There are some industries Feenix cannot serve. Businesses of the types listed below fall outside current credit policy guidelines and are not eligible for payment processing with Feenix Payments or the Forgivable Capital Loan.
This list is a guide and is not all inclusive. Certain additional industries are subject to enhanced review, documentation requirements, or other restrictions. Final eligibility for every business is determined through underwriting.
Businesses we cannot serve
- Advanced payments greater than one year (any product or service)
- Adult products and services of any kind, including adult bookstores and video stores, adult websites and content, adult entertainment, adult phone services, companion and escort services, sexually oriented dating services, fetish products, sexually oriented massage parlors, gentlemen's clubs and strip clubs, adult memberships and subscriptions, and web-based adult video
- Airlines
- Alcohol sales by internet or mail/telephone order (limited winery exceptions apply)
- Any illegal products or services, or peripheral support of illegal activity
- Bidding fee auctions (penny auctions)
- Business or investment opportunities operating as get-rich-quick schemes or home-based internet businesses
- Cash gifting
- Chain letters
- Charities without evidence of 501(c)(3) or equivalent status
- Collection agencies or firms recovering past-due receivables
- Computer software sold through inaccurate advertisements
- Counterfeit goods or replicas
- Credit card protection or identity theft services
- Credit repair or restoration services
- Cruise lines
- Data pass (sharing cardholder data with, or receiving it from, third parties for upselling or cross-selling)
- Dating services
- Debt or interest consolidation and reduction services
- Decryption and descrambler products, including mod chips
- Drug paraphernalia of any form
- Embassies, foreign consulates, or other foreign governments
- Essay mills and paper mills
- Extended warranty companies
- Fake references, fake IDs, and other products or services that foster deception
- File sharing services and cyberlockers
- Financial consultants (internet or mail/telephone order)
- Firearms, ammunition, and gun parts sold by internet or mail/telephone order
- Foreclosure protection or guarantee services
- Fortune tellers
- Funds or loss recovery services
- Gambling advice, sports forecasting, or odds making
- Gambling of any kind, including internet and other card-not-present gambling and legal or regulated point-of-sale gambling
- Government grant services
- Herbal smoking blends and herbal incense
- How-to books, newsletters, subscriptions, or online access related to any industry on this list
- Investment programs, business opportunity programs, and seminars
- IT services help desks
- Jammers or devices designed to block or interfere with communication signals
- Lifetime subscriptions (any product or service)
- Lottery clubs
- Mail order spouse and international matchmaking services
- Marijuana, marijuana products and services, and marijuana-related businesses
- Medical discount benefit packages, including medical discount cards
- Merchants engaged in activity prohibited by the card brands
- Merchants or principals listed on MATCH, or previously identified by a card brand for deceptive practices or rule violations
- Merchants physically located outside the United States (offshore acquiring)
- Merchants in a card brand excessive chargeback or fraud program, or with chargeback or fraud rates over 1%
- Merchants using tactics to evade card brand monitoring programs, or splitting a sale across multiple transactions
- Merchants offering rebates, free gifts, prizes, sweepstakes, cash competitions, fantasy sports leagues, or games of skill as an inducement to purchase
- Merchants operating as a front for other businesses
- Businesses with ransom-like or extortion-like models (for example, mugshot removal)
- Deceptive marketing practices, including hidden disclosures, bogus claims or endorsements, pre-checked opt-in boxes, refund or cancellation avoidance, and poorly disclosed negative options
- Card-not-present sales of coupons, certificates, prepaid cards, gift cards, and stored value cards (50% or more of sales)
- Money services businesses, including prepaid access or stored value over $2,000, money transmitters, wire transfer, quasi-cash, non-bank cash advances, currency exchange, money orders, traveler's checks, and check cashing
- Mortgage or loan modification services
- Mortgage, credit, or debt reduction consulting services
- Multi-level marketing, pyramid, or affiliate network marketing
- Negative renewal options following a free or low-cost purchase, including pay-for-shipping-only offers
- Nutraceuticals, such as acai berry products, health-related teas, and herbal remedies or drinks
- Payday loans and unsecured loans or lines originating from non-FDIC-insured lenders
- Payment facilitators, third-party payment processors, aggregators, and payment services companies, including bill pay services, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer payments, digital wallets, and commissary accounts
- Prescription drug sales by internet or mail/telephone order
- Products or services that promote hate, violence, harassment, or abuse
- Pseudo-pharmaceuticals, such as weight-loss and diet pills, anti-aging creams, teeth whitening products, muscle building and sexual enhancement supplements, colon cleansers, detox products, hCG, and HGH-like substances
- Shippers and forwarding brokers (internet or mail/telephone order)
- Social media click farms (the sale of clicks, likes, reviews, or endorsements)
- Substances designed to mimic illegal drugs or other psychoactive products, such as K2, salvia divinorum, nitrate inhalers, bath salts, synthetic cannabis, and kratom
- Telemarketing merchants, outbound and inbound, including audiotext, videotext, up-sellers, and inbound telemarketing travel merchants such as discount travel clubs and travel subscription services
- Ticket brokers
- Timeshares, timeshare advertising services, and timeshare resellers
- Tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, sold by internet or mail/telephone order
- Travel clubs
- Virtual currency that can be monetized, resold, or exchanged outside the virtual world
- Webhosting companies
If you are unsure whether a business qualifies, contact your Feenix Legacy Affiliate Partner or the Feenix intake team before submitting.
