Your processor froze your account. Here is what to do in the first 48 hours

An account freeze is an information problem before it is a money problem. The acquirer's risk team has a question they cannot answer from what they hold, and freezing is the cheapest way to stop the exposure growing while they find out. Arguing does not move that. Answering it does.

What follows assumes a freeze or a sudden reserve, not a closure notice. If you have a closure notice, read the piece on monitoring programmes as well — the MATCH question is time-sensitive and separate.

Hour zero to two: establish what has actually happened

The words matter and are often used loosely, including by the people telling you. Get the specific state in writing.

• Are new authorisations stopped, or only settlement? Some merchants can still take payments while payouts are held.
• Is a reserve being applied — rolling, capped or 100% — and for how long?
• Is this a review with a defined scope, or a notice of termination?
• What is the exact trigger? A dispute ratio, a specific transaction, a compliance document, a volume spike, a scheme notification?
• Who owns the decision, and what is the review timeline?

Ask by email even if you are told by phone. You need the trigger stated by them, because the rest of your response is built on it and because verbal accounts of a freeze reason change.

Hours two to twelve: stop the bleeding elsewhere

This is the part merchants skip while they are drafting an appeal, and it costs more than the freeze does.

1. 1.Route new traffic to a backup MID if you have one. If you do not, this is the lesson, and it is the expensive way to learn it.
2. 2.Pause paid acquisition spend that lands on a checkout which will now decline. You are paying for traffic you cannot bill.
3. 3.Turn off or defer rebills on the frozen MID. Failed rebills generate disputes and complaints that make the review worse while it is ongoing.
4. 4.Warn support. Customers will report failed payments and duplicate charges within hours, and a support team that does not know is a source of new disputes.
5. 5.Work out your cash position on the assumption the held funds are unavailable for the full reserve period, not the promised one.

Hours twelve to forty-eight: answer the actual question

Send a single, organised response addressing the stated trigger. Not a narrative, not a complaint — evidence, indexed, in the order they asked for it.

• Fulfilment proof for the transactions in question: tracking, delivery confirmation, service-access logs.
• The customer communications: order confirmation, dispatch note, and the refund or cancellation route you offer.
• For a dispute-ratio trigger: the ratio calculated properly, what drove it, and what you have already changed.
• For a volume trigger: what caused the spike, with the campaign or channel data behind it.
• For a compliance trigger: the document, current and legible. Most compliance freezes are an expired certificate and nothing more.
• A short remediation note — the specific changes made, with dates. Descriptor updated, alerts enabled, refund window widened.

What not to do

• Do not open a second account in a related entity to route around the freeze while it is under review. This is exactly the pattern that converts a review into a termination and a MATCH listing.
• Do not issue mass refunds to bring the ratio down. It reads as manipulation, drains the balance the reserve is drawn from, and does not remove disputes already filed.
• Do not threaten a chargeback or legal action in the first exchange. It moves the file to a department that cannot release funds.
• Do not go quiet. An unanswered request is a closure that writes itself.

After it resolves

Whether the funds are released in a week or held for six months, the structural fact is unchanged: a single decision by one company stopped your revenue. The fix is not a better relationship with that acquirer. It is a second live MID, with traffic on it, before the next time.