Accepting Credit Cards with your business

[Dave Yanke]

I sent you a PM with info that should help.

[Trevor Watson]

Not sure about in America but down here in Australia It costs me $25.00 a month with a once off $110 install fee for a mobile Eftpos machine which Ican take anywhere with me works via the cell phone network whereever cell phones work this Eftpos machine works.. I can proccess Credit cards or ATM cards via this on the road or leave it plugged in at home and type in ppls credit card numbers for mail orders.

Trevor Watson
Xenetech 1325XLT 40w with Rotary attatchment, Corel X3, Photograv3.0, XGW 6.45

[Mike Hood]

I use Authorize.Net as my gateway and e-online for my merchant account. Setup is pretty straightforward and like said earlier it comes out to $35 or so a month. I just chalk it up to a couple extra sales each year.

It's all deductable anyhow.

[Dean Flannery]

The one nice thing about paypal and virtual terminal is you can turn it on and off on a monthly basis, we normally accept credit cards from November thru January for the Christmas orders then turn it off for the rest of the year. If you got a really big credit card order you could pad the bill a little bit and turn it on for that month.

[Mike Hood]

Yeah... but once you're burnt a few times by PayPal... you'll embrace a "real" merchant account. I've had ZERO charge backs through authorize.net, and lost scads through paypal and ebay.

I swear there are people on eBay only there to scam a nickle.

[Dan Hintz]

Authorize.net is my gateway, as well, and I can second (third?) Mike and Scott's $25-$35/month fees. I set up my e-cart to use a module for automatic verification, charging, etc., but if you only plan on using it for direct entry orders over the phone, you can use their free virtual terminal... all you need is an internet connection. If you choose to actually swipe cards, expect to spend a couple hundred $s for the equipment.

[Bill Cunningham]

I give my customers a .pdf order form and a toll free fax number, that way I have a signed P.O. for all orders.. I accept Visa ONLY. Mastercard was just too expensive, and for the small percentage that use it, it was not worth the time or effort.. I also get telephone authorizations for each transaction, and my cost is a minimum $16.00 charge, + .15 per transaction and I pay under 3%. In 20 years, I have only had one charge back, and that customer had made a error. He apologized, and sent me written permission to recharge his card for the total amount, plus all my costs, both interest, and charge back fee.. I don't sell generic retail products, everything is custom/personalized, and proof approved before it goes into production. So, it would be hard for a customer to say he or she did not order it. If they say they did not receive it, then it's a problem for the shipping company or post office. But, neither of those things has ever happened... My credit card service is through the T.D. (Toronto Dominon)Bank In Canada..

[Jerry Hay]

This is the company I deal with for credit card sales. They supply all of the equipment free of charge. They have great rates and great tech support. I recommend them highly.
http://www.crescentprocessing.com/home.php

[Teryl Bishop]

Let me second those with positive history using ProPay. As a secondary we also have a PayPal account. Fees on both are quite reasonable for small volume work.

[Jerome Hanby]

I've setup a few web based businesses using Paypal to handle credit cards. I'm sure they have some small fee per transaction, but you don't have to deal with all the nuts and bolts...

[Tim Bateson]

I had tried unsuccessfully to use PayPal with my website's shopping cart (CubeCart). I never got PayPal to work consistently. However this is just part of the issue. Keeping both the website & shopping cart in-sync and current was too time consuming.
As it turns out 90% of my web customers emailed me rather then try using the on-line shopping cart. I then do my online billing with a PayPal invoice which only requires the customer's email address. As my business increases, I may in the future work with an automated payment system again. For now those monthly fees just aren't worth it. So tonight will be the death of my website's shopping cart.

[Jerome Hanby]

I wrote the webstore and used paypal's developers information and testing system to test it and get it working and once it was working never had a problem. The bounce back and forth with PayPal was a little awkward as i recall, but it worked pretty well.

[Frank Corker]

Yeah... but once you're burnt a few times by PayPal... you'll embrace a "real" merchant account. I've had ZERO charge backs through authorize.net, and lost scads through paypal and ebay.

I swear there are people on eBay only there to scam a nickle.

Paypal is great for paying for stuff, but their so called 'insurance protection' is worth diddly squat. They are not interested in giving you back the money they promise to protect. They hold onto your money for way too long to be reasonable, just see what they are like if they refund your money, five days later to get it!! They take it out immediately of course.

[Doug Griffith]

Paypal is great for paying for stuff, but their so called 'insurance protection' is worth diddly squat. They are not interested in giving you back the money they promise to protect. They hold onto your money for way too long to be reasonable, just see what they are like if they refund your money, five days later to get it!! They take it out immediately of course.

I agree. PayPal protects the buyer more than the seller. If the buyer makes a complaint that PayPal considers justified (whether true or not), PayPal will hold the funds for 30 days. They then leave it up to the 2 parties to resolve the issue. If it is not resolved, the funds go back to the buyer. PayPal tells you that it is under investigation but they just sit and wait. My girlfriend found this out after many phone calls. She was told it "off the record".

Because of this, I try to keep PayPal sales to items under $500.

Cheers,
Doug