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Off-Site Credit Card Processing?

Posted by Cliff on from the doing-business-online dept.

fornix asks: "We have a few family run sites running cheaply on Apache/mod_perl/Linux/MySQL over a DSL connection. Some of them are selling arts and crafts types of things and we would like to be able to process credit cards simply and cheaply. We don't want to use a canned co-hosted shop since we would have to give up mod_perl, which we are using extensively. Is there an e-commerce solution provider that will process our credit card orders (no other services needed) for no monthly fee, but just a percentage of the sale?"

22 comments

  1. Here is what you can do.. by chowda · · Score: 2

    Just make a form with a spot for all relevant credit card info (i.e. name, number, exp. date) and write it into a text file. Then once a week you send them to me. I take them to this guy I know, bob "chainsaw" griffin, and he gives me $100 for every number that works! I give you 60% and everyone is happy...
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    www.chowda.net
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    --

    YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
  2. PayPal, et al. by SEWilco · · Score: 1

    There are some new credit card services available, such as PayPal. You open an account, you put money in your account from your credit card, you tell PayPal to transfer money to another PayPal account. The recipient can log in and request a check. It seems to be popular on EBay.

    1. Re:PayPal, et al. by SEWilco · · Score: 1
      Down on the bottom of the PayPal home page, click on the Help link. They say there that they're making money by investing the balances on all the accounts (just as a bank does).

      Last time I looked, they were planning business services -- now I see that they sell business services also, so they have another source of revenue.

      And if you look on the side of the main page, there is insurance on the accounts. If you're concerned, try to keep the balance of your PayPal account under $100,000.

    2. Re:PayPal, et al. by Erisian · · Score: 1
      Actually PayPal has a very sustainable business model. I'd be very surprised to hear if they aren't profitable, or close to it now.

      The word of the day is: float.

      1. PayPal eats the initial credit card fees.
      2. PayPal encourages people to leave the money within the PayPal system so they can use existing money to pay other people.
      3. As long as the money stays within the PayPal system, they can loan the money to other people at prevailing interest rates. (Banks lend each other money "overnight" at, what, 6.5% these days?) The money can be transfered around in the PayPal system almost for free.
      4. When/If the money is finially removed from the system it takes 2-3 days to actually leave the PayPal system. That's 2-3 days of interest.
      I don't know what kind of retension rate PayPal can get, but even if they keep money for a week on average they can do pretty well.

      From the money possible with the above, I don't think bankruptcy is a big issue. The cash advance fee is also trivial, especially as money stays in the system longer. (I'd wager that most people who recieve money via PayPal also buy stuff with it. So why take the money out?)

      The disputed charge issue is tricky. PayPal shields themselves a little by having "credit limits" on how much you can put in at a time. They do address these issues in their TOS. (Start looking at item 10 and down) Basically, they're saying that if you try to charge back, and you have a balance with PayPal, they're going to get their money. I don't know if this is enforceable or not.

      I haven't use PayPal much, but for any person to person or auction transfer of funds it can't be beat.

      If anyone is interested in signing up, feel free to send me some money as a trial of the system!

      --
      What's the difference between an orange?
    3. Re:PayPal, et al. by rjamestaylor · · Score: 2
      PayPal works very nicely. They had some negative comments on eBay's forums a while back, but that seemed to be due to growing pains. Now they've merged with other industry players and seem pretty strong.

      That said, I have a couple of concerns:

      1. How long will it be free?
        How does their business model work if they are not charging the sender or the receiver the 2% to 3% charged by Visa/MC/et al?
      2. If it stays free, what happens to balances due in case of bankruptcy?
        In a bankruptcy, monies you have on balance are virtually lost and customers/vendors won't let you off the hook should your payment be stuck in la-la land.
      3. How long will the credit card companies and banks allow what is substantially a cash-advance to be made without the cash-advance fee added to the transaction.
        PayPal said in the past that if your bank/credit card company adds a cash advance fee to a PayPal transaction PayPal will pay for the cash advance charge. That's not sustainable in the post-Dot-(no-in-)Com(e) era.
      4. What happens in case of a disputed charge, either against you as payer or payee?
      PayPal's a great idea, and I've only had positive experiences myself, but these concerns are hanging over my head.
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      -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
  3. Only place I know of... by ThePixel · · Score: 2

    I have done quite a bit of development work for a company using Authorize.Net. I'm not exactly sure of thier pricing scheme, but the company I've done the development work for is quite small, I would supect they have some sort of plan for smaller companies.

    --
    People see the world as they are, not as it is.
  4. ICVerify by CyberCash by babbitt · · Score: 1

    At work, (I work for an e-commerce shop) we use ICVerify by Cybercash. We hate the program, but it does do it's job. I am not sure about the pricing scheme.

    --Ben

    --
    "AOL, CIA, NSA, whatever, they all collect information, and they are all out to screw the american public"
  5. Authorize.net by The+Madpostal+Worker · · Score: 1

    Authorize.net is very easy to use, and offers all of the services that you want. i belive that they do a surcharge system for payment. the implementation is very simple, just a action that points to a https site.

    /*
    *Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
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    /*
    *Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
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  6. Appropriate? by stevey · · Score: 1

    There are a few different companies that offer this service .. but I'm not sure if they would be appropriate for you.

    For example I use Regsoft.com, for people buying GNU CD-ROMs (From GNUSoftware.com).

    The problem is that a lot of these companies assume that you're selling software, and want to handle registration keys for you - with their "Register.exe" program, or similar.

    Depending on the volume of sales you want you might be better off just getting a merchant bank account ..


    Steve
    ---
  7. One place by timbu2 · · Score: 1

    There is one place I know of.

    It is called CCNow.

    When you sign up they become the authorized re-seller of your products. Essentially, a customer of your's see all your pretty web site with the mod_perl and everything, then they click Buy it and they are taken to CCNows cash register. It seems pretty slick and they work nicely with people who auction stuff off on EBay. Now when CCNow gets the order they send you a virtual P.O. basically instructing you to drop ship the goods.

    The down side is that they take 9 percent for each transaction. In addition they are eager to avoid disputes so they give a lot of leeway to the buyer, if they are unhappy or claim they didn't get the goods. On the other hand for someone who would not sell a lot of stuff wouldn't have to put up with the fee's and complexity of rolling your own commerce solution or using someone elses e-commerce with your own Merchant Account. In addition for those folks who can't get a Merchant Account this is fabu.

    wife uses it on her web site and is very happy.

    I think this is such a good idea, I am thinking it would be a good business to try to get into and compete with them.

  8. Could it be the.. by Mr.+Last+Post · · Score: 1

    ..last post?

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    Mr. Last Post
  9. Datacash.com by _Gus · · Score: 1

    You could look at datacash.net, they do Perl API
    credit card processing w/ blowfish which might suit you.

  10. Offline card processing by FIGJAM · · Score: 1

    I have dealt with a number of credit card processing companies. Your best solution is to find one who does "batch processing".
    ie. You send transaction details in a csv format (or whatever they might want to use - xls, etc) and they respond with the results. However, be aware many (most? all?) card processing companies have a "hold-back fee" of a certain percentage (anything up to 15% of the transaction) which they hold for typically six months before giving you the monies. I believe all take a percentage of the transaction also, rather than a set fee. Some have monthly fees, some don't. A lot depends on volume mainly, but can also depend on what type of industry you are in - whether your history could be a risk, or the general nature of all business in your industry is a risk. Have a good (really good) look around for what fees different card processors charge. There can be a lot more things to look out for than just that though...

    --
    Do your best, hope for the best, suspect the worst.
  11. internet secure by Myrcurial · · Score: 1

    We use internet secure and have found it (so far) to be an ideal situation - yes they take some fees, but they are worth it so far.

    http://www.internetsecure.com

    M

  12. The first one is always free... by Animats · · Score: 2
    How long will it be free? How does their business model work if they are not charging the sender or the receiver the 2% to 3% charged by Visa/MC/et al?

    Yeah. Cybercash used to be free; now they take a cut. Yahoo Store (formerly Viamall) used to be flat rate; now they take a cut and force you to do online payment processing through their favored bank. Be careful about getting locked into some outfit without a long term contract.

  13. Quick Fix by nemoc · · Score: 1

    Where I work, we have an online store, and we also have a *real* store up infront of our offices. We do a lot of mail- and phone- order to. (our clients are realtors, so they're always ordering real-estate forms and what-not, but they're not to tech-savy). I have our website set up so whenever anybody orders something online, it sends out three emails: a confirmation to the person (who still clicks 'submit' five or six time -got i wish i could kill those idiots), one to the retail clerks in the 'real' store, and one to shipping. The clerks in the real store enter the credit card information manually in the same system they use to bill normal credit cards, and the shipping guy ships it. This system isn't perfect, as it still has double entery and wouldn't work for a high-sales sight, but it'll work for any low-volume sight that is already set up to take credit cards other ways.
    I'm not sure this'll help whoever sent in the question, but hopefully someone who is reading this might be able to use this model. If you already have a website that's 'information only', i.e. your corprate broshure scanned onto the internet, it's a great idea to take to the suits 8p

  14. send me money! by emmons · · Score: 1

    ....or just use this link. I get $5 for referring ya, and you get $5 for signing up. What fun!

    (ok, so I'm a money whore... come on, I'm a poor college kid in training)

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    --
    Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
  15. Redundancy by titus-g · · Score: 2
    One thing to make absolutely sure of though when using any 3rd party money processor is to make sure you are getting a copy of all the information you need to ship (name, address, not cc info) before either they get sent to the payment service providers site, or your cgi hits the code to process the payment. DO NOT rely on them getting the info to you!

    I've used a few in the past and with 2 had serious problems, one of them messed up the file setup on their side, the other had a slow server that accepted the payment but then timed out, in both cases this resulted in people being billed and no one knowing who (until they emailed a few weeks later, none too happy.

    I'd admit I am probably partly to blame for this for actually trusting them (one was a large bank, the other one of the major players in the online CC business).

    What's with the doubleclick stuff btw, my comps think my server is doubleclick (and just about every other ad server in creation) and there seems to be some sort of redirect sending there when I accessed this article (probably an include or .js file), I only got here by clicking back fast... does this mean that before long we won't be able to access /. if we are ignoring doubleclick?

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    ~ppppppppö

  16. cc payment in the uk by AliasTheRoot · · Score: 1

    this site has some pretty useful links, particularly for people in the UK - you should be able to shop around and find something with minimal monthly fees, the tradeoff is the cc people will take a bigger slice of the cash.

    You'll also need a merchant account, and realise that if someone decides to purchase something, then question the transaction to their cc company then the money will be taken right out of your account with no warning, and you'll have a bunch of bank fees to pay.

    it might by simpler just to take cheques..

  17. blooming slashdot by AliasTheRoot · · Score: 1

    the url is http://www.textor.com/commerce/papers/ccservices.h tml - slashdot parses out < & > in plain old text mode.

  18. Buy-Me --Merchant acct+payment gateway. by BoLean · · Score: 1

    These guys Go-Emerchant have the cheapest and easiest system I've seen so far. $40/month gets you a merchant account and secure payment gateway. There are several configuration options available. They charge $40/month plus 2.49% plus 30 cents per transaction. No mus, no fuss, no liablilty for losing someones credit card info. They click on a link on you website and the item is added to their shopping cart. You can even add the link to emails and they can click on the email link to order.

  19. Thanx everyone by fornix · · Score: 1

    ... I'm going to go check these out. Gracias!