Nov 9, 2026

On this episode of The A Game Podcast: Real Estate Investing for Entrepreneurs, Nick Lamagna sits down with Ryan Ellefsen, VP of Operations at Easy Pay Direct, who went from teaching Spanish for $23,400 a year to managing over 100 merchant accounts and processing hundreds of millions of dollars for some of the biggest names in coaching, consulting, and high-ticket sales. In this episode, he shares how to reduce chargebacks, win disputes, and protect your merchant account from being flagged or shut down.

Ryan and Nick dig into why free trials and subscriptions bring more chargebacks and refunds than single-pay offers, why Visa and Mastercard side with the cardholder, and why your dispute is often decided by someone who has never heard of your business. You’ll also hear Ryan’s step-by-step method for writing a chargeback response that wins: an opening statement, the evidence, and a closing statement, built as a template you can reuse every time.

You’ll also discover how Ryan rebuilt 33 shut-down merchant accounts in a single weekend, how the payment landscape shifted from the big banks to Stripe and newer financing-based platforms, and how buy now pay later, automated churn management, AI-driven reporting, and agentic commerce are changing the way online businesses get paid. Ryan also gets personal about beating lymphoma, leaving his faith, going through a divorce, and losing a company to a partner dispute, and about the mindset that kept him moving through it all.

In this episode we talk about:

  • Why a bad product is the number one cause of chargebacks and refunds

  • Why free trials carry more risk than subscriptions, and subscriptions more than single-pay offers

  • Why Visa and Mastercard treat the business as guilty until proven innocent

  • How to write a chargeback response that wins, and why you should build a template

  • What it’s like to get hit with FTC action, the MATCH list, and 33 merchant account shutdowns in one day

  • Why Ryan says Stripe disrupted the industry, and where it falls short for coaches and consultants

  • How EPD Commerce uses AI reporting, buy now pay later, smart rebilling, and card updater to raise revenue and cut costs

  • What agentic commerce is and why your sales pages and payments need to be ready for AI buyers

  • The “would it help?” mindset that carried Ryan through cancer, divorce, and spiritual upheaval

  • Why staying humble and grateful matters more than chasing more

 

RYAN ELLEFSEN

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/ellefsenryan/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ryan.ellefsen.2025

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanellefsen/

Threads:
https://www.threads.com/@ellefsenryan

 

EASY PAY DIRECT

Website:
https://www.easypaydirect.com/

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/easy_pay_direct/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/OnlineMerchantAccounts

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/easy-pay-direct/

X/Twitter:
https://x.com/EPDgateway

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/c/easypaydirect

CONNECT WITH NICK LAMAGNA

Want to buy, sell or partner on a real estate investment?

DM Nick the words REAL ESTATE on social media or email:

podcast@nicknicknick.com

All links:
https://www.nicknicknick.com/links

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