Author: Maria Sparagis

Maria Sparagis is President of DirectPayNet, where she's spent over 20 years helping businesses scale to six-, seven-, and eight-figure revenue through optimized payment processing. She works hands-on with business owners to solve merchant account challenges, reduce processing costs, and implement payment strategies that support real growth. Maria is a regular speaker at fintech conferences and writes about practical approaches that help businesses break through revenue plateaus.

Visa’s New VAMP Program Ruins Chargeback Alerts

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The Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) now treats fraud alerts differently than before, making chargeback alert programs for fraud useless. Starting April 2025, TC40 fraud alerts resolved through Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR) now count toward your VAMP ratio. This means chargeback alerts for fraud reasons won’t protect businesses the way they used to. Previously, these […]

Everything You Need to Know About Flat-Rate Pricing

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Stripe, Shopify, PayPal, Square. What do they all have in common? Super simple pricing and sign-up processes. That’s because they all offer flat-rate pricing instead of more detailed options like interchange plus or tiered pricing. Let’s get into what flat-rate pricing is and why it might or might not work for your business. BETTER PAYMENT […]

How to Skip Shopify’s 1% Additional Fee (Without Breaking Their Terms)

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You’ve built a thriving Shopify store, but that extra 1% fee for using a third-party processor stings every time you see it on your monthly statement. If you’re processing thousands in sales each month, that seemingly small percentage adds up to real money walking out of your business. Legally, you don’t have to accept this […]

Why Do So Many Shopify Stores Fail (and How You Can Survive)

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Shopify is one of the most easily accessible, alluring platforms that exists and captivates thousands of entrepreneurs daily. With its promise of easy setup and plug-and-play functionality, Shopify appears to offer a golden ticket to e-commerce success. So, why do so many Shopify stores fail? In fact, 95% of Shopify stores ultimately fail. This failure […]

Let’s Talk About Stablecoins

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Stablecoins have quietly revolutionized what we think and know about digital payments. They create a bridge between traditional finance and the crypto world, which is much needed no doubt. Unlike their volatile cryptocurrency cousins, these digital currencies maintain relatively stable values by pegging themselves to established assets like the US dollar, euros, or even gold. […]