Operating Guidelines

Although credit and debit cards offer one of the simplest, most riskfree forms of payment in existence today, there are some guidelines and precautions that you should consider to help prevent inaccurate or fraudulent transactions.

Month-End Settlement Adjustments

Global Payments normally debits month-end fees from your deposit account during the first week of every month. One way to ensure that sufficient funds exist in your bank account to cover chargebacks or reversals and discount fees is by keeping an amount equal to your average monthly discount range on deposit in your account. When planning for the possibility of chargebacks, a good rule of thumb is to keep at least twice your average ticket amount in your account.

Draft Laundering or Factoring

Depositing drafts belonging to another business is in violation of your Global Payments merchant agreement and against the law in many states. "Helping out" another merchant who offers to pay you a fee or commission by depositing his/her  MasterCard or Visa drafts in your account can be very dangerous and is strictly prohibited. The transactions are often questionable or even; fraudulent.

Schemes such as this are often referred to as "draft laundering"  or “factoring” and typically result in a flood of chargebacks. It could cause automatic funds reversal from your bank account.  Remember, the merchant who deposits another merchant's drafts is ultimately legally responsible for any problems resulting from the deposit.  We want to help protect you from this dangerous fraud scheme and the potential devastating losses. Draft laundering will likely result in the termination of your card acceptance privileges. We urge you to educate your staff about this serious problem and report third party draft laundering propositions to Global Payments and to the US Secret Service immediately.