Slashdot Mirror
Recommendations for Website Payment Systems?
An anonymous reader asks: "I run a smallish website that provides stock quotes, charts, etc for a very under-reported stock market. (I won't link here due to the Slashdot Death Ray effect, and because this is a real question, not an advertisement). Over the recent weeks, many of my site members have been asking if they could make a small contribution to help off-set costs, which I am considering. 'Tip Jars' seem tacky and I know many people aren't comfortable with Paypal. So, should I roll my own, or are there any highly recommended ways of doing this that I am missing? Any suggestions?"
Most of the people who are uncomfortable with Paypal are the ones who think whining about it makes them seem experienced or intelligent. For simply sending money, there's nothing wrong with it (as long as you don't mind using them).
The money you lose from people who enjoy bragging about how they refuse to use Paypal will be more than made up for by the time you save not having to implement something like this yourself.
This space intentionally left blank.
http://store.yahoo.com/ lets you set up a store that takes credit cards directly. you could "sell" contributions in various amounts.
I'd recommend going with some established solution that fits your budget. Rolling your own is likely to expose your users to all kinds of subtle security issues that could result in some nefarious jerk getting their credit card numbers or the like.
A creative solution I heard once was to auction "thanks" on eBay. For $2.50, you could buy the seller's "thanks", and you could buy as many (or as few) as you liked through the usual Dutch auction process. I don't know if anyone ever actually did this, but you might want to consider it.
Personally, I always use PayPal for website donations. I've never had anyone object.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
And put a donation button on your site that goes to PayPal. Just a small elegant button that says "support this free service" or something like that. Link to PayPal, or to a page explaining your expenses.
It's not begging. It's not tacky. It's just common sense. Bandwidth and time cost money. You can't distribute them for free like you can information. It makes sense to pay for them. Like I always say, "Information wants to be free, but bandwidth wants to be expensive."
After a while you can experiment with the other obscure services that people use, but PayPal is *it*. Yeah, "paypal sucks" but most people haven't had any problems (including myself). Just don't pretend they are a bank.
The people I've seen complaining about Paypal are merchants who get bit by disputed transactions for services rendered. You won't have any dispute issues, so Paypal is great. From the customers POV, Paypal allows them to use a credit card in a very-secure website (time-tested) without giving the small-website-owner anything but money and an email address. Paypal doesn't require them to create accounts anymore either. Look to the other comments for tasteful display suggestions.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
No. You're 100% wrong. Regular credit card processing companies will freeze your account. I've seen it happen first hand.
One company that my company makes e-commerce, inventory management and meat point of sale software for had over $50,000 in already processed charges for a week withheld without warning. The reason given (after the fact) was that too much of the company's business was coming from the Internet, and the CC processor was "nervous" (the exact word used.) This wasn't a sudden influx, in fact it wasn't more than a few percent different from the previous four weeks or so at the time. No unusual / atypical number of chargebacks was being encountered, nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all, other than the business was slowly and steadily becoming more successful for various reasons.
So what happened? The money was held for six months before they grudgingly gave it over, admitting there was no problem. By that time, they were no longer processing this place's charges, but that didn't make them move any faster.
A new credit card processor was found, one of the local banks covered the week's gap in income with a 90-day note based on the company's history with the bank, and the day was saved - no thanks to the cc processor. The business still had to come up with 50 grand out of the blue to pay off the note to the local bank, but they were healthy and they pulled it off.
Consider, if this particular business wasn't a pretty darned good operation, that might have killed them. As it was, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as you well might imagine -- no one needs a week's cash flow knocked into limbo without warning.
The CC processors can do it, they will do it, they have done it.
When you sign up with a credit card processor, you need to read the terms, line by line and with careful attention paid as to how any particular situation described or alluded to will affect your business if the processor exercises the option described. Then you need to plan what you will do in each of those situations. If you're not prepared, you'll have to take your pleasure in complaining to your friends and family, because that's all the recourse you have.
The cold, hard fact of the matter is that credit card processing and sourcing companies hold all the cards, no pun intended.
They agressively advertise to consumers that they (the consumer) will never be liable for fraudulent use of their card. Which is true. Then they turn around, every time, and dump the fiscal damage on the merchant.
That's right. If you sell something via CC, even if you validate the address and ship to that address, you can still have a chargeback, you are in no way protected. You get lines like "my boyfriend used my card without my permission" and you're flat out of your merchandise, the funds are taken directly from your account, and that's the end of it. The cops in some remote city or podunk town won't lift a finger to do anything about it, and for 99% of the merchandise involved, the merchant can't afford to pursue it.
Who isn't hurt by this? (1) The consumer, (2) the thief (who may be the consumer!) (3) the credit card company and (4) the credit card processor. The merchant takes the hit, each and every time. You can't opt out or you can't process cards, which probably means you and everyone who works for you need to get a McJob.
So don't underestimate what a "normal" cc company can do to you. Paypal is no better or worse. Behave yourself, co-operate with any investigation and don't hesitate to refund when asked, and you will probably not have to deal with a frozen or closed account. Try not to grit your teeth when you have to pay for a blatent rip-off; it's part of the landscape, and these companies have rigged it so you cannot fix the problem. Complain in any major way, and you could have all your
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.