Advanced payments greater than 1 year (any product or service)
Alcohol sales, Internet/MO/TO (excluding wineries that follow age verification at the time of sale and delivery and business to business)
All adult products and services including but not limited to:
•Adult book stores, video stores, toys
•Adult websites and content
•Adult entertainment (misc)
•Audio (phone sex and adult phone conversations)
•Companion/escort services
•Dating services (sexually oriented)
•Fetish products
•Massage parlors (sexually oriented)
•Prostitution
•Gentleman’s clubs, topless bars and strip clubs
•Memberships, clubs, subscriptions
•Any products on the internet containing graphic or nude content
•Illegal activity (e.g., child pornography, bestiality)
•Video (web-based sexually oriented video)Airlines
Any illegal products/services or providing peripheral support of illegal activity
Bidding fee auctions (a.k.a. penny auctions)
Business/investment opportunities operating as “get rich quick schemes” (e.g. real estate investment with no money down, work from home etc.)
Cash gifting
Chain letters
Charities without evidence/proof of 501(c) (3) or equivalent status
Collection agencies or firms involved in recovering/collecting past due receivables
Companion/escort services
Computer software (e.g. anti-virus) sold via inaccurate advertisements
Counterfeit goods/replicas
Credit card protection or identity theft service
Credit repair/restoration
Cruise lines
Data pass (merchants up-selling or cross-selling products for other merchants and then sharing the cardholder data with the third party or receiving cardholder data from third parties)
Debt/interest consolidation or reduction services
Decryption and descrambler products, including mod chips
Discount buying clubs/home shopping clubs
Drug paraphernalia of any form
Embassy, foreign consulate, or other foreign government
Essay mills/paper mills
Extended warranty companies
Fake references and other services/products that foster deception (including fake IDs and government documents)
File sharing services/cyberlockers
Financial consultants (Internet/MO/TO)
Firearms, ammunition, and gun parts (Internet/MO/TO)
Foreclosure protection/guarantees
Fortune tellers
Fulfillment centers
Funds/loss recovery
Gambling advice/sports forecasting or odds making
Gambling-internet and other card not present gambling
Gambling-legal/regulated brick and mortar/point of sale gambling
Government grants
Herbal smoking blends and herbal incense
How to books, newsletters, subscriptions or on-line access for ANY Industry shown in this unqualified list
Investment programs/ business opportunities/seminars
IT services help desks
Jammers or devices that are designed to block, jam or interfere with cellular and personal communication devices/signals
Lead generation
Lifetime subscriptions (any product or service)
Lottery clubs
Mail order spouse and international match-making services
Marijuana, marijuana products, marijuana services, and marijuana related businesses
Medical discount benefits packages (including medical cards)
Merchants engaged in activity prohibited by the Card Brands
Merchants or principals listed on MATCH
Merchant, principal or related entities previously identified by any Card Brand for deceptive practices or any other violation of Card Brand rules.
Merchants physically located outside the United States (offshore acquiring)
Merchants in any Card Brand excessive chargeback or fraud program or merchants with chargeback or fraud rates over 1%
Merchants that use tactics to evade any Card Brand excessive chargeback or fraud monitoring programs
Merchants splitting the sale across multiple transactions
Merchants offering rebates or special incentives (ie, free gift, prize, sweepstakes, the winning of a contest as an inducement to purchase a product/service or cash competitions).
Merchant operating as a front for other businesses
Merchants that have ransom-like or extortion-like basis for their business model (e.g. mugshot removal)
Merchants engaged in any form of deceptive marketing practices including but not limited to:
•Hidden disclosures
•Bogus claims & endorsements
•Pre-checked opt in boxes
•Refund/cancellation avoidance
•Poorly disclosed negative options
Merchants primarily engaged in the card not present sale of coupons, certificates, prepaid, giftcards and stored value cards (card not present sales represent 50% or more of merchant’s sales), Excludes Gyft
Money Services Businesses
•Provider or seller of prepaid access/stored value, including both open-loop and closed-loop whereby the value of the card exceeds $2,000 on any day. (Closed-loop prepaid access includes gift cards, phone cards, subway cards, college campus cards, game cards and other limited-use prepaid access devices)
•Money transmitters
•Wire transfer
•Quasi-cash
•Cash advances (by non-financial institutions)
•Currency exchange or dealer
•Issuer/seller/redeemer of money orders or traveler’s checks
•Check cashers
Mortgage/loan modification
Mortgage/credit/debt reduction/consulting services
MOTO/Internet Tobacco/Nicotine products (i.e. Cigars, Cigarettes, Loose Tobacco, Dip, Chew etc)
Multi-level marketing/pyramid/affiliate network marketing
Negative renewal option following a free or low cost purchase (including pay for shipping only offers) where any of the following apply;
•The term and conditions pertaining to the free trial and/or recurring charges do not contain clear disclosure to billing practices
•Contain cancellation obstacles
•Do not provide reminders prior to billing
•Pre-checked opt- in boxes
Nutraceuticals (e.g. acai berry, health related teas, herbal remedies or drinks, etc.)
Payday loans and unsecured loan/lines originating from non FDIC insured banks
Payment facilitators/third party payment processors/aggregators/payment services companies (e.g., bill pay services, crowd funding, peer-to-peer payments, digital wallets, commissary accounts)
Prescription drug sales, Internet/MOTO
Products/services that promote hate, violence, harassment or abuse, and/or products/services that promote political or ideological opinions of any form (conservative, liberal, extremist, etc.). This includes websites seeking donations for a cause or to support any movement, whether that movement is legal or illegal. The above does not apply to Registered Political Campaigns in major races (State/Federal elections).
Pseudo-pharmaceuticals (e.g. weight-loss, diet pills, anti-aging, anti-wrinkle creams, teeth whitening products, muscle building, sexual stimulant supplements, male enhancement products, colon cleansers, detox products, glucose strips, hCG, HGH-like substances etc.)
Shippers/forwarding brokers, Internet/MOTO
Social media “click farms” (e.g., the sale of clicks/likes/reviews/endorsements on social media sites)
Substances designed to mimic illegal drugs and/or other psychoactive products (e.g., K2, salvia divinorum, nitrate inhalers, bath salts, synthetic cannabis, kratom, herbal smoking blends & herbal incense)
Telemarketing (outbound) merchants (MCC 5966) – Companies that solicit orders primarily with outbound telephone calls, facsimile or email. Includes “Up-Sellers.”
Telemarketing (inbound) merchants (MCC 5967)-Audiotext or videotext that customers access via phone, fax or internet.
Telemarketing (inbound) travel merchants (MCC 5962) – including discount travel clubs, membership or subscriptions to travel services or newsletters where subscribers may select prepackaged trips.
Ticket brokers
Timeshare
Timeshare advertising services
Timeshare resellers
Travel clubs
Virtual currency (that can be monetized, resold, converted, traded into physical/digital goods & services outside the virtual world)
Vitamins – Internet/MOTO
Webhosting companies with negative renewals and any of the following practices
•Free or low cost trial offers
•Pay for shipping only offers
•Pre-checked boxes showing cardholder agreement with the merchant’s terms and conditions
•Multi-level marketing