Account Restrictions, a.k.a. "Ban List"

Arguably the longest ever feature to be requested and on our Wish List, the Ban List is now live!

If you have a particular customer that is always putting in bad eCheck information only for you to get a bounce or some sort of "account not found" error a couple days later, now you can simply eliminate eCheck as an option for that account number. 

The Ban List is simple:  you enter an account number and choose from what you want to restrict.  You can restrict levels of access as in all the customer to login and make a payment or use Quick Pay but prohibit the customer from using IVR phone payments.  Or, and WAY more common, you can allow the customer to use all payment systems and simply prevent the customer from using a certain payment method.  Banning the use of eCheck is overwhelmingly the most popular use of the Ban List. 

Here's how you use the Ban List:  Login to our system as an administrator and you can get to it from one of two ways:

1. Click on "Reports" at the top and then look for "Account Restrictions" in the left column of reports
2. Click on "Settings" at the top and then "More..." and look for "Service Account Restrictions"

Once you're there and you want to add somebody fresh to the list, go ahead and put that customer's account number (from your CIS) and then check what you want to restrict.  Most common would be to check the box next to "eCheck" and then click the "Add / Update" button.  Done!  It's flexible, remember that you can ban customers from using the system entirely or you can allow them to login and check out their account but ban them from all payment methods.  Or maybe you have a customer that you think is using a stolen Mastercard ... go ahead and ban them from using Mastercard until you figure it out.  It's totally up to you.

If you already have somebody on the Ban List and you want to either edit their restrictions or delete them from the Ban List, put that account number in and click on "Search" and the existing settings will come up.  You can then either modify and re-save or you can delete them from the Ban List. 

As you add account numbers to the Ban List you will see a report build on the lower half of this page.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Our Ban List does not follow any instruction from your CIS.  If you have a CIS that allows you to indicate "do not accept payment" or something along those lines, our Ban List does not honor that.  Our Ban List is stand-alone, it was the only way to build it so that it was as flexible as it is.  Simply honoring a "do not accept payment" indicator wouldn't allow you to ban just eCheck.  We figure if the customer is bad with eChecks than just take that away from them, they can pay all day long with a credit card because then they are on the hook with their credit card company instead of you on the hook for a bounced eCheck. 

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING IVR PHONE PAYMENTS:  Our Ban List only applies to services we offer.  If you use our system for web payments but another vendor for IVR phone payments, we're sorry to say that banning a customer in our system will not apply to your IVR phone payment system.  However if you use us for your IVR phone payments then the Ban List will recognize that and you'll have options that include banning people from using the IVR phone payment system not to mention if you ban a certain payment type it will apply to both web and IVR phone payments.  If you use another vendor you could always considering switching over to us in order to allow your IVR phone payment system to honor the Ban List.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING AUTOMATIC PAYMENTS:  Since our system supports automatic payments (AP) and you could potentially be seeking to ban a customer from using the very payment method they are enrolled with for AP, if you do proceed to do that the system will detect the conflict and inform you that if you do ban the customer it will discontinue AP for that customer.  Everything is prompted on screen for you, just follow along and it will make sense.  If you ban login access it will also discontinue AP for that customer because we can't allow you leave somebody on AP but disallow them from opting themselves out of AP (customer has to be able to login to do that). 

As for the customer experience, if you banned a particular payment method, they just would not be presented with that option.  Not a lot of drama, they simply don't see eCheck as an option anymore and therefore can't pay by that method.  If you ban the customer entirely from the system then they would get a message along the lines of "this account is restricted" in which case they may end up calling you.

LAST (I PROMISE) IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS:  Right now the Ban List is only available for Admin level access.  CSR level access does not currently have access to this feature (see below if you have think they should, we'll consider the overall opinion from all of our customers).

This is a brand new feature and while it has been tested quite a bit we simply never know how it will work for you in the real world.  We'd love to hear feedback on what you think of it in case we can improve it.  One idea we're already brainstorming is the ability to wildcard account numbers so that you can ban anybody that has an account that meets a certain account number format. 

Hope you like this new feature!