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  1. #1

    Alternatives to paypal?

    recently I got screwed out of a decent amount of money.

    Anything similar out there?

    the system was great but their seller protection policy proved to be very weak.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
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    202
    Unfortunately you will find that sellers have very few protections. You may be able to gain more protection with the merchant account, the bank may fight the chargeback on your behalf. Unless you're a huge client, banks will offer you very little protection. Still, do a search on these forums for services such as 2checkout, paysystems & ikobo.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
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    3,729
    3rd party processors: 2checkout.com, worldpay.com, paysystems.com, ikobo.com

    Merchant accounts: cdgcommerce.com, merchantaccounts4less.com

    there are definitely more providers. take your pick, anyhow. =]
    Have you Floble'd today?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    1,016
    Depends on where you are located.
    When everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough — Mario Andretti, Racer

  5. #5
    PayPal also disappointed me badly, but if you have an account an need to transfer money to someone that is not in the PayPal's coverage you might use the new feature of iKobo. This feature allows to a PayPol's customer to transfer his balance account money to anybody in the iKobo’s coverage (170 countries, 220 regions) very easily by signing up to www.iKobo.com. So now it’s very easy to end the nightmare that you have with PayPal. I think iKobo is a good alternative; at least it worked for me.

  6. #6
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    Jul 2003
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    Castle Pines, CO
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    ikobo has done the same thing to some people: http://www.small-business-forum.com/...p?t=663&page=4

    Using a third party processor, you have much little recourse than having your own merchant account.

    I always have recommended with Paypal that when you get money into the account - you ask them to deposit it into your checking account that you set up specifically for them. And then you move it to another account.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Chicago
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    I've had pretty good luck with Ikobo, I've seen others who have complained but I've found the customer service pretty good.

    Only bad thing is you can not see a list of transactions from your VISA.
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  8. #8
    You can checkout MoneyBookers.com
    they seem to be pretty good.
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
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    MB processing fees are very low, one can convert payments into different currency, they offer also merchant gateway, and the number of the countries is by 15 or 20 more than in Paypal.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Los Angeles, Calif
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    92

    PayPal vs Merchant Accounts Cost Comparison

    Quickly compare rates between PayPal, Yahoo! PayDirect, 2Checkout, iBill, iKobo, Kagi, ClickBank, DigiBuy, VeriSign Payflow Pro® and Payflow Link® and other alternatives, including Merchant Accounts with the Maculator.

    The Maculator was created to help merchants compare rates and net monthly costs between 3rd party alternatives and regular merchant accounts for various levels of monthly sales dollars and numbers. Some of these alternatives have very complicated formulas that make it difficult to compare against others without an automated calculator like the Maculator.

    An addition to costs, I agree that there are other advantages to some of the more expensive alternatives. There are some customers, for example, that look down upon a vendor who only has PayPal or other alternatives to a real merchant account.

    Nonetheless, depending on where you are in your business development, once you know the costs of your alternatives, you can upgrade your business profile at the appropriate time.

    You can find the Maculator by searching through Google and other search engines.

  11. #11
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    Keep in mind that a few you mention are just payment gateways requiring a CC processor & some you mentioned are only CC processors requiring a payment gateway.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Los Angeles, Calif
    Posts
    92

    Question Payment Gateway Needed?

    In reply to coreybryant

    PayPal, Yahoo! PayDirect, 2Checkout, iBill, iKobo, Kagi, ClickBank, DigiBuy, VeriSign Payflow Pro® and Payflow Link® are all credit card processors that include their own connections or gateways. Only regular merchant accounts require payment gateways. None of these alternative 3rd party processors do. All you need, actually, is a website and a little html for your pay buttons which connect directly to the provider's connections.

    The main differences between these alternatives is that they have discount rates that vary from 2.2% to as much as 15%. The more expensive ones usually include marketing services with their packages. Some have better functioning shopping carts than others. Using the Maculator to compare monthly costs between them for different business volume scenarios, I was myself surprized to see that in most cases, Verisign Payflow Link® was cheaper even than PayPal.

  13. #13
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    Payflow is a gateway, you still need a processor to have a merchant account. It it not a third party processor.

    iBill is geared more to adult processors. You still need a gatway on the third party accounts, most are already included though.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Los Angeles, Calif
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    92

    Question

    The Verisign Payflo Pro website lists these services:

    Credit card and electronic check processing*

    Purchase cards Level 2 & 3 support (for supported processors)

    Toll-free telephone support 5:00am to 6:00pm PST Monday through Friday, (except VeriSign holidays)

    * To process electronic checks an account with Telecheck is required

    There is a setup fee of $249 and a monthly fee of $59.95. Over 1000 transactions you also pay $0.10 per transaction.

    You can easily find this information on the Verisign website and you can also link to it from the Maculator when you select Verisign Payflo Pro or Link as one of the comparison alternatives.

  15. #15
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    Jul 2003
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    Castle Pines, CO
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    It is a common misconception. And actually Telecheck does not do internet accounts, they are only brick & mortar account. Gateway websites are very confusing.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Chesapeake, VA
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    You do indeed still need a merchant account to use Verisign's Payflow system. It is only a payment gateway and nothing more.

    It is also far more expensive than Authorize.Net and other gateways and it doesn't really provide any substantive benefit over these other options.

    The monthly Verisign gateway fee itself is more expensive than the TOTAL cost of many Merchant Account & Gateway COMBO packages just by itself.

    There is one other thing to keep in mind... the "value" of any payment solution is far more than just the financial cost. You also need to take into account such as the way risk management issues are handled and the level and responsiveness of the customer & technical & merchant support provided.

    Just as you wouldn't hire a doctor to perform a heart surgery based only on who has the lowest co-pay but rather who has the most experience and the best track record, a payment processing solution should be approached in a similar manner.
    CDGcommerce.com - Trusted Merchant Account Solutions since 1998
    Many thousands of successful, growing businesses benefit from our expertise every day. You can, too!
    We help merchants to eliminate gateway costs, reduce & mitigate fraud and achieve streamlined PCI compliance.
    Learn more today at http://www.cdgcommerce.com - we look forward to helping your business grow!

  17. #17
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    Jul 2003
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    Castle Pines, CO
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    Thanks Chris. I almost got to think that I was selling another cc processor When you have someone that is pretty adamant about what is what, you have think twice about it but I knew I was 99% sure Payflow was a gateway

    The only benefit I see if the name. Sure Verisign has been around for awhile, but the monthly charge of $35.00 for the Payflow Pro does seem to be outrageous. But then again, that is what some people like.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
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    44

    The benefit ain't the name! It's the fraud protection

    [i]The only benefit I see if the name. Sure Verisign has been around for awhile, but the monthly charge of $35.00 for the Payflow Pro does seem to be outrageous. But then again, that is what some people like. [/B]
    Where did you see $35/mo? It's $59 a month direct, or $29 a month through certain ISOs like Wells and TMS.

    The biggest benefit is certainly not the name. Verisign isn't such a great corporation. They've soiled it by being shifty in their certificate business.

    The biggest benefit of Payflow Pro, in reality, is the fraud protection, and fraud monitoring -- levels to which no other gateway offer.

    I've worked for a lot of online companies, and have one of my own now, so I have some hands on experience I can share...

    Authorize.net has FraudScreen, which likes to change ranges on you. It's based on a good database -- Falcon's (now Fair Isaacs) Falcon system. Too bad it's implemented schizophrenically. You can get results from 300-800 one week, and from 1-12 another. Worthless. And authorize.net itself is a less than honest organization. Authorize.net will double the amount of chargebacks get you through their *own* stupid mistakes, which they will never ever fix, because they will never admit to them or even consider the possibility that their system did something wrong. (don't just take my word for it, they even get 1 star on epinions.com!) To them, their buggy system is perfect, 100% of the time, period. The amount of finger pointing they do when something goes wrong should be punished ... criminally!

    Linkpoint has the nonexistant LinkShield system. It's advertised, but simply doesn't exist yet. Nor will linkpoint work yet with 3d systems like Verified by visa or Mastercode (and when they do implement, it won't be seamless -- they require you to edit your cart with some code) Linkpoint anti-fraud measures are all just vaporware right now -- immensely dangerous for anyone selling online. When linkpoint adds the security features in in the upcoming months, they may be one of the best gateways.

    Linkpoint also seems like a much nicer system so far than Authorize.net in other areas... like reliability, and basic honesty of staff. You can also see transaction results for AVS and CVV2 at a glance when reviewing transactions. Much easier than authorize.net.

    With Verisign, you get anti-fraud controls up the ying yang. Right now. They cost you a little, but you can save a lot, and prevent problems with your merchant account. By keep fraud and chargebacks low, you can a) focus on your business, not on your merchant account, b) stay in business, c) grow your business!, and d) avoid withheld amounts from your merch account (who'll hold $10k-$300k of your money at a moment's notice when you one too many chargebacks), and e) even negotiate ever decreasing credit card processing rates. Verisign's anti-fraud services make that a reality right now (and hopefully linkpoint will do that soon, too).

    Verisign anti-fraud services:
    http://www.verisign.com/products/pay...rotection.html

    You can get advanced for $50 a month and get all kinds of and checks done on the buyer.

    http://www.verisign.com/products/pay.../advanced.html

    Then, the best part yet, for $20 a month you can have verisign actually monitor your account for you.

    http://www.verisign.com/products/pay...onitoring.html

    They actually monitor your account suspicious transactions themselves, then research funky ones for you, to see if they're legitimate or not. That saves you from having to check each trans inside and out yourself, or hire someone to do it. That $70 a month is about what you'd pay someone a day to do this. Sadly, Linkpoint doesn't even have an equivolent planned, nevermind offer it now.

    For companies like the ones I've worked with, as well mine, who do more than $30k a month, it's more than worth it. And for a host that doesn't get a signature, and has nothing to ship (and thus no signature for delivery, either), the more anti-fraud measures, the better. Otherwise, say hello to reserves, high transaction costs, and perhaps getting your account shut down and your business MATCHed.

  19. #19
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    Actually LinkPoint does work with Verified by Visa now. Of course when you add some extra value to any gateway - you will need to update the system. You have to pass that variable some way or another. They will implement LinkPoint gateway version 3.5 hopefuly the end of this month. But the California DMV BETA tested 3.0 gateway before it went live about a 6 weeks ago.

    As far as the price - that is what some resellers offer the Verisign gateway for if you purchase thru them instead of Verisign.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
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    44
    Originally posted by coreybryant
    Actually LinkPoint does work with Verified by Visa now. Of course when you add some extra value to any gateway - you will need to update the system. You have to pass that variable some way or another. They will implement LinkPoint gateway version 3.5 hopefuly the end of this month. But the California DMV BETA tested 3.0 gateway before it went live about a 6 weeks ago.
    Interesting. I was told May 15 or so for Linkpoint VBV by LinkPoint support, unless you're a beta tester. They could be underinformed, though. Most support and sales people I talked to were completely oblivious to the coming of LinkShield, for instance.

    Anyway, you definitely don't need to pass a variable from your shopping cart for each and every transaction for VBV or Mastercode. It's just a code to tell it 'see if vbv works for this transaction'. That's a rather silly thing to absolutely require. You could just tell LP in it's config to do VBV or Mastercode for any transaction that goes through the entire where it's possible. It's a good macro level variable.

    That's what Verisign does. That way, you don't need to change your shopping cart.

    It's not like passing an address or some other truly variable variable. Most people who want to use the system, want it used all the time.

    You could still keep the Linkpoint per transaction variable, for when you want to override. But it sure is nice having a gateway wide setting -- once again, so you needn't modify your shopping cart.

    One cart that I use, I simply can't change, since it's a hosted payment solution. So with Linkpoint's setup, that little Verified by Visa box will never popup. With the same cart and Verisign, it will popup if the card holder is a Verified member. I like that.

    If Linkpoint adds a macro setting for VBV and Mastercode to make it's integration completely seamless and activates in Linkshield (which can incorporate 2 scores - Falcon and ClearCommerce), it's going to be quite an awesome gateway. Add in staff monitoring like Verisign has, too, and both will be on par for the best in fraud prevention -- except that Linkpoint would be the better value if they keep pricing where it is.

    Speaking of pricing, any idea what the pricing for VBV/MC is with LP? And what the pricing will be for LinkShield?

  21. #21
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    Jul 2003
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    Castle Pines, CO
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    We have talked about it before - I volunteered to help some but no one came up with too much. VanHost does have an excellent merchant account comparison with a few third party alternatives.

    if you are going to include ibill (mainly for adult / high risk) I do not know if you want more adult processors or not?
    http://www.avpsolutions.com/ (I think they are adult)http://www.ccbill.com/
    http://www.payquake.com (I think regualr payments - but their site was down this morning)

    These were just a few - if you want more I am sure that myself & others can think of more

  22. #22

    Question

    We looked for a good alternative to paypal and used these people :: .2checkout.com
    Kind regards

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Colorado
    Posts
    95
    I have to say that Verisign PayFlow does have some advantages....

    We've used them for a few years, we wrote our own custom data gathering system to submit to their gateway, but we've never had any problems with the servers going down, balance not being deposited, etc.

    And we've run thousands of transactions through them.

    But is all of that worth the price? Not for everyone, you can come pretty close to the same level of service for much less.
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  24. #24
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Sydney Australia
    Posts
    3
    Hey Raycruzer, the maculator looks like it's going to be useful to me, but the minimum number of transactions in one month appears to be 50, though at the bottom end with the $ turnover you have quite low figures and that's great for us just starting up with a "cottage" industry.

    My items are relatively high value, and I'm looking at say 8 -10 transactions per month of approx $200 each. Pretending that I have 50 transactions of $40 each is obviously not the same in terms of cost per transaction, etc!!

    Is the maculator yours, or can you get it modified?

    I suggest that you bring the number of transactions per month right down to 1 for high value items, then 2, 3, etc up to 10 then maybe 15, 20, 30 , 40 and follow on with the drop down items that you have.

    Thanks from the other side of the planet, mate!!!!!

    ROB

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
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    Castle Pines, CO
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    Actually the Verisign gateway is pretyt cheap if you think about it. You can get it for about $30 a month with 500 free transactions. So that can save you about $125 a month

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