Business identity and charge backs

[mediakitchen]

I am using RBS WorldPay as my payment processor for a UK accommodation site. I have set this up via my existing limited company Mediakitchen Limited which is the company I have been running my web design business under.

Now this new site has a different name e.g accommodationsite.co.uk as a pretend example.

I am wondering if it would make sense to create a new limited company for the accommodation site business or to just keep every thing under the Mediakitchen name?

I am just concerned that people may get confused using a site called accommodationsite.co.uk, and getting references to RBS WorldPay on their statements and emails from RBS WorldPay referring to Mediakitchen. This confusion may increase the likeliness of charge backs?

I obviously want to keep my costs down and imagine creating a new limited company would result in the associated costs of setting this up and then the accounting fees.

Any suggestions as to what the best approach to take, much appreciated!

Perhaps there is a way to have an alias?

Thanks in advance

Paul

 

[Simon-M]

Can't you have a sentence on your payment page and also send a reminder email once the payment is confirmed. Even with the real name used you will get one or two plonkers doing a chargeback because they didn't recognise the payment. Setting up a new business seems a bit overkill.

 

[yyfq007]

study ,thanks for sharing

 

[mediakitchen]

Thanks Simon. I am glad that you don't recommend setting up a new business as that would be a real pain. Great suggestions thanks!! I will just be sure to spell it out really clearly what name will appear for all scenarios.

Cheers

Paul

 

[paul.sherlock@creditcall.]

You need to be very careful with this. Has your merchant services been setup for Website design or accomodation??? Unless you have some kind of generic approval to use your merchant agreement for multiple uses you could fall foul to card scheme rules.

This could lead to more than just chargebacks but also suspension of the merchant services.

The risk associated with the travel industry outweight that of internet services and so most Acquirers would expect this to be setup with its own merchant agreement.

 

[mediakitchen]

Thanks Paul for the reply.
My merchant services have been set up for accommodation but as I have only one limited company (Mediakitchen Limited) which until now has been used solely for web design work, my application to WorldPay was made through this company. I have no requirement to use the WorldPay services for anything other than the accommodation website.

My site does not deal with accommodation bookings - it is purely a site to list accommodation so hopefully that reduces the risks.

Ideally I would like all references to refer to the accommodation site and not to Mediakitchen and RBS WorldPay however I appreciate that this would require a merchant bank account and perhaps a separate limited company for the accommodation site?

 

[paul.sherlock@creditcall.]

If your setup for accomodation and it's just a trading name as such then you should be able to get away with Mediakitchen trading as ABC Travel or vice versa.

Can you get RBS Worldpay to change the identifier on your customers bills from Mediakitchen to ABC Travel? You should be able to initiate this change.

If you look at someone like the Trinity Mirror group they will have 100's if not 1000s of merchant agreements yet on the clients bill they will have different names such as GAAPWEB, Working Plus, Mirror Photos etc.

 

[mediakitchen]

Thanks again Paul. I will speak to WorldPay about changing the references from Mediakitchen to my accommodation site name.

Guess people are as you say used to dealing with companies with different identities. I am just trying to set off on a good footing with this new site and hopefully reduce any risks of charge backs caused by customer confusion. It is a shame WorldPay can't add a reference to my accommodation site name on the customers bank statements too - that would really help to prevent them being unclear about what the payment relates to.

 

[paul.sherlock@creditcall.]

How long have you been trading? Might be worth looking at merchant service rates directly from one of the Acquirers?

 

[mediakitchen]

I have been running my own business as a web designer since 1998. However I only registered as a limited company in March 2007. Prior to that I operated as a sole trader.

 

[paul.sherlock@creditcall.]

Have you considered shopping around and going through risk for a formal merchant agreement, if you get through risk the likelyhood is you'll be paying less for credit and debit card processing.

If you want a couple of introductions to different acquirers then I can help you out.

 

[mediakitchen]

I am not familiar with this "risk" term but assume it is some kind of assessment of how risky a business I would like to run?

I would be most interested in a couple of introductions - that is very kind of you.

Thanks

Paul

 

[paul.sherlock@creditcall.]

No worries.

I'll introduce you to a couple of contacts and then you can see how you go. There's no lock in to using CreditCall at all so if you wanted to use a bank terminal or another provider thats fine.

Could you pm me your email address and I will introduce you. I suppose merchant services is a bit like a dutch auction, they let you accept credit or debit cards and generally you need to just get the best rates you can.

The Acquirers look at their risk, so if you were to go bus what chargebacks and damages they would be exposed too, how much money could they lose.