Introduce a research-only merchant to Prism

When an introduction is useful

Prism works with research-only businesses on processing, compliance, checkout, website, and store-operations questions. An introduction is useful when one of those questions is holding the business back and the business has agreed that you may raise it with Prism.

Typical moments are listed below. They are reasons to start a conversation, not a promise of approval or of a particular result. Prism confirms in the consultation whether it can help and how.

• A payment provider has asked about the website, started a review, or sent a closure notice.
• The store is about to launch and card processing has not been arranged.
• A checkout change is failing, or nobody clearly owns the checkout.
• The business is changing platform, host, or contractor, and checkout has to keep working.
• Order emails or the handoff from store orders to fulfillment have stopped working.

Your firm keeps its work

An introduction is about the question you describe. It is not a transfer of your client or of the work your firm has agreed to do. Say which work your firm is keeping, such as the site build, hosting, or fulfillment.

The merchant decides who does which work. If Prism is asked to take on part of it, that scope is agreed with the merchant before work begins.

The payment provider decides eligibility, documents, pricing, reserves, and account status. Your firm and Prism can help prepare the facts, but neither makes those decisions.

If the question involves a checkout your firm maintains, the related guides on preparing the technical handoff and on merchant and agency responsibilities during a checkout change show which facts and decisions stay where.

What to put in the form

Choose Merchant Representative as your role. The name and contact fields are for you, the sender, and the company field is for your firm. Identify the business you are introducing in the message, not in the company field.

Send one request for each business, so each introduction has its own conversation and request reference. If the merchant would rather write itself, it can choose Research-Only Merchant as its role and name your firm in the message.

Start the message with “Introduced by:” followed by the firm and person making the introduction, and “Earlier introduction:” followed by the name and context of anyone who introduced the business before, if someone did. Then give a short summary of each point below. The message field holds up to 5,000 characters.

• The business's public name and website address.
• The research-only products the website sells.
• The problem, when it started, and any date that matters.
• A plain-language summary of any provider feedback and the deadline the provider gave.
• The person at the business who agreed to be contacted.
• The work your firm is keeping.

What happens after you send it

When the request is saved, the form shows a request reference. Keep it so you can refer to the same request later.

Prism reviews the request and follows up using the contact details you gave. With the merchant's agreement, follow-up can include the person at the business you named. There is no promised response time, and sending the form does not book an appointment, buy a service, submit a processing application, or produce an approval.

If you open the form through this guide's consultation link, the request can include this guide's identifier. If you arrived through a tagged Prism link, the request may also include limited source and campaign codes, kept for up to 30 minutes in that browser tab. These help Prism see which resources and introductions lead to requests. Neither identifies who introduced the business, so the message should name that firm or person.

Merchant Representative is a role label

Choosing Merchant Representative tells Prism that you are writing for a business rather than as its owner. It does not create authority to act for the business, a partner agreement, a commission, or a continuing representation.

Send the form only with the business's permission. If you are not sure you may describe the business or its problem, ask the merchant first, or ask the merchant to send the form itself.

Any referral arrangement follows an applicable written agreement with Prism. The role you choose, the link you used, and the guide you read do not create one. If your firm already has an agreement with Prism, naming the firm in the message lets the request be matched to it.

Leave private records out

The form is for a summary. Do not send card details, account numbers, passwords, API keys or other secrets, customer exports, or another business's confidential files.

Summarize provider feedback in ordinary language: what the provider asked, which pages it named, and any deadline it gave. Leave account numbers, access links, and other private details out of that summary.

If a website review is agreed later, it looks at public content within the agreed scope. Its findings are informational. They are not a legal opinion, a compliance certificate, or an approval.

Introduction brief

Optional. Draft the introduction here, then copy what is useful into the message on the consultation form. You can send the form without completing this brief, and a row that is not yours to answer can stay blank.

Worksheet entries are not submitted by Prism’s worksheet and are not saved by the site. Use record types, availability, anonymized observations, or match/mismatch results. Do not enter government identifiers, customer names or addresses, customer messages, receipt-access links, card or bank details, passwords, or keys. Send sensitive documents only through the provider’s verified secure channel.

These are temporary notes. Leaving or reloading this page may clear them. Worksheet entries are not sent automatically. If you copy notes into the consultation message and submit the form, Prism receives them as part of your request.