Let me introduce myself. My name is Neil Shearing. I am the owner and webmaster at the ScamFreeZone (www.scamfreezone.com). I started this new site (www.3rdpartyprocessors.com) after spending two years using a "free merchant account" to process secure online credit card orders at Scamfreezone.

Unfortunately, when I started this site, many people were getting rich persuading merchants who wanted to sell on the Internet that they need their own merchant account. Not only are the companies that sell merchant accounts doing it, but they have recruited thousands of resellers who can earn upto $200 for generating a customer for the companies!

Most of these people who 'buy' merchant accounts don't need them and would be better off using an online credit card processor to accept credit cards on their behalf.

Only medium to large volume traders would benefit immediately from their own merchant accounts.

That's what I called the great Online Credit Cards Processing Scam!

So if you are thinking about taking credit card orders online please read this site fully and decide for yourself if you should use a third party to take your credit card orders or whether obtaining your own merchant account is right for your business

There's no reason why you shouldn't start with a third party online credit card processor and test your market. However, you should read this site fully because there are lots of different aspects to processing credit cards online and you should be fully aware of them before making your decision.

I've updated this page since it was created because the costs of getting a merchant account which is able to process credit card online has fallen, so the "scam" has diminished somewhat. Still, the basic premise of deciding to go for your own Internet/MailOrder/Telephone Order merchant account or use a third party company to process your Internet credit card orders hasn't changed.