Hi,

After taking more than a week to do serious research on the right companies to process credit card payment, I was quite disappointed with the outcome. There are limited choices available. Luckily I have been able to use Paypal as my main payment gateway. But there are non-Paypal users that I wish to do business. After some research, my options are as follows:

1. www.2checkout.com => VISA & MASTER charge 5.5%.

2. www.ikobo.com => VISA only charge 2.99% with convenient ATM card to withdraw money. I wish they accept MASTER as well.

3.... can't find other suitable company to list or not even existed.

Anyway the above are the choices available to me. I hope others can recommend more that I am not aware of.:confused:

Thank you.

Here are some 3rd party credit card processing cmpanies that I think are reliable:

(1) If you are selling tangible products, ccnow is one of the options.
Ccnow monthly fee is something like USD 12.00, discount rate is around 11-12%, you need to check out their website for more detail. Ccnow based in the US.

(2) If you are selling either tangible or intangible products, you can consider Worldpay. But Worldpay is quite expensive on their
annual fee, they might require 1-2 months of reserve fund from your monthly turnover. UK based company, owned by Scotland bank.

(3) I heard moneybookers is not bad, no monthly or annual fees, 8% discount rate, they accept tangible or intangible products. But you need to get a shopping cart to integrate with their credit card payment system if you carry multiple items, Oscommerce is one of the shopping cart solutions. UK based company.

(4) I am using stormpay as secondary credit card processor, they are okay so far.

There are two more here, but I have no idea at all how good they are: http://www.cdgcommerce.com/
http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com/promo/wht.asp

Good luck!!

We use Netbilling.com and I was told they have an international solution. We are very pleased with their services.

I just visited netbilling.com, I do not think they provide 3rd party credit card payment processing service; their web site has many dead links!

Hi

Yes. There are quite a number of CC processing services available if you are willing to pay for the high rates. Ofcourse, I am not thinking of getting good rates as compare to US residents who pay about 2.3%-2.9%. Atleast to get resonable rate like below 5% with VISA & MASTER at my disposure.

This will be very competitive to our US counterparts. Don't you think so....

Optic Clear,

For 2.3% to 2.9% discount rate, you must be talking about merchant account; but not 3rd party credit card processors..!!

Oh..I forgot another 3rd party credit card processor, ccavenue.com, Indian based comapny, but they charge USD 60.00 annual fee, and 7% discount rate, wire tranfer fee is USD 10.00, 5% reserve funds hold up to 180 days...

so what is better for webhosting company?
2checkout?

2checkout has late payment issues recently..check out the threads in this forum.

Hi Cavalry

Can you enlighten me the differences between merchant account and 3rd party credit card processor? What are the good and bad points. Thanks.

Optic Clear,

I am not an expert in this area to explain the difference in between merchant account and 3rd party credit card processors.
But I can briefly explain them here:

(1) To get a merchant account - first of all, you have to have big enough monthly sales turnover, something like USD 5,000 per month. You will deal directly with the merchant account providers, like banks. You have to pay monthly statemant fee like USD 35.00, but your discount rate is lower than 3rd party credit card processors. In short, your money will be secured, and you get low discount rate with a merchant account. A security deposit is required too.

(2) For 3rd party cedit card processors like ccnow, paypal, ccavenue, 2checkout, stormpay, ikobo, moneybookers, worldpay and etc, they are like middlemen in between us and the merchant account providers, they make profits to charge us high discount rate to minus the low rate they get from the merchant account providers. In short, they use their merchant account to process the credit card payments on behalf of us. One of the disadvantages for us is: our money might not be secured with
them. Some 3rd party credit card processors even run merchants' money away, good exmaples like:
(1) paysystems
(2) pay-line
And lately there are some 3rd party processors delay on payment to merchants, like:
(1) Volpay
(1) ibill

I have to use 3rd party processor because my sales turnover is not good enough to qualify for merchant account.

Hope this help!!

Hi Cavalry

Thanks. Your explaination is very enlightening. May I know what 3rd party CC processor you are using? As I am looking for one besides Paypal. Thanks.

You missed some of the best:

worldpay.co.uk by natwest

and

epdq.co.uk by barclays

both not free to join, but very good non the less.

Thank you Kattouf,

Worldpay and epdq are like BMW to me; I love BMW but they are too expensive for me!!

Hi

Does stormpay require cutomers to first register in order to pay by credit card? Are they the same as Paypal that treats international merchants?

I rate worldpay.com very highly. Although the setup fee £300 can seem fairly high (Depending on the options you choose).
Its easy to use.

I would stay away from 2Checkout, if you want to be paid in your own currency by wire transfer you get an awful exchange rate and cheques in USD are very slow to arrive.

Originally posted by Optic Clear
Hi Cavalry

Thanks. Your explaination is very enlightening. May I know what 3rd party CC processor you are using? As I am looking for one besides Paypal. Thanks.

Hi Optic Clear,

I am using ikobo. Let me share with you about my analysis about ikobo. I know ikobo reputation is not that good, but I can withdraw my money from the ikard anytime. I believe I am one of the persons in the forum who has complained ikobo a lot; but I have to make myself to accept them at this moment.

Look at this, Paysystems, Pay-line disappered with merchant's money (merchants are like us who selling things on the net), Volpay, 2CO, ibill and payingez have delayed payments to merchants, paypal is notorious of frozen merchants money..!

We have to think what is the most important thing to us in running our e-business? In my mind, that is the security of our hard-earned money.

I just withdrew USD 260.00 with my ikard from the ATM machine this morning, and I have only USD 2.00 left in my ikobo account.
In my personal opinion, I do not think ikobo will run away with our money since we have the ikard. Furthermore, even if ikobo wants to do something bad like what paysystems did, but they can't run away too much with my money, because I will withdraw each time when I reach USD 260.00 available fund in my ikobo account.

Now talking about ikobo terrible services, I can tell ikobo people do not have any past professional experience in handling credit card processing business, I think they just pick up this experience all by themselves. When they come to run this international business, we are expecting their professinalism, once they do not meet our expectations, they look bad to us.

Another reason I have to use ikobo because I have no other alternatives. However, I am still trying hard to look for other reliable 3rd party cedit card processors.

Good luck!

Optic Clear,

I am not thinking of getting good rates as compare to US residents who pay about 2.3%-2.9%. Atleast to get resonable rate like below 5% with VISA & MASTER at my disposure.

The rate ranges of 2% you mentioned are for processing with a merchant account as calvary explained.

The 5% range for visa and mastercard are very reasonable for 3rd party processing depending on the type of products you offer.

Look at this, Paysystems, Pay-line disappered with merchant's money (merchants are like us who selling things on the net), Volpay, 2CO, ibill and payingez have delayed payments to merchants, paypal is notorious of frozen merchants money..!

Nice statement.

If you want to shill for ikobo, that's not a problem.... but if you are going to make statements about other companies, be accurate.

2CO has not delayed payments to merchants in ANY WAY.

2CO has not delayed a vendor payment since early last spring, and that was a bank gateway issue, not a 2CO issue.

worldpay and epdq are both real merchant accounts, not third party. We use Worldpay and are very happy.

You might have a look at forcetronix.com. I don't have any experience with them and cannot recommend them one way or another, but I seem to remember reading that they're not too expensive.

Hi Cavalry

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I think ikobo.com deserve some serious consideration. Unlike other CC 3rd processors, ikobo is quite considerate and they are willing to do extra steps to ensure merchants like us can withdraw our hard earn money from local ATM by using ikard card. This shows that they do not wish to keep our money for "something else " and even if anything happen to them our loss is minimum.

Anyway we have to be ALERT, this is what I keep telling myself.
I think the only downside is ikobo only accepts VISA and no MASTER card. I wish they had VISA & MASTER to solve my problems.

Hi Newmarket,

Yes worldpay is expensive with high setup fee, annual fee and rates. I approached them in the beginning of the year. the person in-charge told me once the transaction is done, the money would be remitted in 4 to 6 weeks ????? He even told me that once the money is remitted to me, you will have stable flow of money remitting back every month and you will not know the difference. That means I will not receive my money until 6 weeks later. Can anyone of you accept this..... I don't.:angry:

Originally posted by TomD
Nice statement.

If you want to shill for ikobo, that's not a problem.... but if you are going to make statements about other companies, be accurate.

I am not the shillaber of ikobo, I am just an ikobo user. I just share my experience with your guys about ikobo, nothing else.

If you want to know how did I talk about ikobo? Check out below two links:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=329207

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=351278

If I made a wrong statemant of other companies, then I am sorry.


2CO has not delayed payments to merchants in ANY WAY.

2CO has not delayed a vendor payment since early last spring, and that was a bank gateway issue, not a 2CO issue.

I think you should post your explanation to calrify yourself on below thread rather than here:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=354168&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

All the best

Originally posted by Optic Clear
Hi

Does stormpay require cutomers to first register in order to pay by credit card? Are they the same as Paypal that treats international merchants?

Yes, Stormpay will require customers to register with their email addresses, free email addresses like yahoo and hotmail are accepted.

cavalry,

20,000 payments totalling aprox. $7 million dollars US are set out every 2 weeks by 2CO. This is in addition to the weekly payments some vendors receive.

Do some wires get "lost in transit" and need to be reissued? Yes--surprisingly few.

If 2CO was not sending payments, you would see far more than a handful of people making posts. (and trust me, I don't 'minimize' those that have payment problems)

Are you a shill? Absolutely.

btw... ask yourself why ikobo leaves the same testimonials up on their front page, even though the 1st one is not an active site & the 2nd one doesn't show any buy links.

Interesting ikobo reading:

http://www.adamwebdesign.ca/articles

Originally posted by TomD
cavalry,

20,000 payments totalling aprox. $7 million dollars US are set out every 2 weeks by 2CO. This is in addition to the weekly payments some vendors receive.

Do some wires get "lost in transit" and need to be reissued? Yes--surprisingly few.

If 2CO was not sending payments, you would see far more than a handful of people making posts. (and trust me, I don't 'minimize' those that have payment problems)

You have done a good job. I have never said 2CO is not sending payments, I just mentioned 2CO delay in sending payments. But this has nothing to do with me.

Why don't you talk to your customers?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=354168


Are you a shill? Absolutely.)
Whatever you like to say! No problem at all!


btw... ask yourself why ikobo leaves the same testimonials up on their front page, even though the 1st one is not an active site & the 2nd one doesn't show any buy links.

No idea. I do not want to get involved in this,
this is the competition between you and ikobo.



Interesting ikobo reading:

http://www.adamwebdesign.ca/articles

Thank you. I've seen this before.

Here is your direct quote:

Look at this, Paysystems, Pay-line disappered with merchant's money (merchants are like us who selling things on the net), Volpay, 2CO, ibill and payingez have delayed payments to merchants, paypal is notorious of frozen merchants money..!
We haven't "delayed payments". Your statement is false. We have sent payments at the end of EVERY payment period.


Why don't you talk to your customers?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showt...threadid=354168
This is the WebHostTalk forum, not a 2CO support page. The ticket system, and our Call Center are available for support issues.


Thank you. I've seen this before.
Dismissed out of hand?
not suprising!!


No idea. I do not want to get involved in this,
this is the competition between you and ikobo.
There is no competition between 2CO and ikobo. You've made references to both in numerous posts, so why wouldn't you comment?

It is very unusual that you now don't want to "get involved" in a discussion that you started. Anyone on this forum can search the archives here by a poster's name. I know I did, and found some interesting results!!

There is no competition between 2CO and ikobo. You've made references to both in numerous posts, so why wouldn't you comment?

Comment about what?
I got 2CO sending late payments information from this thread:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=354168

All I know is I can use ikobo ikard to withdraw my money easily from local ATM machine in few seconds. Period!
The drawback is ikobo only accepts Visa at this time.


It is very unusual that you now don't want to "get involved" in a discussion that you started. Anyone on this forum can search the archives here by a poster's name. I know I did, and found some interesting results!!

Discuss about what?
You already made 2CO clear that 2CO has sent payments on time to merchants, right? I think all of us understand your English.

I already said sorry in the first place, what else do you want to discuss about? Give me a break!!

If you really want to further discuss and have nothing to do, I still suggest you to discuss your wire transfer issues with your 2CO customers, if you have the guts:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=354168

There is a big difference between what you stated:
Look at this, Paysystems, Pay-line disappered with merchant's money (merchants are like us who selling things on the net), Volpay, 2CO, ibill and payingez have delayed payments to merchants, paypal is notorious of frozen merchants money..!
...and someone commenting that they didn't receive their payment.

Your statement "have delayed payments to merchants" is an outright lie. 2CO did not delay payments. They were sent as usual.

from the other thread:
on november-24-04 2checkout sent me a wire transfer (as written inside my control panel) however today i didn't recive that transfer...

and
I have also a problem with the wire transfer from December 16th, it is 27th now the funds are not yet here. Their support told me that they cannot open an investiogation until 10 business days have passed.
Payments were NOT "delayed" in any way.

In both cases comments are that funds were sent, but not received. In the 2nd case, the funds were lost within the Vendor's own bank.

If you aren't prepared to make honest, accurate comments, when discussing the business practises of another company, maybe you should consider posting nothing at all.

Oh Yeah..is that right?

Then why don't you post your answer on below thread?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showt...threadid=354168

Face your customers if you dare..!

ikobo is great, dont you feel 2co must setup accounts for free like ikobo does.

Originally posted by cavalry
Oh Yeah..is that right?

Then why don't you post your answer on below thread?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showt...threadid=354168

Face your customers if you dare..!

cavalry,
Your posts get more and more childish.
I explained previously that WHT is not a 2CO support venue.

Both vendors have been in contact with 2CO thruout the process, and both situations have been resolved.

Note also, in both cases, the wires were sent and received by the vendor's bank -- and then there were problems... in neither case was "payment delayed" as you claimed.


Originally posted by kelvinklay
ikobo is great, dont you feel 2co must setup accounts for free like ikobo does.

kelvinklay,
Absolutely not. We are quite hapy with out business model & our pricing structure. The fact that revenues (sales) have almost doubled for every year that 2CO has been in business gives us confidence that we are priced correctly.
60-80 new accounts per day
15,000+ transactions a day

TomD,

Your posts are getting more and more ridiculous.

I am not your 2CO customer. You do not have to explain your
2CO situation to me.

If you are doing things right, then what are you worrying about?

It seems you are too free and have nothing to do; if I were you,
I would email to all your 2CO customers and explain to them about your wire transfer problems.

Here are your customers:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=354168

The first time your called me a snill of ikobo.
Second time you called me a lier.
This time you say I am childish...

Your terrible altitude just make me sick..!! :angry:

Please do not forget you are represnting 2CO to talk to us in this forum. Everything you say will reflect 2CO company reputation and corporate culture. Take care!

TOMD.

After enduring 2Co for 2 years 2002/2003 that finally ended up with the BBB of the USA chasing your finance dept., for our money that 2CO illegally withheld for many months,does make your previous statements seem slightly implausible. There again the antics of 2Co in your International wiring dept were amazingly amateurish and unbelievable all round.
Yes,2CO were EXCELLENT at showing the money had left our account,I will grant you that,but left for where???? that was the problem.

You may have got your act together by now, and I certainly hope so for all your Vendors sakes -- it definitely was long overdue.

WE never ever thought that 2CO were dishonest though, they were (note the past tense) just incompetent.

FYI..**The Best Internet Merchant Accounts in GB are the Barclays ones,known as EPDQ www.epdq.co.uk
They, however are not cheap, but they charge no annual fee like Worldpay or need a large deposit form reputable online businesses.

In defence of 2CO their fees are pretty fair and reasonable but their service:bawling: I would prefer to completely forget.

Originally posted by amos462001
TOMD.

After enduring 2Co for 2 years 2002/2003 that finally ended up with the BBB of the USA chasing your finance dept., for our money that 2CO illegally withheld for many months,does make your previous statements seem slightly implausible. There again the antics of 2Co in your International wiring dept were amazingly amateurish and unbelievable all round.
Yes,2CO were EXCELLENT at showing the money had left our account,I will grant you that,but left for where???? that was the problem.

You may have got your act together by now, and I certainly hope so for all your Vendors sakes -- it definitely was long overdue.

WE never ever thought that 2CO were dishonest though, they were (note the past tense) just incompetent.

FYI..**The Best Internet Merchant Accounts in GB are the Barclays ones,known as EPDQ www.epdq.co.uk
They, however are not cheap, but they charge no annual fee like Worldpay or need a large deposit form reputable online businesses.

In defence of 2CO their fees are pretty fair and reasonable but their service:bawling: I would prefer to completely forget.

Since you wish to discuss your case publically Amos.

Your bank returned funds to us, claiming you did not have an account with them. They also withheld $52.90 from the funds, and, of course, our bank added an additional service charge.

8-18 - missing sort code (voided 8-26)
8-26 - invalid banking details (voided 9-05)
9-02 fund returns per bank on 9-9 (voided 9-26)

3 different payments, all sent. There was never an issue with paying you. The BBB did not speed the process. It takes time to correct banking errors -- especially when errors happen overseas

We have far differing opinions on where the "problems" began. No one "illegally" withheld your funds.

I am glad you are happy with your current processing solution :)

Note: Upon looking at your account, there is a small balance. I'll have someone from payments contact you.

Tom you know nothing about GB banking so don't make yourself look any more foolish or bad tempered as you have already done so.You know that Barclays is one of the Worlds Top banks and if you did not then it is about time you did.
I could say a lot more Tom and tell the folks about how you really are in 2CO but I have decided to hold my tongue here.Suffice it is to say that everyone knows your wiring dept ALWAYS lose the info on the GB sort codes, as you well know,in fact if this is not so why did your secretary apologise so many times for your inadequacies? She actually apologised on your behalf,so don't try that with me.
We have been with BARCLAYS bank in Great Britain where they have held 6 accounts in our name for over 30 years-- SO sorry Tom this is fact not fancy.The BBB of Ohio were pretty scathing about you all back there in 2CO, would you like me to post some of their messages on this forum???
Grow up Man,act your age, and be counted with that dismal firm you run as a failure.

Originally posted by cavalry

Look at this, Paysystems, Pay-line disappered with merchant's money (merchants are like us who selling things on the net), Volpay, 2CO, ibill and payingez have delayed payments to merchants, paypal is notorious of frozen merchants money..!


I got the information from below threads, I did not make the stories by myself. You make your own judgment to see if they
are accurate.

Paysystems
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=341876

Pay-line
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=280162&highlight=payline

Volpay
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=338739

2Checkout
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=354168

iBill
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=357606
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=325861

Payingez
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=324219&highlight=payingez

Paypal
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=335296&highlight=payline
http://www.paypalsucks.com

Another one is called something like "ekessie", sorry I can't recall the correct name, they also disappeared with merchant money.

Happy New Year 2005 to everybody!

Hi Cavalry

What about ikobo.com? Do they have such similar problems?
Is ikobo.com healthy?

Thanks.

Hi Optic Clear,

Please go to below thread to read my answers to your questions:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=2752119#post2752119

The above thread has more ikobo users that can give you more opinions about ikobo, furthermore they can correct me if I am wrong. I cannot afford to mislead you. Thank you!

I am using 2co since 2002. They do have their problems (as I am sure every payment provider has their own problems), but I can tell you that they were never late on payments. In about that 120 weeks I received about 60 wire transfers and I do not remember one single case when my payment was delayed (I always got the money in less than 3-4 days, most of the time in less than 2 days, hopefully on Monday, 3rd January, I will have my first payment in 2005 from 2co on my bank account... :)).
Just make sure you keep accurate bank information and you should be OK.

Well bully for you,you must be the only one in the World!:rolleyes:

We have also received all of our payments on time from 2CO.

Not that I now use that as the main gauge of a great 3rd party processor, given that PaySystems also sent all of our payments on time, up until they closed all their third party accounts and stole a few thousand dollars of our money.

It's a fairly simple procedure. Research your processor, manage your risks, and don't have at risk more than you can afford to lose. We currently like 2CO, it's going well. We're making some money, they're making some money, but as soon as our risk becomes more than the benefits we gain from using a third party processor (of which their are quite a few for a small business) we'll move onto our own merchant account. That's not a cheap or pain-free process though.

Has their customer support been amazing? No. Has it been more than acceptable (for us)? Yes. They've dealt with the vast majority of issues promptly, and those they haven't dealt with promptly on the first attempt, they've dealt with promptly when nudged.

Could the same thing happen to 2CO as happened to PaySystems? Of course. I don't think that the risks of that happening are nearly as high though, given their size.