The internet has given birth to many new types of businesses, including new ways of paying for goods and services online. These third party companies such as Clickbank and PayPal provide a valuable service to net users. They allow consumers an alternative means to pay for goods and services and companies an alternative means of getting paid.

But watch out for work at home companies that accept these forms of payment exclusively.

Most merchants realize that their businesses can enjoy maximum profits by accepting the preferred payment method of most Americans:  credit and debit cards. Rare is the merchant who will consciously decide to refuse to accept the preferred method of payment of most of his customers!

All merchants that accept Visa and Mastercard usually must go through a rigorous pre-screening and background check before being allowed to accept these forms of payment. Often this involves a credit check, thorough checking on the principals of the business, their banking practices, their warranty policy, even a site check to make sure they really exist. The reason for these aggressive background checks is to protect the banks and financial institutions from taking a financial loss in case the merchants rips off large numbers of people who get their money back and leave the bank holding the bag while the merchant sips Pina Coladas in Aruba.

But the procedure for being allowed to accept payments through third party processors like PayPal and Clickbank are usually far less rigorous, which makes them attractive and easy-to-get by less-than-scrupulous website operators. Website owners that are not reputable, financially or fiscally responsible and can not qualify to accept Visa and Mastercard may find it very easy to qualify to accept the third party payment processors… but is this the type of business you want to do business with?

And some work at home websites using this method of using third party payment processors to completely hide their address and other information from you.

There may be issues with your own risk, too. If you are defrauded while using your Visa or Mastercard you probably won’t have to pay for it. While some third party payment processors do offer refunds to consumers that complain about services they bought using their payment method, the policy may vary from processor to processor and may not be as reliable.

Dishonest website owners may be able to sign up for these third party payment processors and then when they lose their account for being dishonest or receiving a lot of complaints from consumers, they may be able to simply sign up again under a different name and web address.

It’s hard enough to know which work at home websites you can trust. There are so many scams out there! But this may be one way to help identify the least responsible and least reliable in the group so you can avoid them.

There’s nothing wrong with a web merchant using these types of third party payment processors, but watch out if a merchant uses them exclusively. Remember that, while there is still no guarantee that your business dealings will be satisfactory to you, at least you know that most Visa and Mastercard merchants go through rigorous checks and must really exist and be considered trustworthy before being able to accept those forms of payment.