Frequently Asked Questions

8A Payments hosts a Payment Platform specifically engineered for Cash Bail Payments. We offer a solution built on enterprise-grade payment processing technology to bring digital payments to an underserved market.

8A Payments is located in Atlanta, GA and can be reached at (404) 590-4180 or info@8A-Payments.com.

No. We are a payment processing company, not a collection agency.

Cash bail paid via credit or debit card.

We accept credit and debit cards from Visa®, Mastercard®, American Express®, and Discover®.

No.

The traditional credit card model has fees subtracted from the amount of the payment — a model that doesn't work for jails, which must receive 100% of the bail amount. To solve this, a Service Fee of 8% is charged to the payer on top of the bail amount. The combined amount is processed as a single charge. These fees are non-refundable.

There is no cost to your facility.

No. 8A Payments customers receive the full amount of the authorized payment. Our system collects the service fee from the payer, up front, along with the principal obligation.

Example: $1,000 bail + 8% service fee = $1,080 authorized; $1,000 to the jail, $80 to 8A Payments. From that service fee, all processing and risk costs are covered.

Our Jail Direct solution (card reader at the booking desk, no system integration required) can have new facilities up and accepting payments in as few as 14 days from contract signing.

For API integration with Jail Management Systems (JMS), expect 30–45 days.

Generally, no — because payers are protected from unauthorized use by their card issuers: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or Discover. The payer should contact their card issuer directly to dispute an unauthorized transaction.

At the time of denial, our system displays a denial message with a brief explanation on the card reader that your staff can relay to the payer. The payer will be given the opportunity to make the payment using another card.

Until a financial institution authorizes the payment request, we will not be able to complete the transaction. No service fee is charged in the event of a denied payment.

A chargeback cannot legally be processed on a transaction unless it was processed fraudulently. If a cardholder initiates a chargeback, 8A Payments will pursue the matter aggressively.

8A Payments bears the risk of all chargebacks. No chargebacks come back to your facility.

No. We do not process eCheck payments.

For all payments, we need the payer's name, address, and the card number and CVV. The jail will provide any additional information needed to identify and apply the payment.

CVV stands for Card Verification Value. It is a three-digit number printed on the back of cards issued by Mastercard, Visa, and Discover. American Express prints a four-digit CVV on the front of the card.

This depends on the policy of the organization you are paying.

No. At this time, 8A Payments does not allow for third-party payments. The cardholder must be the person posting bail on their own behalf.

Any government agency, court, or jail under contract with 8A Payments.

No. 8A Payments only processes payments to the government agencies and organizations under contract with us.

Other than payments rejected by our customer, 8A Payments does not refund payments. Payers should contact the organization to which they made the payment to discuss a refund. The service fee is non-refundable.

You must contact the entity you paid through 8A Payments to resolve the issue.

Yes. A payer using the 8A Payments platform at a facility can request a printout or an email of the payment confirmation.

A payer can only cancel a payment during the payment process. Once we have processed a payment request, the payer cannot cancel through 8A Payments — they must contact the institution they paid.

Payers with questions about the payment itself (when it was made, in what amount, to whom) may contact us at info@8A-Payments.com or (404) 590-4180.

Questions about the obligation being paid, the accuracy of the amount, or anything else not related to the mechanics of the payment must be directed to our customer (the jail or agency).

We are independently and annually certified as complying with the highest level of card security available. 8A Payments is PCI-DSS compliant. See our Compliance page and Privacy Policy for more information.

Yes. Please see our Privacy Policy for full details on how your information is handled.

No. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information.

Payments are processed through our enterprise-grade payment processing infrastructure, powered by Worldpay, a Global Payments company — one of the world's largest payment processors.

Cardholders may post cash bail directly with the jail by using the 8A Payments card reader at the booking desk — just as you would with most retail transactions.

No. 8A Payments does not process bail by eCheck. However, a debit card issued by your bank through Visa or Mastercard will allow you to draw funds from your bank account, provided funds are available.

No. You may only use one card to pay cash bail.

After payment is processed, we email or text a receipt to the contact information you provided. In some instances the jail may require a copy of this receipt to process a refund. If you do not have an email address, you may provide the email address of a friend or family member who can print the receipt for you.

No. We are not a bail bondsman and do not guarantee a defendant's appearance in court. 8A Payments is a payment processor that enables cardholders to post cash bail using a credit or debit card.

The return, refund, or forfeiture of cash bail is a court process that does not involve 8A Payments. Typically, a check is issued by the court directly to the defendant. The service fee is not returned.

No. Refunds are not applied back to your credit card. Refunds are handled by the court directly, typically by check to the defendant.

A defendant's eligibility for bail is a court process that does not involve 8A Payments. Contact the jail or court directly for questions about eligibility.

8A Payments notifies the jail immediately when a cash bail payment is authorized by the card issuer. Many facilities choose to release a defendant based on this confirmation, because 8A Payments is contractually obligated to process the funds when authorized. Delivery of the funds is 8A Payments's responsibility.

8A Payments processes cash bail up to $10,000. Some facilities may set their own lower limits, and state law may impose additional restrictions based on the severity of the charge.

General-purpose processors face four structural obstacles with cash bail: merchant category code misclassification (generic codes trigger cash-advance fees and cardholder restrictions); CJIS compliance requirements, which most commercial platforms are not built to meet; chargeback exposure, which most vendors pass to the facility; and the legal requirement that 100% of bail funds go directly to the government entity. 8A Payments was engineered to solve each of these problems specifically.

In most payment arrangements, the payment processor is the merchant of record — meaning they hold the account, control the funds, and remit them later. In the 8A Payments model, the government entity (sheriff’s office, county, or municipality) is the merchant of record. Bail funds are deposited directly into the government’s own merchant account. No private company holds the funds in transit — which is structurally required for cash bail, where the government must receive 100% of the bail amount.

MCC 9399 is the Merchant Category Code for Government Services — the same classification used for DMV fees, court costs, and municipal utility payments. When a payment is processed under MCC 9399, it is treated as a standard credit card purchase rather than a cash advance. Cash advance transactions carry higher fees and are frequently blocked by cardholder settings or card limits. 8A Payments processes all bail transactions under MCC 9399, eliminating cash-advance classification risk entirely.

CJIS stands for Criminal Justice Information Services — an FBI division that sets federal data security standards for criminal justice agencies and their vendors. A CJIS-compliant payment platform meets the FBI’s minimum security standards for systems operating within or adjacent to CJIS environments. 8A Payments is built to meet CJIS standards from the ground up, not retrofitted from a commercial payment platform.

Yes. The same platform infrastructure supports court fee collection, fines, probation payments, and other government payment types — all under the same CJIS and PCI DSS compliance framework. This gives counties a single compliant payment infrastructure for the full range of booking and judicial payment types, without requiring separate vendor relationships for each.

The Charter Facility Program is a structured 60-day live pilot that gives jail facilities full access to the 8A Payments platform at zero cost, with no long-term obligation. This is not a demo — transactions are real, payments are processed, and bail funds are remitted directly to the facility’s merchant account. Charter Facilities become among the first jails in the country to offer card-present bail payment at the booking desk. Learn more about the Charter Facility Program.

No. There is zero cost to the facility at any point — before, during, or after the 60-day pilot. The 8% service fee is paid by the detainee at checkout. 8A Payments imposes no monthly fee, no minimum transaction volume, and no setup cost under any circumstances.

At the end of 60 days, the facility has three options: continue into a standard deployment with no renegotiation required; pause for an internal review or procurement process with no deadline or penalty; or discontinue by returning the card reader, with no further cost or obligation.

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “excessive bail shall not be required.” When cash is the only accepted payment method, the effective barrier to release is not just the bail amount — it is the friction of accessing that amount in cash. In a country where 81% of adults carry less than $20 in cash (Federal Reserve Payments Study), cash-only bail creates a practical barrier that makes bail functionally excessive regardless of the dollar amount set by the court. 8A Payments was built to eliminate that friction and restore the original function of bail as a mechanism for pretrial release, not pretrial detention.

When a detainee cannot access cash, they remain in custody not because a judge determined detention was necessary, but because the payment system failed them. On any given day, more than 400,000 people are held in pretrial detention in the U.S. (Prison Policy Initiative) — many of whom have bail set but cannot access the funds to pay it. This drives up average length of stay, increases bed costs for the facility, consumes staff time, and creates downstream effects on court scheduling and county budgets. Enabling digital bail payment removes a non-judicial barrier to release — one that falls hardest on people who are economically vulnerable, not necessarily those who present the highest public safety risk.

No. 8A Payments operates entirely within the existing cash bail system and takes no position on whether cash bail should exist or how it should be reformed. Our purpose is straightforward: in jurisdictions where cash bail is the law, the payment system should work. A person who has a legal right to post bail should be able to exercise that right using a card — the same way they pay for almost everything else.