Payment redundancy for restricted categories
A second merchant account that sits idle behind the one you already use. Nothing switches, nothing costs you upfront, and the day a review goes the wrong way you keep taking money.
Hemp & CBD · Vape · Supplements · Firearms · Telehealth
Signal aspects
A railway signal shows clear, caution or stop. A merchant account works the same way, except nobody hangs a lamp where you can see it and the change from one state to the next is somebody else's decision about your business.
Money lands, nobody is looking at your file, and there is no reason to think about any of this. Most operators live here right up until they don't.
An underwriting re-review, a chargeback ratio drifting up, or a policy sweep across your whole category. You usually find out when the decision does.
Card payments stop that day. A reserve can sit on your funds while you argue it. Appeals rarely arrive faster than payroll.
Not our opinion
We have no case studies to show you yet, so here is something better than a testimonial: the published terms of the companies currently holding your money. Every line below links to its own source so you can check it rather than take our word.
Stripe, restricted businesses
Lists cannabis products and dispensaries as prohibited outright, and CBD above the local legal THC limit as prohibited. Firearms, online pharmacies and telemedicine sit under restricted: permitted only with review and approval, and that approval can be revisited.stripe.com/legal/restricted-businesses
Square, CBD program
Square does accept hemp-derived CBD, through a dedicated program that requires an application, a Certificate of Analysis for each product, and THC at or below 0.3 percent. The program is described as early access, which means Square can narrow it or leave the category.squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua
PayPal, acceptable use
Prohibits transactions involving narcotics, drug paraphernalia, and certain firearms and firearm parts, and reserves the right to suspend or close an account over a violation. A merchant running PayPal alone has no card rail left to fall back on.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full
What it adds up to
None of these are hostile companies. They are general-purpose processors carrying a category they never underwrote for, doing exactly what their terms say they will. Being compliant today is not the same thing as being safe next quarter, and that gap is the only thing we sell against.How the second account works
The whole idea
On a railway, the siding carries nothing for most of its life. It exists so that on the day the main line closes, freight keeps moving instead of stopping. That is the entire product, and it is why nothing about your current setup has to change.
You send your business details once. We put the same file in front of processors who underwrite your category deliberately instead of tolerating it.
An underwriter reads your actual business rather than matching a keyword against a prohibited list. The decision gets made about you, not about your industry.
It sits open behind whatever you run today, processing nothing. If the main account is ever closed or held, you move traffic across and keep trading.
Who this is for
If your category turns up on a processor's restricted list, you already know how it reads to open terms of service written with you in mind. These are the categories we work in.
Nothing upfront. Ever.
We are paid by the processor when an account goes live, not by you. That is the entire commercial model, and it is why holding a second account that costs you nothing is a ten minute conversation rather than a sales process.