Hello Andy, On Tue, November 25, 2008 10:32, Andy Smith wrote: OK, I can understand the "less professional" bit if you look at it from an online shop perspective, but that is incredibly subjective, isn't it? So, if Google/PayPal is a problem (in a way I do understand it of people have an aversion to it, since neither are true UK companies), what is wrong with direct payment? If it is control and security you want, if you cannot trust the online banking system of your own bank, who can you trust? I added your bank account as a beneficiary in my NatWest online banking system, and to pay you what needs to be paid is a <two-click>+<enter_amount>+<click_confirm> exercise. OK, so I had to "register" your account as a beneficiary (really inconvenient hard work, sweaty stuff!), but paying you now is hardly difficult. O shucks, I forgot, I have to log on to my online banking before I can pay you, which adds an unacceptable number of taps and clicks! <grin> OK, with that in mind, the only acceptable way of payment is cash. Which means we have to meet for either a beer/coffee/beverage or arrange a cold-war/spy-flick drop-off point somewhere... /me thinks some people can really be almost as ridiculous as my drivel above. Really... [snip] My advice FWIW: Don't be bullied into a situation, take your time and make the right decision based on solid research. If the system costs money, you might as well get the best value out of it. -- Regards, Jan Henkins

Hi Jan, On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:20:48AM -0000, Jan Henkins wrote: The main problem is that people without a UK bank account can't do it. The secondary problem is that, at the point of making a buying decision, most people just want a secure form to input their credit card details. They don't want to be confronted with Paypal (even if I did a proper integration), and they don't want to be going to their own bank and setting up a BACS payment. This is enough to put a lot of people off. Yes unfortunately you do need to put yourself into the mindset of someone with very little patience and a severe intolerance of Paypal/Google. Sadly these people are not rare; I am aware of losing a couple of sales each month because of this. It doesn't sound much but it means there are lots more I don't hear about. Yep, agreed, that's what this exercise is about. :) Cheers, Andy

Hi Joseph, On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 01:01:47PM +0000, Joseph Heenan wrote: Thanks, that looks like exactly what I want actually: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Merchant/merchant/DCCTechnica… The transaction fees for Paypal are quite high as we've covered but they're better than Worldpay and when the volume ramps up a bit I could look at a merchant account. Offlist, Nochex has also been suggested so I will have a look at them also. Cheers, Andy

My friend, who supplies me with my broadband, uses a company called KashFlow (www.kashflow.co.uk) to generate my invoices and handle payments. It allows me to set up a standing order to him, which is nice and convenient. Not sure how much it costs, but it's cheap (and free for small numbers of customers). My friend hasn't had any problems that I'm aware of. But I don't have a problem with Paypal myself; it's pretty no-nonsense from a buyer's point of view. Might be worth looking into :) Paul Andy Smith wrote:

Andy Smith wrote: The only violent anti-reaction I have is to the requirement to create *yet another* account just to pay a bloody bill! Most companies don't seem to get the fact that I don't *want* to enter a long-term relationship with them, I just want to buy some stuff and be on my way. I've lost count of the number of sites at which I've filled my basket, then just walked away when the checkout insists I create an account with them. It's easier to take my custom elsewhere. Can you imagine the hassle if high-street stores required you to become a member before buying anything? In Bitfolk's case I don't mind so much, because I *am* entering a long-term service relationship, and also because I do happen to have both Paypal and Google Checkout accounts. I would still be quite irked, though, if Bitfolk moved to Foobar Checkout who required me to create *another* account. Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant there. Moving on... Chris -- Chris Smith &lt;cjs94(a)zepler.net&gt;

Andy Smith wrote: [snip] I would dispute the "irrational". The last time I came across a system using Paypal for CC payments there was still an extra page of Paypal Ts & Cs which you had to agree to to use it, and there were some very nasty ones in there. Until Paypal offer proper CC processing and don't try to get the customer to enter into an additional contract with them, I won't use any system requiring payment through Paypal. John

Jan Henkins wrote: [snip] Talk of the devil. I originally founded The Linux Emporium and was responsible for the use of Protx as an intermediary. When I started doing mail order the credit card companies were almost totally ignorant of the web. Getting the right to do customer-not-present transactions was a bit of a nightmare, but they weren't the least bit interested in how I collected the orders from my customers - phone, fax, letter, web - it was all the same to them. For several years we simply used a credit card terminal as you would find in any retail outlet. The credit card companies insist on you (the business) taking all the risk in customer-not-present transactions, but I'm happy to say that we had not a single charge-back in that period. I think it had something to do with the fact that every order was reviewed by a person before processing. Later on the CC companies cottoned on to the 'net and brought in new regulations which required all orders placed via a web site to be processed in a different way. At this point I switched to using an electronic shopping cart and Protx as an intermediary. One odd problem arose at this point. Because it was possible to place very small orders through our system (as small as £1.50) it seemed to attract card fraudsters in the far east who would use it as a means to vet stolen credit card details. They'd type in a totally gibberish address and details and then use one credit card after another until they found one which was accepted. I presume they then went off to use it for a serious transaction somewhere else. I tried to flag it to the CC companies (since it was their new requirements which had opened up this hole) but I never managed to get past their front desk people who, not understanding the issue, assumed it wasn't one. I changed our settings at Protx so that when a customer placed an order the transaction was simply approved with the companies but the money wasn't actually debited. Then we did the old-fashioned manual review before actually letting it go through. It was over 5 years ago that I sold TLE, but I found Protx's systems a bit odd. They may have improved by now. They didn't seem to have much idea about how to produce meaningful reports, so reconciling each day's transactions was a nightmare. (Particularly compared to the old system with the CC terminal which simply printed a total at the end of the day which could be compared to the orders book total.) I would not use any system involving Paypal - too many bad experiences. I'm more than happy with direct bank transfer. If you're only making a payment once a year then where's the problem? Cheers, John