What it looks like when it is offered to you
It rarely arrives labeled as fraud. The common presentations are:
- “We will run your volume through our merchant account and remit to you”
- “We can put you under our aggregate MID with our other clients”
- “Use our checkout, we handle the processing relationship” where the entity of record is not you and not a licensed payment facilitator
- Splitting volume across several entities to stay under monitoring thresholds
Why it is worse than the problem it solves
The merchant has no account of their own, no processing history to build on, and no recourse when the arrangement ends. When it is detected, the consequence lands on everyone in the chain: account termination, MATCH listing, network fines assessed to the acquirer and passed down, and referral where the conduct rises to fraud.
The line
A legitimate introduction connects you to an acquirer who underwrites you, with your entity
on the account and your category coded correctly. Anything where somebody else’s merchant
account carries your sales is not an introduction. It is the thing regulators built the term for.