Hi folks,
When I started the hosting biz I thought it would be smart to put my customers on quarterly and annual billing cycles in order to lighten the work load.

I currently do not accept cc.

In researching processors I can across Echo.

I have visited echo's web site and got pretty excited after seeing their services and pricing.

I just got of the phone with them. They told me that i can not use their cc. processing service unless I bill monthly.

Does anyone know if this is the standard deal with most cc processors for hosting?

Does anyone have any ideas for a work around or solution for this?

I recently found out that echo is integrated with Modernbill as well and I was considering purchasing it.

It's to restrict CC fraud, as that tends to happen toward the end of the billing cycle; that's when fraudster/scammers will file a chargeback against you most likely. You can get around this, as I did, by accepting echeck payments for anything over one month--you are at a greatly decreased risk that way.

Take a look at www.revecom.com and www.2checkout.com. I am pretty sure they both allow different billing cycles. I chose Revecom because of the ability to make adjustments to the recurring billing accounts, custom fields on forms, and couple other reasons. 2checkout does have it's advantages though, such as real-time processing. And they dont take 5% for 90 days for charge back protection. Even with waiting for 90 days to get your 5%, we liked Revecom better. But, there are plenty of discussions in these forums about Revecom vs. 2Checkout.

Neofree

2checkout may process in real-time...but they only pay out twice a month, so that's negated. :( I was less-than-impressed with their application server downtimes as well (although I was told revecom had some downtime for a while there too).

they are both the same in that category

but the advantage of using services like these is they provide billing customer support, even by telephone, for you. they are decent solutions for starting out a business. once you get better then you would want to get a merchant account of your own. personally, i found revecom to be a little more professional looking and offered more features, but 2checkout had a few things that revecom did not.

neofree

We've used ECHO since 1997, and love them.

They don't allow you to bill yearly or quarterly because that's what MasterCard and Visa say in their agreement.

Their card holders will not get the protection that they require, otherwise.

I'd like for anyone who is taking visa and mastercard for prepaid yearly service that has read their merchant agreement to post their merchant agreement where it says that they can do that.

You should be able to get away with a one year contract where you can bill them the first and last month, but still bill them monthly.

Or just bill them the first month by credit card and have them send the rest by check.

Hi, apologize for not posting my thank you earlier. I have been as busy as two cats in a litter box. :D

So... thanks everyone you have been very helpful as usual.

I have been thinking about going with echo myself. I have talked to them at length about a few deferent topics and have been very helpfull.

to the people who use echo thanks it seems to me your very happy with them.
thanks again
Jamenjaw

i dont mean to sound like the dullest knife in the drawer, but what is the link to echo's web site?

sean

http://www.echo-inc.com

and http://www.openecho.com

Originally posted by Sean
i dont mean to sound like the dullest knife in the drawer, but what is the link to echo's web site?

sean


http://www.echo-inc.com

http://www.openecho.com

ISP Self-Service Program

i guess thats what i want.....? right?