Hello everyone...


I am starting with hosting business and I spent the last few months only in searching for a payment processor company (or some company that accepts international merchant accounts). After weeks of reading various posts and reviews on WHT and ones found by Google, I finaly decided to incorporate an Ltd in the UK (I'm not from UK). First I wanted to open a Delaware based LLC, but UK is cheaper and I can open there a corporate bank account without any problems and sign up for a merchant account.

The reason I am writing this post is that few days ago I saw UniClear.com.

After reading their "users agreement", service's features and everything else they are offering, it seems to me like a much better (and cheaper for me) deal than opening of any merchant account!...
As there are just a few posts on WHT about them (stating only how good they are) I would like to ask their current customers to explain here their experince with Uniclear in more detail.

I have also several questions for current users of Uniclear:

1. I couldn't find anywhere on their site that they are actually accepting cc payment for merchants ("business account" holders or "SafePay payments" users; I don't know which would be appropriate for billing my customers). So, are they accepting major cc billing/invoicing?

2. On their index page they have "Co-branding" as a card feature. Does this mean that my company could have a branded debit card that they are offering with their account (simmilar to what epassaporte is offering)?

3. Are there ANY hidden fees? I couldn't find anywhere that they are holding some percentage of your money as an insurance; is this true?

4. Am I going to be able to offer my customers partial or full refund of their payment (I want to give "30 days money back guarantie; no questions asked" possibility to my customers)?

5. How long is authorisation and account approval process?


Thank you very much in advance.

Welcome to the forums petra!

A quick glance at their site and it looks like a P2P or like a Paymentpass situation (epassport as you mentioned).

I would assume that the co-branding is what you described. You need to find out though if they issue their own cards or if a bank does. if they issue the card - it should be simple to get the design approved. If a bank issues it - their might be some difficulties. It all depends on what it on the card - especially if it has the Visa / MasterCard logo on it

Thanks, Corey, for your answer and for the welcome...


I assumed the same about "co-branding", but it rarely happens that things in real life are similar to advertised one.
Are you using their services?

Anyway, I have forwarded the questions I have asked here to UniClear.com and to ePassport.com. I have also asked them for a permision to paste their answers here so everyone could see the differences and decide what is the most suitable solution for their needs.


I am still inviting everyone who uses either Uniclear or ePassport to describe their experience here...

Thanks.

No - we have used Payment pass in the past but I have never heard of Uniclear and I just was not impressed with ePassporte when I met with them.

ePassporte is geared more towards the Adult industry. Also, keep in mind that you will probably get more complaints than kudos on their services. An adult message board might prove more fruitful in getting some opinions.

So, I have received some answers from UniClear.com...

My question: If we start working with you, do we have to force our customers to sign-up with Uniclear before they can make a payment to us? Or it is possible for non-members to make a purchase of our services?

No they do not have to have a UniClear account. they can send funds directly to your account.


My question: I couldn't find anywhere on your site that you are actually accepting cc payment for merchants ("business account" holders or "SafePay payments" users; I don't know which would be appropriate for billing my customers). So, are you accepting major cc billing/invoicing and do you accepting other ways of money transfer for purchasing (like wire, eft, ...; any of our customers can wire their funds directly to us now, but it would be nice to have one central account for all the payments)?

We accept bank wires and direct deposits to our several banks. Yes we process credit cards (currently using Ecom Pay and PayPal with the gift certificate method). This is very useful to you since you don't need to get a merchant account. Also the credit card fees are charged to the customer and not to you so it costs you nothing. The customer pays only 4%.

I have asked few more questions later about this (possibility for direct payment by credit cards with no need for any kind of previous registration), and this is a detailed explanation:

Clients don't need to open Ecom-Pay accounts - only the merchant. The site is currently under construction, but you can manually register with them directly. As for requiring an account with a 3rd party (i.e. PayPal and such) this is done to protect all those involved. Whether credit card merchants like to admit it or not, credit card fraud and unwarrented chargebacks are a big problem.

This (direct payment, comment by petra) can not be done by UniClear directly. Credit card processor sites explicity forbid using their services to convert credit card "purchases"
directly into cash, which is what a UniClear funding would be. Using Ecom-Pay allows us to fund using a validly purchased product (namely the gift certificates).

Maybe you should also consider a great option, offered by Moneybookers or iKobo (I cannot remember at the moment which one), for a seller to choose the percentage of transfer fee which will be payed by the buyer (for example, buyer pays 50% and seller pays 50% of the total transaction fee).

Oddly, both sites you mention (Moneybookers and iKobo) require registration for the customer. This is becoming increasingly the norm, because direct credit card processing does little to protect the merchant. Using PayPal, for example, a merchant can qualify for "Seller Protection", which means that by providing PayPal with enough proof of purchase and delivery, the transaction cannot be reversed.

However, we know that Ecom-Pay is always adding new payment options to their gift certificate system (which helps protect the merchant by providing all the proof of purchase and delivery to the underlying payment system). We know that currently both Moneybookers and StormPay are being added.

The real advantage of the Ecom-Pay gift certificate is that you, the merchant, require no accounts with any of the payment systems supported by Ecom-Pay. All you need is an Ecom-Pay account, and a UniClear account. The details of how the gift certificate is purchased is irrelevant to you.

That aside, with regards to this specific question, UniClear's "Single Payment Interface" does allow the merchant to specify who pays the transaction fees. It does not currently provide a function for SPLITTING the fees.


My question: On your index page you have "Co-branding" as a card feature. Does this mean that my company could have a (co-)branded debit card that you are offering with an account (simmilar to what "epassporte.com" is offering)? If this is true, what is the cost?

Yes its possible. I will attach the programs for both co-branded and branded cards for you.

Applying for a co-branded card costs 7.500,00 CAN, and you get 750 cards initialy with this payment. For the details, you should contact them. Applying for a fully branded card costs 30.000,00 CAD and 5.000 cards are initialy included.


My question: Can we automaticaly open an account with you for our employees and issue them a debit card (co-branded for example, if there is such an option)?

Yes that is precisely what you can do. You can manage the entire system of funding cards directly yourself.


My question: Are there ANY hidden fees? I couldn't find anywhere that you are holding some percentage of money as an insurance; is this true?

Yes that is true. No withholding.


My question: Am I going to be able to offer my customers partial or full refund of their payment (I want to give "30 days money back guarantie" possibility to my customers)? Maybe to have an option that for all hosting packages we are offering, buyer's money is not transferred but reserved (locked) for some period of time, and after that we can proceed with transaction or cancel it.

Yes you can. I would suggest you instruct your clients to open a UniClear account for this and pay using the SafePay system. That transfers the funds from their UniClear account to yours but blocks it until the 30 days is up after which time if they are happy it will be released to you otherwise returned to their account.


My question: How long is authorisation and account approval process?

Within minutes of opening the account.


So, my conclusion is they are definitely worth of trying, but I would like to hear some of your comments...

Hello Petra,

We are one of the first ever Uniclear customers. Its a very useful system for transferring money around (free wire transfers anywhere in the world) - additionally, their debit cards are quite helpful. We actually wrote the Uniclear integration with H-Sphere and have been quite happy with its performance.

Its still a little limiting, as its difficult to transfer money from a credit card for example - however, from bank to uniclear and back to bank is awesome. Also, with the module we wrote - from hsphere (our hosting platform) to uniclear is quite straight forward (except our clients that utilize this are required to have a uniclear account)

Uniclear is definately worth trying - and their co-branded debit cards present ALOT of potential...

Hello CertikaHosting,


Thanks for sharing your experience with UniClear...

Can you explain a bit more in detail your experience with them and credit card payments? Are you using their Ecom Pay gateway (and can you please describe a payment procedure for a customer who wants to purchase something from you)?
Thank you in advance...

Hello Petra,

We use Uniclear in the following capacities:

1) we pay vendors via wire transfer from Uniclear with funds we deposit from our account
2) we accept payments via hsphere (our hosting control panel) for our services - we issue the invoices to our clients, they click the payment link and pay us via their uniclear account

Thanks
Andrew

OK Andrew, thanks for that info...