I'm not deciding whether to use propay or instabill. i know for propay, it comes up under my name and i have to do it monthly. the fees are also 3.5% which is good and .35 for each transaction i believe. i havent checked instabill yet so i'm not sure what their structure is.

what are your comments guys/gals?

Instabill uses a 10% fee for transactions plus another 10% 'hold-back' fee which you get back after 6 months to protect themselves against charge-backs and what-not. There's no setup and no other fees that I know of. I'm looking at using them myself, and have found the admin area pretty simple to use. The billing pages you use for clients are pretty nasty and dull and only have a certain amount of customization (far from seamless)

A few others here have actually been using them for a while and seem to think they are ok (though the checks went out late apparently a while ago).

It's something you'd use initially until you're able to set up merchant facilities, and a great idea for 'international' people like myself (ie. anyone outside the U.S.). It's a bit costly, but the best option I've seen so far.

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

Greg,

You should look at PaySystems at http://www.revecom.com. They offer non-merchant accounts for USD $49.95 start-up, USD $1 plus %3.5 per transaction. Holdback is %5 for 90 days. They do about 70 countries and handle the currency conversions.

Originally posted by teck
i know for propay, it comes up under my name and i have to do it monthly

You have to do WHAT monthly? You mean your customer has to input their ccinfo right???

Originally posted by Chicken
You have to do WHAT monthly? You mean your customer has to input their ccinfo right??? [/B]Propay has a plan where you can enter the customers info ("Personal Pay") as well as one where the customer enters it ("web Pay").

Unfortunately, they don't have a real "business plan," so you can't use your business name on the account like you could with PayPal, for example. It's meant for "individual use" according to the company.

Though this has been discussed before, and I am not sure of the details of the plan you are talking about, it is illegal to enter customer's credit card numbers if you don't have a merchant account (your own). Maybe this provides this, but if not, it doesn't sound on the level. Does it say you can enter your customer's credit cards for them?

I have a paypal account of some sort, but since they don't offer reoccurring billing, it does me no good. Even if it was legal to enter ccnumbers, it would be a gigantic pain in the donkey, trying to do it via a web form.

Originally posted by alchiba
Greg,

You should look at PaySystems at http://www.revecom.com.


Thanks, I'll take a look at it - the website looks promising though (nicely built) *lol* Do you use them? I'd like to hear more about their workings from a users point of view (customization, setup, their promptness in sending out the cash etc).

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

Hello
I can highly recommend Instabill

I also have an account with Worldpay.com who appear to be cheaper (4.5%) but they charge $180 fees per annum on top.

Instabill approved my application same day and I was set up and charging people the next. They also provide shopping cart and catalogue systems (although I bypassed them and made my own). They also have a monthly payment system.

Worldpay took 3 weeks to sort out and its still not in use because you have to hard code everything.
Instabill give you the URL's for your products with all the parameters in place, Worldpay give you a 100 page manual full of coding errors and tell you to get on with it. Also they make it very difficult to pass aditional information about the order back to you. For example, the domain name to be associated with a hosting account. Is it a new one or a transfer. Instabill let you add fields, worldpay rely on you running your own form which passes certain variables to their form. Others should pass through their server back to a processing script on your own system. I have tried for days to get it working, with very little success.

Having said that I will have to change to Worldpay because I get charged a fortune on having my dollar checks paid into my UK bank account, but it is not an easy transition!
I am even investigating getting a dollar account with a UK bank if it allowed me to stay with instabill.

Gordon

Although it has been discussed before, for anyone who missed it, PaySystems owns both instabill and revecom.com (when I tried to check ot reve it was down, but *someone* said it offered advanced features over instabill).

Still on my to-do list.

Chicken,

From a brief look last night it appears to be a bit of an Instabill on steroids, with checks as well and credit cards, along with the opportunity to RING THEM if you don't like using a card online. This last part seems to be a very good idea, and should get people feeling a lot safer about doing the deal.

My only concern is Instabill seems to be running pretty slow lately (in particular how long with page for billing info takes), and you just said the rev. site was down when you looked. No billing page, no new customer...

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

The only problems with instabill I've personally had, is that I had a whoppin' $5 order, and it took over 24 hours for them to auth. the charge. Hard to provide speedy account setups when the auth takes a day or two. Good news is that they seem to have this under control now, and auth. has been quick!

Yes, their Web site says they do real-time authorizations now. Very nice.

Hmm, well I thought they always did real time auth., but I guess I didn't read it right. Anyway, now it works much better. I will say that the AVS system seems awefully touchy. I have to tell people to input their CC info EXACTLY as it is on their bill (or the charge will be denied). But I suppose that extra bit of security isn't a bad thing, and just another layer aginst fraud.

I think its a better idea to put in $50 bucks for better rates and features than instabill(free) by using revecom.com($50 one time).

The investment you put in is not as much as lets say a merchant account and you have 30 days to get a full refund.

One thing that I like about them is that they make you fax in aggreements which lets me know that they do everything possible to prevent fraud on both parts, in a way.

<edit> darn typos, i hope there gone now </edit>

Originally posted by kian
I think its a better idea to put in $50 bucks for better rates and features than instabill(free) by using revecom.com($50 one time).


No question! $50 is reasonable to prevent getting nicked by the %10/%10 Instabill fee on every purchase. In the long run, could revecom.com be cheaper than a true merchant account?

It depends on the size of each sale. Since revcom charges $1 per sale. The higher the price of the sale the less the $1 affects the overall profit margins. But for low priced items I think the instabill is a better deal (although I do not like the wait for 10% of the sale.)

(I might be missing something. My understanding of how revcom works is 7.95% + $1 per sale and instabill.com is simply 10% and 10 temporarily withheld)

later

David

Originally posted by alchiba
Originally posted by kian
I think its a better idea to put in $50 bucks for better rates and features than instabill(free) by using revecom.com($50 one time).


No question! $50 is reasonable to prevent getting nicked by the %10/%10 Instabill fee on every purchase. In the long run, could revecom.com be cheaper than a true merchant account? Remember, assuming you're talking about the Revecom plan for "nontangible" items like hosting, there's a $1 per transaction authorization fee. So if your average sale is $20 your averaage transaction will cost you 3.95% plus one dollar... 8.95% total.

I suppose it may still be cheaper than a merchant account with a high monthly fee, but even at that only if your total monthly volume is so low that the monthly fee isn't offset.

I find it odd, by the way, that the Revecom site has a comparison "case study" that shows a web host firm's costs with a traditional merch account and with their service, and Revecom's costs compare favorably. But they use in that comparison their pricing for sellers of "tangible goods" while elsewhere on the site they confirm that web hosting services would use the TPP Sale service == the $1 plus 3.95% rate -- which wouldn't compare as favorably.

And, by the way again, I signed up for Revecom last week and my account was activated on Friday. I haven't gotten it fully integrated yet, but there are some things I don't really like about it.

The biggest problem I'm having is that I have set up a catalog system and when I call it I get a properly-created page with my catalog items and an "add to shopping cart" button by each one. But clicking that button takes the user directly to the sale, directly to entering credit info and such. Then it goes to your post-sale referral page, with no option to add more items to the shopping cart. Kind of defeats the purpose of a "shopping cart!"

And since I'm now live on the system I haven't found a way to test it without running transactions, so I'm not doing any more tinkering until I can talk to them on Monday. I'll update these comments if it turns out I'm just missing something.

Originally posted by JayC
And since I'm now live on the system I haven't found a way to test it without running transactions, so I'm not doing any more tinkering until I can talk to them on Monday.

Monday? Revecom's site says they have 24/7 support. Or is that not true?

As for testing, what I did with Instabill is use the word "TEST" in the address fields. That way, the transaction fails AVS and the sale is automatically canceled. That might work with Revecom.


[Edited by alchiba on 09-23-2000 at 11:50 PM]

Remember, assuming you're talking about the Revecom plan for "nontangible" items like hosting, there's a $1 per transaction authorization fee. So if your average sale is $20 your averaage transaction will cost you 3.95% plus one dollar... 8.95% total.

Your above calculations do not pan out. $1 out of $20 is 5%
so with the revelon system the charges for a $20 transaction is: 4% + 3.95% + 5% (or $1) = 12.95%

obviously the bigger the transaction the less the $1 matters percentage wise.

On further inspection I do like their features and services. But most of the transactions I will be doing fall in the $20 - $45 range. So they will probably not be used ;(

David

Originally posted by diyoha
(I might be missing something. My understanding of how revcom works is 7.95% + $1 per sale and instabill.com is simply 10% and 10 temporarily withheld)

It's %3.95 + $1, plus a %5 holdback for 3 months.

Originally posted by alchiba
It's %3.95 + $1, plus a %5 holdback for 3 months. [/B]

This is the page I am looking at
http://www.revecom.com/services/tppsale/index.htm

at the bottom it shows 3 costs:

Credit Card Discount Rate: 3.95%
Online Check Discount Rate: 4.00%
Authorization Fee: $1.00

That looks like 7.95% + $1 per transaction

(I may be interpreting it incorrectly since I did not read all the documentation in a lot of detail.)

David

Originally posted by diyoha

Credit Card Discount Rate: 3.95%
Online Check Discount Rate: 4.00%
Authorization Fee: $1.00

That looks like 7.95% + $1 per transaction


David, a customer will either use a credit card (3.95%) or an online check (4.00%). I see it as separate discount rates for two types of payment methods.

So it's either 3.95% + $1 for a credit card or 4.00% + $1 for an online check.

LOL. I just noticed the difference

Not enough sleep ;)

David

i'll only be charging 10-20 a month. so what would the best option for me be?

Originally posted by teck
i'll only be charging 10-20 a month. so what would the best option for me be?

I think instabill would be the best option. Although I really like the revecom.coms features.

Here is the math for revecom

for a $10 purchase
3.95 % + $1 (10% -> 1/10) = 13.95%

for a $20 purchase
3.95% + $1 (5% -> 1/20) = 7.95%

But it gets much better with higher purchases.

in both cases there is a 5% holdback. Which they refund in 30 days

Here is the math for instabill
$10 or $20 or anything purchase
10 % holdback returned in 30 (or 60 ... not sure) days

Soooo. if most of your sales are going to be in the $10 range then instabill is better. If most are 20 then revecom is better. BUT if you do not know for sure then I would go with instabill

later

David

Seems Rev would be the better choice for $20 tranactions, but just note that the lower the dollar amount of the sale, the more that $1 is a factor. For a $15 sale that $1 is almost 7%, so if the majority of sales are going to be $15 ones, then instabill might be a tad cheaper (we're taking under a dollar differences here. I think reve might be the better choice it seems. Less % holdback for a shorter amount of time.

Originally posted by teck
i'll only be charging 10-20 a month. so what would the best option for me be?

Well, let's see. . .

Instabill's 10% commission on a $10 item would be $1. Then then hold back another %10 for 6 months. So you net $8 on the sale right now. On a $20 item, you'd net $16 right away.

PaySystems: $1 authorization fee plus (let's call it) 40 cents commission on a $10 sale. Their 90-day holdback at 5% would be 50 cents. So. . . $1 + .40 + .50 = $1.90. Means you net $8.10 on the $10 sale. On a $20 sale it'd be $17.20 ($1 auth. + .80 comm. + $1 holdback). Add to this the fact that PaySystems charges a $49 setup.

In your case, the fees are almost dead even. The $49 setup is the clincher. IMHO, go with Instabill. And maybe tweak your prices up 95 cents.



[Edited by alchiba on 09-24-2000 at 07:47 PM]

thanks guys. geez, these fees are killing me. lets say i pay $8 for a package and sell it for $10, I basically make no money at all. Argggg.. maybe i charge $20 for setup or maybe I'll quit hosting :)

teck, your margins are real tight. You could open a business account with PayPal, which is free, and they only charge 1.9% + 25 cents per transaction. They'll take the major cards, but don't do recurring billing.

yeah, i have that now. i want recurring billing though. i have a question, for revecom, do they bill under your company name?

Originally posted by teck
lets say i pay $8 for a package and sell it for $10, I basically make no money at all. Argggg.. maybe i charge $20 for setup or maybe I'll quit hosting :)

That is one way of looking at it. Buuuuut ...

lets say you buy a package for $8 and sell for $20?

Or lets say you buy a package for cheaper than $8 and sell for $15?

A $2 profit margin, even if you made it all kinda sucks. How many accounts you have to sell for it to start to make sense? Just your time alone answering questions and getting the sale is worth a lot ;)

My main point is there are no restrictions in pricing and profits, only the ones you are creating ;)

later

David

Originally posted by teck
i have a question, for revecom, do they bill under your company name?
Nope. It's their baby and their name is all over the payment form. Think of them as a selling agent, not so much as a payment processor.

If you are a reseller then there is no point in trying to be the cheapest host out there, because flat out, you won't be. There is no way you can be. So don't try.

You are absolutely correct, that if you bought a plan for $8 and resold it for $10, you wouldn't make a profit. And as someone said, even if you did, $2 isn't anything to write home about.

What you can offer, as a reseller, isn't rock bottom pricing, rather better support, etc. If you were even thinking of reselling packages for $2 over what you paid, then either this is a hobby to you, or you didn't think this through. Increase that margin. These fees are among the lowest you'll find without a merch account, and a one-time setup fee isn't all that bad, since if you go full-merch, you'll encounter plenty of monthly fees (plus setup fees if you go through the wrong place).

Originally posted by alchiba
Originally posted by teck
i have a question, for revecom, do they bill under your company name?
Nope. It's their baby and their name is all over the payment form. Think of them as a selling agent, not so much as a payment processor. Those are two separate issues. Yes, their name is prominently on all the screens. So is yours, and you can add your logo as well.

But the question was which name will appear on the customer's credit card statements. According to the FAQ: "Initially, all charges will appear as PaySystems.com, Inc. About 25-35 days following account activation, we will issue your personal MID and TID. Charges will then appear as YOUR COMPANY NAME by PaySystems.com."

Originally posted by teck
thanks guys. geez, these fees are killing me. lets say i pay $8 for a package and sell it for $10, I basically make no money at all. Argggg.. maybe i charge $20 for setup or maybe I'll quit hosting :)

howdy,

found a reseller (on this board) at $6/mo ;)
http://www.webexpose.net/services/resellers.asp

later

David

Originally posted by JayC
According to the FAQ: "Initially, all charges will appear as PaySystems.com, Inc. About 25-35 days following account activation, we will issue your personal MID and TID. Charges will then appear as YOUR COMPANY NAME by PaySystems.com."


Ahh, that's correct. I missed that in the FAQ. I was going by the demo order page, which states that the billing merchant name would be PaySystems.

Originally posted by JayC
According to the FAQ: "Initially, all charges will appear as PaySystems.com, Inc. About 25-35 days following account activation, we will issue your personal MID and TID. Charges will then appear as YOUR COMPANY NAME by PaySystems.com."


Which again seems better than Instabill. As I remember correctly they just stick with billing as zStar-Network don't they? I'd much rather have 'akashik.net by Paysystems.com' than just zStarnetwork. After all I'm sure I'd feel more comfortable with a credit bill that at least has the company I host through on the bill somewhere. :)

Oh, do Rev. have the chance to set up groups as well (the catalog setup).. I ask as it's a way I charge for design too. Just set up a page with a one time fee on it, and send that as a bill (as it were). That would be hell if I only had one page to play with *lol*

Also, am I the only one who saw the feature where people can ring them instead of using the online form? As I said in my last post it seems like a great idea. I'm just wondering if I read it wrong too.

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

Greg, you read it correctly. They will accept phone orders if your customer wishes. They charge $2 for it, but I'm not sure if it's $2 in addition to the $1 authorization fee or just $2 instead of $1.

Revecom will email you a login to their Merchant Control Center demo, which is strikingly similar in concept to Instabill's but has a number of other other nice features. One such feature is the ability to export your customer data into CSV files so you can plunk it into your own database. It also looks like you can mass-email all your customers from the control center, too. Way cool!

They both do catalogs, but by my lights the control center is much more complete than Instabill's.

zStarNetwork.com does show up as the merchant on the customer's statement when using Instabill.

My opinion in comparing the two is that Instabill is probably more cost-effective than Revecom on low-dollar orders. But it's only Revecom's $49 intro fee that makes it so.



[Edited by alchiba on 09-25-2000 at 11:42 AM]

So basically, a better solution would be to offer customers a 3 month prepay of lets say, 30-40 dollars at a time, every 3 months. By doing this, revecom would be the much better choice. Also, the setup fee revecom charges..it's one time only right? not every year?

It may be too early in my Revecom experience to say this definitively, but: things appear a little shaky there.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that the catalog doesn't work (for me so far anyway) the way a catalog should. Also, the systems removes trailing zeros from prices. That is, an item priced at $17.50 appears everywhere (on the purchase screen, on receipts) as "$17.5" or "$17.5usd" which looks odd and doesn't look very professional.

There's supposedly a "chat with support" service, but I've looked at it repeatedly at various times of the day for about a week and I've never seen it online.

There's no phone number to call support (to be accurate there is one marked for "emergency" use, so I haven't tried it) but there is a place on the site to request a call from support. You can select when to get the call. Five hours ago I chose "immediately" and have not yet heard anything.

I just filed a support ticket so I'll update when I get a reply.

there you go, teck. That's one solution!

JayC, that's too bad. I'm seriously considering them, but that tech support business. . . hmmm. Is it 24x7? Maybe it's a time zone issue?

yeah, i'm considering it too. JayC, let us know how the support goes, it will be a make it or break it point.

Oh yeah, the setup fee is one time only right?

Originally posted by teck
Oh yeah, the setup fee is one time only right?

Yes, setup is a one-time fee.

OK... response to the support ticket was pretty quick; took about 27 minutes. And while the merchant support page implies (well, states) that the phone number should be used for emergencies, they tell me in the reply to use it for any support request. And "Our call-back system does not always function properly."

In response to my query about the catalog system not working correctly, they removed it completely: "you are using the TPP-SALE system which caters to merchants selling intangibles. The shopping cart system is not available on your account."

They didn't clearly answer my question about the price formatting ($17.5usd).

So I just called the support number and got through right away. The rep was articulate and knowledgeable, and recognized right away who I was (referred to me by customer number as soon as I started recounting the problem). He said the formatting had just been fixed, so I went back on and it is OK now. Well, almost; it's still wrong in at least one place, so the rep said he'd open a ticket to have it taken care of.

Apparently it's a back-end configuration that has to be done, based on the normal currency your using and mine had been set up incorrectly when the account was initiated.

So support seems to be responsive and available, and my own concerns in that area have been eased.



[Edited by JayC on 09-25-2000 at 04:41 PM]

Alright! Looks like good news. So it's a thumbs up?

Very encouraging. They seem like a good outfit.

clap clap clap... seems good... might have to switch, as I really would like the payments to be billed in my name, by Paysystems. That alone is almost worth it...

Originally posted by Chicken
clap clap clap... seems good... might have to switch, as I really would like the payments to be billed in my name, by Paysystems. That alone is almost worth it...

That's pretty much the clincher for me too (along with the phone dial-in for payment). Looks like we all may have gotten together and found us a winner for now *lol* Ain't forums wonderful!

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

Originally posted by JayC
In response to my query about the catalog system not working correctly, they removed it completely: "you are using the TPP-SALE system which caters to merchants selling intangibles. The shopping cart system is not available on your account."

thats strange. So how do we add products to our web site. Or what if we sell multiple "intangible" products and we would like visitors to purchase them at the same time.

That seems like a major downside. CCSlide (whose pricing structure is just like instabill) provides a shopping cart for intangibles.

later

David

Originally posted by diyoha
[Bthats strange. So how do we add products to our web site. Or what if we sell multiple "intangible" products and we would like visitors to purchase them at the same time.[/B]For "intangibles" you have to sell one item at a time; there is no "shopping cart" into which a user could select multiple items. The biggest downside to that, of course, is the $1 per transaction authorization fee: if two items take two transactions instead of one, it's a big hit.

I suspect that this, as well as the very existance of the $1 fee, is because of the much-worse chargeback ratio, generally, for nontangible purchases.

The way around it, as I see it, is to build a whole lot of items. For example, say you're a web host selling four different packages and sometimes you want to add on domain registration. With a cart, a given customer could select "registration" and then select a given hosting package, and then check out with both. Instead, without a cart, you'll have to create eight items instead of four: four with and four without domain registration.


By the way, Paysystems sends a daily "sales report" in email, listing what was purchased on your site the previous day, what charges were declined, whatever. Today I got four copies of it, mailed over a period of 10 minutes. And I didn't even have any sales yesterday! Small glitches...

Originally posted by JayC

The way around it, as I see it, is to build a whole lot of items. For example, say you're a web host selling four different packages and sometimes you want to add on domain registration. With a cart, a given customer could select "registration" and then select a given hosting package, and then check out with both. Instead, without a cart, you'll have to create eight items instead of four: four with and four without domain registration.

Good idea. But without the shopping cart feature it makes it really hard to interface with some existing software api's ;(

For example I resell domain names for OpenSRS. Now a client can purchase a domain from between 1year to 10years. Now after a client has picked how many years they want etc. then they should tie into the credit card collection page, but without the shopping cart to automatically pass in the number of domain years purchased it gets a little dicey. In fact I am not sure if there is a solution ...

win some lose a lot ;);):)

later

David

Originally posted by alchiba
teck, your margins are real tight. You could open a business account with PayPal, which is free, and they only charge 1.9% + 25 cents per transaction. They'll take the major cards, but don't do recurring billing.

But what is "recurring billing", and why do you need it?

Recurring biling means the customer gets billed every month automatically.

Originally posted by alchiba
Recurring biling means the customer gets billed every month automatically.

I think it worth it, percentage is too different. And customer can each month change what he wish (for example adding or refusing additional services)
What inperfections have PayPal?

Originally posted by sergio
[QUOTE]What inperfections have PayPal? The biggest problem I have with using PayPay for business-related billing is that your customer has to register with them. So when you request payment from a customeer who has already registered with you, they have to go to PayPals site and register there in order to pay you.

You can certainly provide a link from one of your pages, but still of the customer isn't already a PayPal member they have to register before they can pay you, and if they are a member they have to log into their PayPal account.

With Revecom or Instabill your link takes them directly to a payment page where they enter their info. Now, in a way it's the same thing: they still have to enter their name and address along with credit card information. But it's the presentation that differs: here it's just presented as entering payment information for the credit card account, but at PayPal it's presented as signing up for PayPal.

I guess the point is that the fact that it's third pary billing is more obvious with PayPal than with the others.

One thing, though, that I like about PayPal: the link you build to take your customer to the payment page doesn't have to identify a particular product. I'm not sure what the situation is with Instabill, but with Revecom you have to first create a product item at a particular price. Your link then will look that item up in the database and present the customer with a description and price for it. But with PayPal, it'd be easy to dynamically create a link with a price calculated on your site without having to predefine a product.

I'm not sure I'm expressing that clearly, but I think PayPal offers a little more flexibility. On the negative side, I think it appears to be less "professional."


[Edited by JayC on 09-29-2000 at 02:05 AM]

Originally posted by sergio
Originally posted by alchiba
Recurring biling means the customer gets billed every month automatically.

I think it worth it, percentage is too different. And customer can each month change what he wish (for example adding or refusing additional services)
What inperfections have PayPal?

Reoccurring billing is the number one reason not to use PayPal. Your customer sure isn't going to want to go to a link every month, input all their info (address, etc.), and credit card numbers. You might find a select few that want to do it, but far more wouldn't want to be bothered.

I believe (as was discussed earlier here? or somewhere else), that PatPal also sends messages, in non-professional format to your client. Like, "Click here to pay your friend." Now, this works fine if it *is* your 'friend', but sounds stupid if it is your host.

I suggest use escrow.com I use it alot, very good and fast!

Originally posted by SarasotaWeb
I suggest use escrow.com I use it alot, very good and fast!

Same general problem as paypal. In order for a new client to use it they have to register as oppposed to simply paying for the service/product.

In my view I want to make it as easy as possible for a client to buy *my* product. The more hoops a client has to go through the less likely the will purchase the product

later

David

Originally posted by Chicken
I believe (as was discussed earlier here? or somewhere else), that PatPal also sends messages, in non-professional format to your client. Like, "Click here to pay your friend." Now, this works fine if it *is* your 'friend', but sounds stupid if it is your host. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that (even though it was me who mentioned it before!) but actually it doesn't happen if you use the "web tools" to create a button on your site that takes them to a payment page. It's just if you use the "request money" approach, which sends a PayPal-generated email to your customer... er, "friend," asking for payment.

Originally posted by Chicken
[QUOTE]Originally posted by sergio
[B][QUOTE]Originally posted by alchiba

Reoccurring billing is the number one reason not to use PayPal. Your customer sure isn't going to want to go to a link every month, input all their info (address, etc.), and credit card numbers. You might find a select few that want to do it, but far more wouldn't want to be bothered.

I believe (as was discussed earlier here? or somewhere else), that PatPal also sends messages, in non-professional format to your client. Like, "Click here to pay your friend." Now, this works fine if it *is* your 'friend', but sounds stupid if it is your host.

But what is wrong if you take credit data of your customer and enter it buy yourself in PayPal, and received data (oreder numer etc.) you forward to your customer?

Quote From Sergio:
But what is wrong if you take credit data of your customer and enter it buy yourself in PayPal, and received data (oreder numer etc.) you forward to your customer?

Sergio - I think it is against the law to do that. And it's almost certainly against the PayPal rules.

Sean

Originally posted by spcover
Sergio - I think it is against the law to do that.


I agree. I am almost 100% sure that is against the law ;(

David

Originally posted by spcover
Quote From Sergio:
But what is wrong if you take credit data of your customer and enter it buy yourself in PayPal, and received data (oreder numer etc.) you forward to your customer?

Sergio - I think it is against the law to do that. And it's almost certainly against the PayPal rules.

Sean


But if you have merchant account then you can charge customers by yourself?

That's correct, to enter your customer's credit card info, you need a full merchant account in you/your company's name. This isn't something done one by one, but rather by batch.

One thing you'll notice about services such as instabill, is that you (as the merchant), don't even have access to your customer's credit card number (which they entered to pay for your services). There is a reason for this...

Originally posted by Chicken
That's correct, to enter your customer's credit card info, you need a full merchant account in you/your company's name. This isn't something done one by one, but rather by batch.
One thing you'll notice about services such as instabill, is that you (as the merchant), don't even have access to your customer's credit card number (which they entered to pay for your services). There is a reason for this...

Ok, thank you.
Anybody know how to open merchant account thorugh Internet?

Hi, I'm new to posting on this forum, but after reading this five page thread, a huge problem was solved for me. Two weeks of research into how to accept payments with and without credit cards, was confusing.

BUT! You wonderful people had a lively and interesting and fact filled discussion that made the choice for me. I am going to RevEcom. Thanks! I hope to learn a lot here.

Andrew

Originally posted by sergio
Ok, thank you.
Anybody know how to open merchant account thorugh Internet?

Well there are many places that you can go through. I don't think you'd find too many people offering the same company. Seems everyone knows a few and uses a different one than the other. Some of the places are merely agents, sometimes charging setup fess, etc. It really isn't an easy answer, but I suggest doing a search for "merchant accounts", looking through the posts, and possibly starting a new thread if you have questions about a specific merchant account provider.

check out

http://www.verisign.com/payment/
especially the Pro plan, which basically gives you all the power and only tells you if the CC is good or not.

That plan is perfect if you know how to program... a monthly fee, no cost on the transactions.

that is cool.

For those of us who don't know how to program, is there something (using this) for us?

look at the payflow (not pro)
http://www.verisign.com/payment/payflow.html

they host the CC form for you... now I didn't check it out a lot, but it is an interesting alternative... and I think that a lot of companies reselling CC processing are using their systems.

They offer fraud detection, that is interesting as well

That is an interesting link Felix, thankx...

Originally posted by Félix C.Courtemanche
look at the payflow (not pro)
http://www.verisign.com/payment/payflow.html


Hmmm. . . $179 setup fee, $19.95/month? Ouch!

Well, that $19.95 is a flatt fee though. No tranaction fees. I guess this means no % of the sale as well? If so, then that isn't bad at all. 20 sales a month would cover that over instabill, though you'd need more to cover it over a traditional merch. account. Interesting to have a few options at least.

Guess I had initial "sticker shock", Chicken. Maybe it isn't so bad. I've got problems with the $179. . . you can dodge the setup fees on many merchant accounts.

I signed up with Revecom.com after reading this thread a week ago and I think they are worth the $49.95 setup fee. Nice professional service.

Sean

Originally posted by spcover
I signed up with Revecom.com after reading this thread a week ago and I think they are worth the $49.95 setup fee. Nice professional service.

Glad to hear the discussion was useful. Keep us posted on your experience with them. It's been fun tracking down the good deals. They seem like the best non-merchant-account solution out there.

Yeah! This forum is pretty cool. Where else could you mine a gem like revcom.com? Great for a non merchant account deal.

later

David

Originally posted by spcover
I signed up with Revecom.com after reading this thread a week ago and I think they are worth the $49.95 setup fee. Nice professional service.

Sean

But whith what type of bank account you opened this service? (And was bank account in US?)

Originally posted by sergio But whith what type of bank account you opened this service? (And was bank account in US?) [/B]Sergio, you don't need a US-based bank account. Revecom says they will wire money in any currency you want to an account in any country. They claim on their site to have merchant clients in 70 countries.

Originally posted by JayC
Originally posted by sergio But whith what type of bank account you opened this service? (And was bank account in US?) Sergio, you don't need a US-based bank account. Revecom says they will wire money in any currency you want to an account in any country. They claim on their site to have merchant clients in 70 countries. [/B]
But can it be personal account? (I mean have somebody experience in this domain?)

No, you must use a business account:

http://www.revecom.com/faq/index.htm#140

Originally posted by JayC
No, you must use a business account:

http://www.revecom.com/faq/index.htm#140


But account of credit card can be used as business account?

I'm just having them send me a written check. No wires or payments. I'm in the US, so checks are not a problem.

Sean

I signed up 2 days ago. I cant wait to use it to its full potential!

I called them to enquire about a new account ... man, what a bunch of A$$H@lles, anyway, unfortunatly it seems there is no better solution out there, anybody know if they charge the customer with your DBA name ? and if you get paid by check .. do you need a business account ?

cheers

Originally posted by CRego3D
I called them to enquire about a new account ... man, what a bunch of A$$H@lles, anyway, unfortunatly it seems there is no better solution out there, anybody know if they charge the customer with your DBA name ? and if you get paid by check .. do you need a business account ?cheers Carlos, I'm surprised to hear that; I've had two phone conversations with Revecom people and both were polite and knowledgeable.

The answers to your other two questions are in the faq ( http://www.revecom.com/faq ) on the Revecom site (as well as farther up in this thread, but it is getting pretty long): they do require a business checking account; you have to send them a copy of a check. And initially they bill as "Paysystems.com," but within the first 25-30 days it will change to "Your Company Name by Paysystems.com."

Carlos, I'm surprised to hear that; I've had two phone conversations with Revecom people and both were polite and knowledgeable.

how did you get in touch with them? I've sent about 6 emails, and no response. I tried calling, they took my name and number and said someone would call me back in about 5 min. It's been over 5 hours now. I think it's time to move on to someone else.

UnitedTec ..

Move on .. they really suck, they where NOT polite, I spoke with the 3 times, I was never rude or one of those abnoxious customers, they kept refering me to the website (heck I whant answers to specific questions ... nooo .. website they say), then never retun my calls I had to call them, never a specific answer, and the one that upset me the most, the first time I spoke with them the guy was actually rushing me so he could do seomthing else...

I'll give you an advice, call Harbor-Net 1-800-728-4445, speak with EDDIe (Extension 1 .. I just opened an account with them, it costs a little more to start, but the monthly fee's are cheaper than Revecom and you have a full merchant account with some nice folks, e-mail me if you need references

I contacted revecom numerous times and they were nothing but helpful. You probably got a bad apple.

teck,

That's the problem. I didn't get a bad apple, I can't even get in touch with them. I think I'll try harbor-net in the morning.

Originally posted by CRego3D

I'll give you an advice, call Harbor-Net 1-800-728-4445, speak with EDDIe (Extension 1 .. I just opened an account with them, it costs a little more to start, but the monthly fee's are cheaper than Revecom and you have a full merchant account with some nice folks, e-mail me if you need references

Um CRego3D,

Revcom does not have a monthly fee. Unless you are talking about some other service?

David

Originally posted by UnitedTec
teck,

That's the problem. I didn't get a bad apple, I can't even get in touch with them. I think I'll try harbor-net in the morning.

maybe you got a bad apple day :)

just kidding.

let us know how harbor-net turns out

Also propay.com supposedly lets you sign up for a free merchant account with no monthly fees ... but they do have a cap of $1000 in sales a month

David

My mistaque .. I wrote monthly fees when I meant transaction fee's (discount plus transaction fee)

when i emailed revecom, support@paysystems.com, i once got a reply in 10 minutes. the longest it took was about 6 hours. other than that, they've been REALLY helpful with me

hi tech

you know what they say .. you only get to make a first good impression once .. maybe I caught up someone in a bad mood, or at the worng time, but once you treat me like S&*T .. well that's it for me, but I am happy that most people seem to be treated very good by them.

yeah, i know what you mean. i must have emailed them about 10 times, each was pretty good. on a scale of 1 - 10, i give 7.5 :)

Might I suggest ibill.com we have used them in the past and are now using them for our webhosting business.

I cant quote their fees since I dont have them at the top of my head at the moment, but how they work is simply this.
You put a form on your page, the button says, 24.95/mo hosting signup (or whatever you like : signup, or setup, or whatever), this button form links to their form, your form has your sites coding in it, they show the customer a page to fill out with the billing info, if the cc is approved (instant), they are shown a "webgood" page that you design, so perhaps you can put another form that they can fill out that when submitted to your server will auto setup an account or just have it emailed to you, whatever. If the cc is declined, they are not shown the "webgood" page and shown a rejection page.

Unless their fees are outrageous, I see no reason not to use them, weve used them in the past to sell programs that we have written, but again cant remember what their fees are, though I should remember since IM using them now, and will probably be shocked when I see my first check. That is assuming I ever get a paying client or two or three or 100!

Bbox

Originally posted by brainbox
Unless their fees are outrageous...

15% is up there, that's for sure. Plus a 10% reserve?

Well it's been a while now and I have to say I have no complaints with revecom yet. Everyone who's used it seems happy and no complaints with speed or accessibility. My only concern with it was before it went 'live' it was very slow. I emailed them and was told it was due to being on the 'test' server where they try to crash the system and run whatever. Sure enough once the account was approved things sped up nicely.

Found it a great system to run everything through from the hosting (obviously), to even using it for the design stuff now. Gives me an option to offer payment plans on site design and know they won't start missing payments later down the track. Just login to the control panel and set up a specific option for a client and then email them the link. As any webdesigner here knows hitting a client with a single time bill can scare the life out of them sometimes. *lol*

I suppose my only beef with them is the form page. Not a lot of customisation there, though uploading a logo helps as long as your site design is light colored. I don't think there's a similar system out there that gives a better option of changing the form though.

The $50 setup is cheap (and has already paid for itself). The transaction fees and % charges are low, lower than a lot of full merchant accounts I've seen, as well as other similar systems.

It's early days yet, but I'm still recommending revecom as *the* solution. Rest assured I'll keep everyone informed should my opinion of them change. :)

Greg Moore

I have been reading you all. I think a good merchant shouldnt mind paying a few bucks more to get a good service. http://www.Instabil.com sure has the best service of them all.

Guys explore Instabill. I am happy with them:)

P.J.

Originally posted by Peter Young
I have been reading you all. I think a good merchant shouldnt mind paying a few bucks more to get a good service. http://www.Instabil.com sure has the best service of them all.

Guys explore Instabill. I am happy with them:)

P.J.



I've written to them about one month ago and they replied only first time after that they didn't responded me, even when I have written them again 2 times.


[Edited by sergio on 01-09-2001 at 12:08 PM]