The same week Paysystems closed our accounts I had a baby, so I was unable to even begin looking for another credit card processor for about 2 weeks. That left me with only paypal to accept orders with in the meantime.

Needless to say, I have a lot of incomplete orders from people who didn't finish through paypal. I had hoped to get them to reorder their items once I was back online, but after sending them emails and a week has passed, I've realised that almost all of those customers have failed to reorder.

So i unfortunately came to the concluse that apparently they seemed like impulsive purchases that aren't likely to be replaced. That left me at a loss of revenue of over $1000 during that time, on top of the $1000 paysystems already owes me.

I know that may be chicken feed to some, but when you don't have a lot, it hurts all the same.

Just curious if anyone else out there has horror stories of lost business while they found another card processor?

Yes. Some of the cards didn't bill at all for various reasons. Some cancelled during the period.

So we lost all new sales during the period who wants to use CC, and we also lose some new sales.

Nothing intolerable though. But yes, it's not a situation we liked.

I dont think we lost any really.

We gave customers nearly a month of not paying while we sorted out a proper Merchant account and we also setup new orders without taking any payments.

We have just began the mamouth task of billing all existing and new customers for due fee's. ;)

^^^^ Always maintain a safe bank roll for rainy days.

I see some websites put 2 buying options from 2 different payment gateways. Do you guys think this is a good idea to safeguard us incase if one of the 3PP screw us, just like Paysystems?

Originally posted by cavalry
I see some websites put 2 buying options from 2 different payment gateways. Do you guys think this is a good idea to safeguard us incase if one of the 3PP screw us, just like Paysystems?

Yes. It never hurts to have choice. However. If your payment processor folds mid way through a payment cycle...you will still lose out although it is easier to stay in business.

Simon

Just get your own merchant account, the the only way it can all go tits up is if you yourself do something wrong!

The only message sent out from this whole paysystems thing is : GET YOUR OWN MERCHANT ACCOUNT.

Yup have to agree. (and so we did get our own merchant account)

We just finished billing all the dues (and most cleared except for 1 or 2) which really isn't much of a loss.

We communicate off our pants during the episode and that probably helped.

Did you use the excel dump from paysystems and bill yourself or did you send out payment links to your customers?

We decided to send out emails and links and ask customers to re-submit payment details. Its a longer approach (some of our customers take weeks to respond) but will make it clear of the changes and avoid chargebacks on our nice fresh merchant ;)

We used the Excel from Paysystems, and we communicated clearly what's going to happen. I did read about your payment links idea but that was after we had already done all the charges.

That said, as mentioned previously, we had communicated off our pants, and all clients are relatively well informed every stage of the process and we don't expect any issues of charge backs..

We also did have a few clients (the most recent one just a few minutes ago) who didn't really bother previously to evaluate their needs and due to the constant communication, did a check on their needs, and requested account downgrades.

However all in all, there's no real loss from it as we managed to catch up on the billing.

So far we haven't lost any business, but we have only been able to bill about 1/2 our clients... (the ones who agreed to use PayPal while we wait for our merchant account to be set up.)

It's 2 weeks now since we applied for a merchant account, and it's still not set up. Problem is that even though we are applying as a US citizen with a US bank account and EVERY required paperwork to prove authenticity... for some reason they want a US driver's license. As if that proves anything. :rolleyes:

Hopefully we'll hear back from them today sometime... as we are getting desperate and need to resolve this asap so we can bring our revenue back to full speed. paypal is decent enough, but in the meantime 1/2 our customers are not being billed... not good.

Yes. We were asked for everything, and we provided that to them. Driver license, bank account, address and all. Just provide what they ask and it will be quite smooth (took us 12 hours).

Ours was with our business bank (HSBC) so we didnt need to add much else in terms of ID - they even sent someone out to us to talk things over. ;)

Our transaction charge is about half that of paysystems too, and money is settled to our bank daily with no holdback or anything like that ;)

Originally posted by sprintserve
Yes. We were asked for everything, and we provided that to them. Driver license, bank account, address and all. Just provide what they ask and it will be quite smooth (took us 12 hours). The problem is that we don't have a US driver's license. We have everything else, including the documents required to get a US driver's license. US address, US bank account, US passport, US birth certificate, US bank records, previous processing history, etc....

It's silly that the bank would take so long just because of a lack of US driving license. Especially since we have all the paperwork necessary to get a license. :(

P.S. Can you tell im happy with our new merchant facility :)

Yes. And we are equally happy :) Yup. Our transaction rate is now less than half of what it used to be (42% to be exact)

We can also do offline credit card sales and all.

There's also a lot more flexibility when it comes to updating card details and all. We are also paid daily with just a 24-48 hours delay with no holdback.

In a way, Paysystems allow us all to "renegotiate" better terms for our business.