That sounds like fraud to me. I would think that you could negotiate this with a merchant bank. For instance service companies often take deposits and kickstar

That sounds like fraud to me. I would think that you could negotiate this with a merchant bank. For instance service companies often take deposits and kickstarter clearly charges before shipment. But in both cases they probably have agreement from their processor for their business model. I think having to post reserves is one such model for when you are doing riskier transactions. But don't think that merchant bank won't cut you off if you violate the terms of your agreement. However in practice merchant banks seem very lax compared to PayPal.