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# Billing Description

The Billing Description (also known as Billing Descriptor) is a string, up to 22 characters long, which includes the length of the MCC-associated Merchant Name, and an asterisk (\*), leaving 9 to 18 characters for the descriptive text. (Subscribe will automatically truncate any Description string exceeding 22 characters.)

The Billing Description (billing Descriptor) should be recognizable to the account holder. It should consist of the company name and/or trade name (Merchant Name), combined with a description of the product or service purchased.

There are three possible formats:

* 3-character Merchant Name, an asterisk (\*), and an 18-character description
* 7-character Merchant Name, an asterisk (\*), and a 14-character description
* 12-character Merchant Name, an asterisk (\*), and a 9-character description

Each description must be validated by your payment processor’s Risk Department before being put in use.Vindicia cannot verify that this step has occurred; you must secure the validation yourself.

Valid characters in the Billing Description string include:

* Numbers
* Letters
* Special characters: ampersand (&), comma (,), dash (-), period (.), pound sign (#)

The asterisk is a reserved character for marking the end of the MCC only. Do not include an asterisk in your descriptor.

**Note:** Chase Paymentech will reject Transactions which use the following symbols, with Response Reason Code 225 (invalid field data): caret (^), backslash (\\), open square bracket (\[), closed square bracket (]), tilde (\~), or accent (\`).

For example, if Vindicia’s MCC-associated Merchant Name were `VIN`, and our Billing Statement Identifier for Subscribe were `VIN* Subscribe Software` the identifier would appear on the credit-card holder’s statement as

`VIN* Subscribe Software 650-264-4700.`

**Parent topic:**[Custom Billing Statement Identifier Requirements](../topics/ProgGuide_AppDataReq)


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