luke802 wrote:
Where I come from to offer pre-paid services the Government requires anywhere from $100k to 1M in security deposit for prepaid services incase the company goes south with hundreds of customers in credit still...
Spending this crazy money as a government keep-sake isnt really an option so post-pay is our only option.
Here is a solution for Post Pay then:
1: Start the Account with an "ACCOUNT Opening fee of $5". This could be used as a security deposit if you want but since you called it an account opening fee, that is what it is. Government can't do squat about it. But this fee into a separate bank account called Credit increase deposit.
2: Start the customer at $5 credit. When he reaches his $5 credit, block his account until he makes payment.
3: Give him the option to add more credit into his account however put a notice that this account is POST PAY Only. If he wants to add more credit than what he has, that is to his own discretion and you are not responsible for the excess amounts. This way if he wants to buy a 100$ card so he does not need to constantly pay $5 at a time every few weeks but you protect your butt since you are offering a POST PAY service but the client voluntarily added more money than he should have.
4: remember to set aside a few cents/dollar from each actual transaction as a credit increase deposit. Put that into a separate account to ensure it is not being spent.
5: If he wants more credit later, look at his credit increase deposit level. If he earned $10 of credit, then increase his credit to $15.
6: Eventually if they might try to "piss off", at least you ended up getting his security deposit from the several months before. Now you would transfer the $15 credit from the credit security account into your regular bank account.
You eventually create your own credit insurance system for yourself and this way you minimize your losses and are able to cover your costs.