Why are my deposits being held?
There are two primary reasons for an account to be placed on a temporary risk hold.
- Exceeding the high ticket (transaction) or average ticket amount that was established during the underwriting of your account.
- Some accounts, typically those with no previous card acceptance history, are conditionally approved requiring that the first batch has select transactions verified.
Stax provides funding for your transactions after a sale occurs and then waits to collect that money from the cardholder’s bank. In this regard, your account with us works as a line of credit and as such there is an inherent risk for us as a processor. Fraudulent merchant accounts and chargebacks make up the bulk of our losses, but our underwriting and risk management processes can help minimize those losses.
When chargebacks occur, the funds are typically deducted from the merchant’s bank account. If funds are not available, or if the merchant has gone out of business, Stax is now liable for the chargeback amount. In the case of fraudulent merchants, these amounts can be very large. Keep in mind that chargebacks can occur up to 180 days after a transaction occurs.
During a risk hold, we will request additional information on the transaction in question, such as, the invoice, job contract, and contact information for the cardholder. We will attempt to verify the cardholder’s identity and their authorization of the sale. Once these steps are completed successfully, we will release all held funds to the merchant bank account and funding will continue as normal.
Should you need to process a single transaction that exceeds your high ticket limit, please contact your Customer Success Manager or a member of our Customer Success team. In many cases, we can help accommodate these larger one-off sales by guiding them through our risk review process. Providing the customer information and invoice ahead of time can expedite this process and get you your funds more quickly.