you know introduced, but I'm like, I'm very capable of scaling this company to a million dollars a month in you know, three to six months, I'm I'm that good of a of a marketer, or I got this, you know, this this crazy um you know uh growth projections. And if the agent's like, all right, I'm just gonna get you a 50k mid and we're just gonna kind of see how it goes for a little bit, but like if they're in like week two and they're already at 50k, like you're already kind of in trouble. So you know those those conversations um as the merchant, you know, just really kind of explaining your business, making sure you're on the same page with your process or your agent, whoever you're working with, is is really critical because so many issues you know that merchants run into, I think can be prevented by just having a good conversation of like, I really need to know like everything about your business, your plans, um, but also too on the underwriting side, I think ISA's gotta you know do a pretty good job at asking those questions. And you know, sometimes too, merchants get frustrated when like underwriting has a lot of back and forth, they have questions, but like that's probably a good thing. They really want to know your business. So, you know, you're not immediately getting shut off two weeks later because you know, um, you came you know really hot out the gate. But um, yeah, that's so you know, that's a lot of the work you know we do, and especially now, I think merchants kind of understand the need to have multiple mids and you know de-risk their their business by not having all their eggs in one basket. So, you know, the the last like two weeks um has been really interesting. I've noticed a lot of merchants on X talking about hey, Shopify payments is is shutting us off because you know we're we're growing quickly, our chargebacks maybe you know spiked up uh a little bit, but um I think obviously a lot of that stems from Vamp now. But um yeah, the you know the big challenge, especially now, this is you know, we're um heading into obviously the you know crazy Q4 merchants typically do a lot more volume. So, you know, one of the craziest you know stories I've um you know had with just like doing too much volume, get getting you in trouble. I think a couple years ago, I was introduced to someone um on Thanksgiving, um, Thanksgiving night, uh, an old merchant introduced me to a buddy of his that literally they hit their cap, the processor put a hard cap um going into like you know Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and he was freaking out. And on a Thursday night, you know, sent him app. Friday he was approved, we got him another mid. So, you know, also too, you gotta be able to like really make moves and pivot quickly if like you're kind of headed for disaster. So um, yeah, it's uh it's always a tough spot to be in if you're you're you know it's a good problem to have if you're growing really quickly, but you gotta like now, especially, you know, payment strategy is like so important for businesses to think about. Like you can't neglect like your payments infrastructure, your payment stack as you're trying to grow your business because at the end of the day, if you can't accept payments, you don't have a business and you're kind of you're kind of screwed.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, I mean people aren't, you know, what we got an auto parts guy today, and I'm looking at this and I'm going, Yeah, you're you're tough out. He's like, I'm taking orders right now, but I'm not taking the payments because he just he got matched and shut down, but I'm going, yeah, we well, he better get a solution quick. So we've been talking kind of generally of like what uh what agents should be, and I was doing that kind of to segue into you know, let's talk about my CPO. You started this, you said, you know, you're at Maverick, a family company for years and years and years, and then you said, hey, I'm gonna start out a company that's you know a little bit different. So why don't you tell us about that? What you know, what you know, you don't have to talk about why you split out from the business necessarily, but you know, you you were looking to do something a little different.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, I I just ultimately liked being merchant-facing, and I I loved working with my clients and helping businesses, you know, with their you know, with their challenges and struggles. And that's you know, over the years, obviously just kind of being in the industry for for a while, people know who you are, and you, you know, you take care of a couple good merchants, and then they refer you their friends, and it kind of just, you know, that kind of just snowballs, you know, gradually. And yeah, you know, I I think um, you know, the the Mavericks model was was much more you know agent focused, and they don't, you know, didn't really want to do you know sales in-house. And I always respected that, especially now like seeing from both sides as the ISO and the agent. It's always nice when you're an agent and you don't really have to worry about your upstream partners competing with you. So um yeah, it was obviously it was a really tough uh decision and uh you know to to kind of leave and branch off. But you know, for me, I just ultimately wanted to do what I enjoy doing most, and that was just working with my clients and helping businesses solve their their you know payment challenges. And the best way for me to do that ultimately was just to branch off, start my own thing, and also to still help, you know, Maverick, um just in a kind of different uh structure.
SPEAKER_03:So what uh you know, you've spun out from, you know, let's say you're you know, you're an executive at a you know very large, successful company, and you spun out and said, Hey, I'm gonna do this on my own. What were some of the parts? I mean, we spoke before you started. I would say one of the good parts is you're working from home. You get to be around your three-year-old daughter and the glimmer in your eye. And then uh what uh what were some of the hard parts about jump jumping ship and you know, hanging your shingle?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it's you know, starting a business is is not easy, like just however you want to slice it up, is as you guys know. Um so yeah, it was it was really, I think the the big thing was just kind of trying to get used to just this whole new setup and just more of like a mind, you know, mindset uh shift. But you know, then also too, the business started to ramp up and um you know it's been growing. So now it's like, okay, great, now I gotta start hiring people. And so it's just you know, constant challenges of uh just really growing pains of a of a new business because it's just me too, so it's not like I have co-founders, it's all all on me at the end of the day. Um, but it's a it's a fun point now because I am starting to hire, um build out the team, and you know, try to get myself removed from like, you know, obviously being involved in just every single task. So it's a lot. I mean, the the merchants that I focus on are much more, you know, in that that restricted space. So with that, obviously they're a little bit more high maintenance and just in the sense of there's always challenges and fires that you're kind of dealing with. Um so for me, just to focus on obviously the the most uh critical parts of a business really be you know more of a you know that cheesy saying of like you know, working on your business, not working in your business. Um, you know, that's uh that that's been definitely the just the the growing pains of of building out that team and just making sure like customer service. I mean, if you have, you know, I have a uh already, you know, a couple hundred merchants that I'm managing, and it's just me, I do have another employee who's been really helpful the uh the last couple of months, but it's still you know, you're dealing with every day. Hey, you know, uh, you know, uh I got a couple chargebacks, I need help with fighting. Can you spend an hour with me uh doing that? So, you know, I I really want to make sure I can give everyone the attention, but um the the business needs to get more scalable, I like to say. So, you know, you gotta have good systems in place, you gotta have you know SOPs and processes to be able to obviously really start to you know dial up the company. Because it's been, you know, kind of, I guess you can say kind of a lifestyle business for a little while, but now it's like, all right, what you know, I want to take it to that next level, actually grow the company and really, you know, build it. Because I've already seen what you know what what's possible before. You know, you just uh you show up every day and you're consistent and you know you can uh you can build a pretty successful company with, you know, obviously no outside investment or capital. You just you know suit up and show up and you can make some uh you can build a pretty big company.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, I mean I see it a lot where people they feel like they're captive in their executive role. Even if, you know, say you're an executive sales role and you're going, look, I'm at this company, I've got this great book of business. There, I'm just I'm feeling a little cornered here. I want to spin out, and they're going, well, I can't because I'm gonna lose my residuals. But the you know, the better companies will go, yeah, go do your thing. You're gonna keep your residuals. So, like you said, you don't need to go get an investor because you're you know, you're you you're nothing's changing. Um, you know, you've got this old deal over here, and then we'll give you a new deal over here. And even a lot of times we see the good companies being like, Yeah, and you're not, you don't even need to be exclusive. Just don't take any of your merchants away, of course. Uh but yeah, generally it's fine. And so we see people so worried about that, but we're going, no, you can you can absolutely go and do your own thing because when you're in that executive role, I was gonna joke with you. Like, I bet you're having a lot less meetings now where it's you know, you know, two at a you know, Maverick has got so big where it they uh actually, you know, you need to have those meetings and stuff like that. But yeah, to to be freed, we see a lot of people once they're out and they're like, oh my gosh, this is great. But then the hard part is then you're going, Oh wow, I can't do everything. Yeah, because before I had everyone else doing everything and they handle customer service and I was just out selling, but now you're doing everything. And then that's where it gets tricky because then you have people from your old company calling you, being like, Oh, hey, I want to come work for you. And then you're like, oh no, well, now I'm getting, you know, in hot water and that stuff. That that's where it gets hard. So how did you how did you hire people? How did you find them?
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah, so you know, um a good thing for me of just being in the industry. I know a lot of people. Um, and obviously too, yeah, you know, you got to be careful how you navigate through, you know, if you try to poach people from uh, you know, partners and stuff like that. But um, you know, I I worked with a um uh industry, you know, uh recruiter that uh Chris recommended actually and connected me with and just helped me out just with like this first hire. Um but now, you know, as I am expanding the team, um I don't really even have to you know post much about um like putting you know job uh you know jobs up on some of these these platforms. Um I just happen to know a lot of people, which is nice, and I can kind of reach out and um just have those conversations with with people, just just try to see, you know, if they're looking for new opportunities. So I'm not obviously at a point where I'm like, you know, hiring like crazy, it's you know very strategic, kind of one by one, still small team, but um try to get those those you know key positions and like customer service, um, you know, marketing, um, onboarding, you know, sales support. So um it's yeah, it's you know, it's a it's a fun, very, but you know, very manageable, you know, kind of growth of um just you know, start to as the needs come up for different roles. And then also too as the company grows and evolves, you really start to figure out like where do I want to focus on? Obviously, like sales is my my background. Everything else, like I don't really, I don't necessarily want to do. So like, you know, that's the you know, when you're it's lucky, you know, when you're working from a big company, it's like, hey, I need some marketing assets done. Okay, great, you go to the marketing person. Hey, I need the this con this agent's, you know, uh red line this agreement. Okay, great, you go to your in-house counsel to, you know, to review that there. So you don't have or you know, customer service. You walk over to someone on the customer service team, like, hey, can you spend like 20 minutes just going over the the statement with uh you know with my client here? I gotta focus on you know selling, selling, selling. So I I don't I'm not at that point yet, but you know, that that's obviously the goal. And um, you know, every business is different too. So, you know, I I've talked to you know, obviously a lot of agents over the years, and they're fine just kind of being a one-man band, and they're like, hey, this is just you know, kind of a lifestyle business for me. I get the ultimate freedom, I work when I want, and you know, I don't need to try to make uh an insane amount of money, and I'm kind of good with with where I am, but um, I don't know, every everyone's different with you know the the way they want to take their business and um and all that. So yeah, I'm just you know kind of taking it, you know, month by month and just really just uh trying to have fun, obviously, at the end of the day. So it's very stressful just trying to trying to launch and grow a business, but you gotta have fun with it too, right? It's like I'm I'm you know, uh hold myself to to very high standards, I think. And I put a lot of pressure on myself of like, you know, this is where you should be, this is where you should be. But you know, you gotta take a step back sometimes and just say, you know what, life is good, um, things can always be worse. You know, you got your health, and you know, just uh uh it's gonna all you know progress and you just you know trust the process and think long term and you know good things will happen if you just do good, honest work, you know. I I believe in karma, as long as you're taking care of your merchants and you're you know honest, uh, you know, transparent uh you know person, which there's not a lot of in the in this industry, unfortunately. You know, good good things are bound to happen.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I always say see that when I see the, you know, we run into, of course, a lot of the bad players. And I I always see that, and I'm like, you guys could have made plenty of money just doing things the right way. And you see these companies where they blow up and they you know sell for a hundred million dollars just from robbing people, and you're going like that is so messed up, but I'm going to you like, yeah, it'll it'll come around. But yeah, I mean a lot of these people just get away with it. Um, but it's not it's not sustainable growth. I mean, obviously if you sell for a hundred million dollars, uh hopefully it's pretty sustainable, but uh but but if you know the companies that do it the right way, those are the companies that you see that have, you know, the same guys work in the same booth at the trade shows of you know, though you know, you see the other companies where it's like, oh, this this person has a different colored shirt this year because they're pushing too hard and they're cramming. So I know we wanted to talk a little bit about uh Vamp. What uh what are your thoughts on the new Visa rules?
SPEAKER_02:Um yeah, I mean it's just it's there's not a whole lot we can do, you know, other than you know, Visa, MasterCard, they set the rules, we gotta play by it. And um it's getting tougher, obviously, very, you know, gonna be very frustrating as especially if you're you are working with a lot of uh card not present merchants, especially in those higher risk verticals, it's just gonna get tougher. Um, you know, the the thresholds are getting lower and lower, which, you know, for many years, I mean, even if you kind of go back to like when COVID started, um, you know, and you saw the last couple years, everything, you know, that just big shift towards e-commerce. Um, I feel like, you know, except for like the very initial, you know, the that beginning period of COVID where like maybe travel merchants were just getting hacked left and right and shut off. But like it's been pretty lax, I feel like, you know, just you know, um, how processors have managed merchants and you know, like everyone kind of used for a long time that 1% threshold of like, hey, just you know, stay under 1% and like you'll probably be fine. Or, you know, seeing merchants run consistently at like one and a half, two percent even, and like never really had any issues. Um, I guess too, you know, if the processor's making a bunch of money on chargeback fees, they gotta 10% reserve. They're like, okay, like, do we really like let's just keep this merchant on? And um, but now like uh there's a lot of uh you know tough calls, I think uh acquires and processors are gonna have to make on like this. We got you know a couple really profitable high margin merchants, but like they're accounting for like 80% of our problems here. Like, I mean, we probably need to offboard them. Um and we're gonna take some, you know, we're gonna take a hit on our, you know, on our revenue, but like, you know, it's it's it's gonna be really tough. Like these next couple months, too. It's it's I think people are still just kind of like really trying to navigate it. But I've already seen merchants getting charged for vamp fees now, and you know, processors are already starting to um kind of pass through some of these fees and figure out ways to, you know, um offset, I guess, that that risk. So it's it's always a tough balance for you know for processors to to kind of weigh risk and reward. Um but but now it's you know there's just so much more pressure from Vamp. And um I think it's gonna get tougher to get you know underwritten and onboarded. Um and it's also like if you're a high, if you're a high volume merchant and your chargebacks are are kind of high, like you're you're kind of screwed, honestly. Um that's why I see a lot of merchants now. They're just trying to set up you know as many mids as they can get, just kind of knowing like we we get five mids set up, we're probably gonna lose you know three, two, you know, of them at at some point, but like we gotta have some redundancy and just make sure like we don't like lose all of our processing. But um yeah, it's it's it's it's really tough. I mean, it comes down to the education too, and just like making sure you're talking with your merchants on like these are the new rules, you know, here are the tools that you probably should implement. For a lot of merchants, too, like they don't want to make any changes unless they absolutely have to. They're like, right, hey, I can get set up with this processor. They're not they're not gonna have me enroll in any of the alerts. They don't like they're not gonna require RDR, Ethica, all that stuff. They're just like they're really lax and they're just gonna give me a mid and just kind of let me run with it. But like that, uh that that's not really gonna be you know acceptable anymore. And uh I'm sure there will be though there will be those ISOs that just say, screw it, like we're just gonna, we have such a low risk, you know, such a low um chargeback, you know, ratio on our portfolio. We can handle, you know, a bit of uh high risk. So, but also too, if you know the industry, these agents, you know, some of these high risk merchants catch wind of like some new ISO popping up that's starting to take on high risk. It takes a couple weeks for them just to get like overwhelmed with apps and people reaching out, like, hey. You know, these ISOs are all getting, you know, the usual suspects of ISOs are getting tough. Like we gotta find some some new homes. And um, but uh yeah, it's gonna be, you know, I really hate to be like negative, but I think it's gonna get, you know, pretty bad these in these coming months.
SPEAKER_03:I think it's gonna get bad, but then I think that Visa will see that it they're making it so they're basically denying people processing who aren't that bad. So it's we know that it's designed, we know what it the purpose is, but I don't think it's gonna have the effect uh necessarily because you're gonna you've like like you said, you're punishing good, well-intentioned merchants who are dealing with bad cardholders. So I think that, yeah, I think probably going into you know January, February, they'll change it.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, once there's enough pushback from the industry, you know, maybe they'll you know, they'll they'll make some some changes. But you can't do that.
SPEAKER_03:When they're making less money, maybe that'll do it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So it's uh, you know, Visa, MasterCard, at the end of the day, they're just always making money. It's just always coming in one one you know, one way or another. So which is kind of tough. You know, it's always tough, I feel like, for merchants because they always kind of get screwed at the end of the day. So it's it's gonna be costly for them either way. So it's either you don't make the changes to get your chargebacks under control, and like, okay, that's fine, but now you're gonna get you know charged all these extra, you know, uh maybe vamp related fees from your your ISO, or they're gonna maybe increase your rates, your other just your your regular per transaction costs because you are running really high. So you have that expense or that increased expense, or on the other side, you can put, you know, you can implement the alerts, you can get um, you know, hire customer service people, actually build a you know, a legitimate business and make those changes. It's gonna cost you money, but the the benefits are gonna be your chargebacks are gonna be lower now, and you know, maybe you will build um cleaner history, you won't be on the radar as much. So, you know, either way, it's gonna cost merchants uh money to to kind of meet these new thresholds, whether they want to make all the changes, put in all the tools, or not you know, take any action and then pay for it by getting you know fined and kind of lies. So, you know, that's that's the tough call for merchants to make because it's you know they're already getting charged, you know, left and right, especially these high-risk merchants, they got charged all sorts of different fees. So it's now you start to bring like, hey, there's more costs and you know more fees. But at the end of the day, if that's gonna be um kind of what keeps their business operating, it's kind of their only option. So totally.
SPEAKER_03:All right. Well, you get the last word. What uh what do you want to leave our millions of viewers and listeners with? Yeah, what what's the biggest takeaway you want them to think about after today, after their third time listening to this?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so you know, I I think the the biggest takeaway is that you know, hope is not a strategy. Um you you gotta be you gotta be proactive. Um, and you just you know, you have to pay attention to chargebacks, you know, you you can't overlook like the importance of a good solid payment stack. So just you know, working with the right people, um, you know, the partnering with the right you know, agents and ISOs, and you know, getting yourself set up for success from day one is is so crucial. So um this is what we do, yeah. You know, all day, every day is just helping solve these these challenges. But um I can't stress enough to people is just you know, and merchants especially, just you know, keeping the uh payment strategy in mind, just you know, starting your business even from like the very beginning, thinking about payments and um just uh how to set yourself up for success long term is so crucial.
SPEAKER_03:All right, great. Well, how do people how do people get in touch with you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so uh LinkedIn's always good. Um uh X or you know Twitter X, whatever you want to call it, um I have somewhat of a of a presence there. Otherwise, you know, go to the website. It's just getmycpo.com. Uh email me, you know, mg at getmycpo.com. Um always happy to talk to anyone, you know, regardless of uh kind of where they're at, their situation, if they just want to bounce some ideas off me. You know, always happy to give that value.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Payments Experts Podcast, a podcast of Global Legal Awfer. Visit us online today at global legalawfer.com. Matters discussed are all opinions that do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people, and events is a coincidence.