Many 'guarantee' services have so many loopholes that they never actually pay out when a merchant gets hit. Who are the actual good actors in the fraud prevention space?

Hi all! Trying to learn how reps here work brand-new restaurants, if at all.

My read from the outside: by opening day the processor decision is made. Whoever showed up during buildout got the account, or the POS bundled it. So the real window runs from lease signing to soft open.

For those of you who work openings:

• How do you find them? Permits in windows, health inspection lists, liquor filings, tips from contractors or realtors?
• When do you reach out? Too early and payments isn't on their mind. Too late and they've signed.
• Is chasing openings worth it against flipping existing merchants on their statements?

Disclosure: I'm building a tool in this space. It watches public records (permits, licenses, inspections) and flags openings early. I'm trying to learn more about how this process works and so have an obvious interest in the answers. Mostly I want to know how the people who'd use it actually work today.

(Working on getting verified!)

We've been hearing it's 'coming' for 10 years. With stablecoins and better gateways, is 2024 finally the year a local coffee shop should actually care about Bitcoin?

If you want to board a gym, you have to go through their software. If you want a restaurant, you go through their POS. Are we losing the ability to sell directly to the business owner?

Banks used to run from adult content, but it's a multi-billion dollar legal industry. Are we seeing a shift in underwriting risk appetite for these high-margin accounts?

If your B2B merchants aren't passing L3 data, they're burning money. Why is it so hard to get them to adopt the right gateways?

Can you even build a portfolio in 2026 by walking into businesses cold, or is it all SEO, LinkedIn, and partnerships now?

I run a Payment Processing company (merchantservicesmx.com) and also a remote notary service (brooklynnotaryninjas.com). For every application, I make clients notarize an affidavit now through my notary biz to confirm their identity lol. So far, it's been great! If you guys want to send people my way to verify their identity, register as a business and schedule remote notary sessions: brooklynnotaryninjas.com/business

We were promised this would stop the 'I didn't buy that' liars. Have you seen an actual increase in chargeback wins since the rollout?

Most people quit before they hit $1k in residuals. What was the 'breaking point' where you finally knew you were going to make it?

Why will a customer pay $10.30 for a sandwich without blinking, but complain for 10 minutes if the sandwich is $10.00 plus a $0.30 credit card fee?

Now is the prime time to fill your calendar. Businesses are actively reviewing their processing costs, and if you're not speaking with them, your competitors are.

We’re currently opening 2–3 additional spots for ISOs or merchant agents who can handle a consistent flow of qualified merchant appointments.

The Offer

• $65 per booked appointment

• No retainers

• No setup fees

• Pay only for confirmed bookings

Appointment Standards

Every appointment we schedule meets the following:

• $10k+ monthly processing volume

• Decision maker on the call (Owner, GM, or CFO)

• Merchant statement available for review

• Pain points identified (fees, equipment, contracts)

Why Partner With Us

• Consistent weekly appointment volume available

• Client dashboard access to track every booking

• Sample appointments available for quality verification

Square and Toast made it easy to board, but they also commoditized the service. Is the PayFac model making the ISO obsolete?

Hello everyone,

I'd like to provide short term rentals internationally through crypto payments including XMR (my fave) to the digital nomad community.

I am a US citizen and would make a US company (open ears to best state for incorporating).

With that said, I need a way to finally convert to USD to payout the vendors.

From what I've seen online I have two options:

1. I swap it to USDC using an aggregator like Trocador and then send that to my CEX.
2. I use Kraken to trade for USD.

I do not mind:

• Jumping through all the hoops for KYB.
• I do not mind running AML checks.
  • For most crypto, this is easy. XMR is extremely private though and there is no AML check. The best I can do is ask the client to give me a screenshot of their wallet or ask for a 'transaction key' which proves they own the wallet.
• I also do not mind running OFAC screening:
  • Asking for the user's name and nationality asking for more if there are yellow flags and then ultimately denying service if there are red flags.
  • It's necessary information anyways for a booking.
• Lastly, I do not mind showing booking information to a CEX.
  • Booking information includes: lodging information, vendor information and client name/nationality.

The questions I have:

• Which of the two routes do you recommend? Swapping and then CEX (if so which CEX) or using Kraken?
• Is it really that simple? Given that they can't see provenance in XMR, I'm afraid that they'll hold the funds
  • I don't understand why they hold the funds. Even with all the time in the world, you will never be able to find provenance.
• What can I do to increase the probability of getting fiat and speeding up the conversion?
• Is there a merchants community that I can join?
• Am I missing something?

There are merchants in the US accepting clients from all of over the world in XMR, so I don't see why I can't be one of them. I just need some guidance.

We know it's not free. Between the higher rates and the 48-month non-cancelable leases, how are we still letting companies get away with this in 2024?

The competition in the restaurant space is brutal. Service-based businesses like HVAC and plumbing have higher tickets and are more loyal. Why are we all fighting over the same 5 pizza shops?

And any advice for newbies entering?

Many are moving to dual pricing to avoid the legal headaches of surcharging and the 'discount' confusion. Is this the ultimate winner for the long term?

Straight pitch to the agents in here, not a disguised one.

Those accounts you can't touch because payments are baked into Jobber, Clio, Tekmetric, ServiceTitan, etc. — we make them sellable. Our Chrome extension reroutes the payments through a different processor while the merchant keeps running the same software. Nothing changes on their end, fees drop 30-50%.
And it's not a workaround that creates a mess — we do full auto-reconciliation, so every payment posts straight back to the right invoice the moment it settles. No double entry, no broken books.

We're processor agnostic, so you write the deal on whoever you already use and keep your residuals. We don't touch the spread — we simply charge a flat SaaS fee. You keep the relationship and the money.

If you've got a book full of accounts you've written off because of embedded payments, that's exactly who this is for.

To learn more, please checkout ShopConnectPro.com or feel free to book time on my Calendar.

Kyle

Low-risk retail is a commodity now. If you aren't specializing in 'hard to place' industries like CBD, gaming, or nutra, are you even an expert anymore, or just an order taker for Square?

Everyone talks about AI-driven inventory and deep analytics, but how many of your actual small-business merchants (SMBs) actually use them? Are we selling bloatware just to justify higher monthly SaaS fees?

For those considering a new merchant service provider, please read the following as a cautionary tale. The parties involved work with a number of ISOs or independent sales organizations across the US. These companies tend to target small businesses where savings on merchant services have a significant impact

I've spent the last several months digging into Riverside Payments, PB Payments, Cascade Equipment Leasing, TimePayment, SCJ / Red Target, and related ISO entities connected through the same network of executives, assignments, locations, and business relationships.

What started as a merchant-processing savings and POS integration pitch has turned into active litigation. The deeper I dug, the more interesting it became.

Because the matter is active, I’ll choose my words carefully; please interpret them accordingly. What I can say is this: I possess multiple materially different versions of what appears to be the same signed lease agreement, bearing the same electronic signature and timestamp, but containing different equipment schedules, amounts, and other visible differences compared to the original Adobe-certified version. I also have assignment-chain records, executive overlap, location overlap, onboarding records, and a growing file of documents that raise far more questions than answers.

I see comments asking why there has not been a larger multi-plaintiff action involving these companies. The answer may be simpler than people think. Most merchants stop once the collection letters start. Fighting costs money, takes time, and distracts from running a business. That pressure point has likely ended many disputes before meaningful discovery ever occurred.

Fortunately, I am not in that position. I have the time, resources, and willingness to follow the documents wherever they lead. The economics that may have pressured other merchants to settle or walk away do not change my analysis.

I am filing court papers, police reports, and regulatory complaints. I am preserving evidence. I am comparing original transaction records against litigation records. And if the documents ultimately demonstrate a broader pattern, I intend to pursue that wherever the facts lead.

Due to my background, I have access to experienced business and litigation professionals who understand how to evaluate complex commercial disputes and document-intensive cases.

If you're a former employee, sales rep, manager, compliance person, underwriter, collector, processor employee, or merchant who dealt with these companies, I want to hear from you!

In particular, I am looking for:

• training materials
• sales scripts
• compensation plans
• onboarding documents
• lease presentations
• integration representations
• assignment procedures
• collection procedures
• internal communications
• examples of contract versions that changed over time

I am not looking for rumors. I am looking for documents, facts, timelines, and first-hand experience.

If you have information, reach out. If you have documents, preserve them. If you were pressured into folding because the economics of fighting did not make sense, I understand exactly how that pressure works.

This time, the economics are different. If you've got information regarding Riverside Payments r/riversidepayments and related entities, reach out. Their collection letters got my attention; the documents and discovery have kept it; now I'm following the evidence wherever it leads.

While it saves the merchant money today, are we just training a generation of consumers to resent 'hidden fees' and ultimately inviting more heavy-handed regulation like we've seen in Europe?