In this Biz to Biz podcast excerpt, the hosts explain the industry‑wide “match list,” the blacklist used by major card networks (MasterCard’s Match List and Visa’s Terminated Merchant File) to flag merchants who have been terminated for violating their merchant agreements. They outline the primary reasons merchants end up on these lists—excessive chargebacks, suspected fraud, anti‑money‑laundering violations, unpaid fees, and selling prohibited or unlicensed products. The conversation provides concrete examples, such as merchants using cannabis‑related terminology or unauthorized branding, and describes how such language must be removed to avoid penalties. They also discuss the challenges of selling high‑end brand goods without proper licensing agreements. Finally, the hosts stress the importance of working with a knowledgeable payment‑service provider who can monitor compliance, flag risky content, and guide merchants in making corrective changes to stay off the match list.
Yeah, especially if you're on the match list.
Yeah, well, match list is—
what is the match list?
So the match list is— so Visa has one list, and then MasterCard has another list, and then Amex uses the MasterCard. MasterCard's list is called the match list, and Visa has their own list, which is the same thing, called TMF, Terminated Merchant File. So, you know, this week I did get a call from a guy and he said, hey, you know, I'm trying to get a merchant account. I applied at like 10 places.
That's fine, but you didn't answer my question.
How do you get on there?
What is it?
So what it is, is you got terminated by the bank for violation of the merchant agreement. So the violation of the merchant agreement could be you violated an anti-money laundering situation, or they said that you did something that maybe you didn't do, or you did something that somebody told you you could do, and then you found out you can't do that. Too many chargebacks. Too many chargebacks will land you on there, especially if they think there's fraud. You don't ship out let's say you're shipping and you're not shipping stuff out and you're getting a ton of chargebacks, you're going to end up on the match list. You owe fees to the bank, you're going to end up on the match list. So they go to debit your fees and they can't get the money from you, you're going to be on the match list.
Okay.
You know, that's pretty much the most basic, or you selling stuff you're not supposed to sell, like you get set up and you say, oh, I'm selling cigars on my website instead of cigars, you're selling hemp. You got like, you know, you got some pages down the, you know, a few pages in and all of a sudden there's a bunch of hemp products and you're not approved for that. You know, listen, people do stupid stuff all the time. Like, you know, we had a guy—
I think that a lot of times people, they don't know that it's them making a mistake. I mean, sometimes I'm sure people are trying to get over, right? Right. Sometimes it's willful and some people are just genuinely like, uneducated on what they can and can't do with their merchant account. I would assume that would be more of the case than—
Yeah, a lot of it is. Some of it is willful, like people get set up for a product where they send me a website with like electronics on it and everything's priced evenly. You know, they're selling either cannabis or there's some kind of gambling situation going on. You're assuming that we've caught people doing that, right? So we know that. That's what they're doing. Or somebody doesn't know. And, you know, listen, we had a guy who was selling cigars and then he put a— he had a picture of Snoop Dogg with a humidor and it said, keep your weed fresh.
Okay.
In the humidor. Well, the bank called me up and they go, you need to talk to your cigar guy. Look at this link we sent you. That's got to be off the website by the end of business today. So we had the guy take it off the website. You can't use, you know, you can't use the words marijuana, cannabis, weed, weed. It can't be on your website. That's, that's a big no-no. And, you know, you could say keep your stupid tobacco— you can say keep your tobacco products fresh in here.
And what about flour?
You could say the word flower, you could say hemp flower, but you can't say the word cannabis. Cannabis or weed or weed. Keep your weed fresh. Can't do that.
Keep your medicine.
No, no. But I'm just saying, you know, so the guy took it off and he had a couple of blog posts also that needed to be removed.
You know, you guys killing me, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry for—
but if you're working with a good provider, you know, they're going to come to you and go, hey, you made this change. You know, you're not supposed to do that. Another big no-no of selling is there's, you know, it's very hard for merchants to get set up, especially if you're selling like name brand products. So we have guys that sell watches and wallets and stuff, and a lot of it's, you know, from high-end retail, high-end brands. And you have to, you know, you have to have a licensing agreement to be a reseller.
