[bitfolk] Google Checkout going away, credit card payments

Hi, This email is mostly relevant to people who currently pay by Google Checkout, or who really hate PayPal. If that doesn't apply to you then you can safely ignore it. - Google Checkout goes bye-bye Google are shutting down their Checkout payment service on November 20th, so anyone who currently pays BitFolk by that means is going to have to switch to something else from then on. I'm kind of glad really because GC had the highest transaction fees of any payment method, but I kept it around because it was the only choice for some people. In addition, PayPal have been getting increasingly hostile towards customers who use them to pay by credit card without having a PayPal account and I've now had several instances where this has proven impossible for the customers concerned. So, something new needed. - Stripe for credit card payments I'm currently working on integrating http://stripe.com for credit card payments, and the initial minimal implementation is nearly ready. That will just allow one-off payment of invoices using a card whose details you supply on the spot. I could do with some testers for this. If you've got (or shortly will have) an invoice ready to pay, you don't currently pay by PayPal subscription or recurring Direct Debit, and you're willing to give it a go, could you let me know off-list please? I need to get the initial version ready before GC shuts down, but after that I will improve the implementation to have more useful features like saving credit card details¹ and continuous authority (ability for BitFolk to charge your card when it needs to, without your action). Those who currently pay by Google Checkout and don't like any of the other existing payment methods are going to need to pay by this method from 20th November. Since Stripe's transaction fees (2.4% + £0.20) are less than PayPal's (3.4% + £0.20) I would prefer it if everyone moved to either Direct Debit (1%) or Stripe, but whatever works for you. Cheers, Andy ¹ Stripe handles all the card details without passing any of them to us; it does it in Javascript in your browser between you and them and never lets any of the secure card data reach us, so it does not require our side to be rated for storing or handling any of that data. -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting