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Here's the deal with 3rd party billing and merchant accounts.
It used to be that you had to have a programmer to work with a gateway to take money for a merchant account. So everybody did 3rd party billing. The 3rd party billing company setup everything for you and you went and got the customers. Now with
netbilling.com
plugnpay.com
you don't need some programmer to get a merchant running with your site. The only reason to use a 3rd party biller now days is to have them take care of your customers (even netbilling.com will do that for you though).
If the merchant account is for adult (or other high-risk), your going to have to dish out some money at first to get it. If it's for non-adult (non-high risk), you can almost (or will) get the merchant for nothing except the monthly fees.
You can normally get a merchant account, even with bad credit. The only time you definitely won't get one, is if you have been blacklisted. Which is usually from abusing a previous merchant account. It doesn't hurt to apply for a merchant account. They'll either approve you or deny you.
You have more control with your own merchant account compared to using a 3rd party billers merchant account. You also don't have to worry about 3rd party biller rules or if they will be in business a year from now and keep your money. If you lose your gateway, you just take that credit card info and move your merchant account to another gateway.
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