posted on June 3, 2001 02:29:11 PM
Propay allows you to accept credit cards directly. You can use it for Online or B&M use. But fees are higher and that clearing house fee is tough unless you do large number of charges.
Joe B
posted on June 3, 2001 02:29:54 PM
dude
you have to get a merchant account just like any other business. Rules have probably changed some since I got mine but the best ones are thru the banks and you have to be a "real"business storefront,licencess ,business bank account ect they are also relectunt to issue to internet only business due to fruad potenial.
There are other 3rd party groups offering merchant accounts and they are less restrictive but you will pay higher rates. they also often require you to buy terminal from them at a exorbitant price
unless you are doing high volume you will find pay-pal rates to be very resonable
posted on June 3, 2001 02:58:16 PM
kidsfeet
what percetn of your gross cc sales do you pay your provider ?
not just the percent per sale but the total amount they collect of the gross?
posted on June 3, 2001 04:15:17 PM
I have an "internet only" merchant account, too. It's through a bank. The charge is 25 cents per transaction plus 2.39%. The monthly minimum is $25. That's it.
There's no monthly statement fee.
I paid a $149 application fee and the account was approved within 24 hours.
posted on June 3, 2001 05:02:33 PM
I have my account through a bank also. Merchant percentage is lower than Paypal also. I also accept Discover & American Express, both of which seem to be used the most by my customers.
My customers call me on the phone with their credit card information. I strongly discourage them giving that info in emails, either one or two - it just isn't secure.
I like having them call me, as I get a chance to actually talk to the customer and they like knowing they are dealing with an actual person.
I accept Paypal only for small purchases, as I did not want to upgrade, since I already had a merchant account with lower fees than Paypal.
I also have a website where if purchased through the website, you can give your credit card over a secure server.
posted on June 3, 2001 06:08:11 PM
As a merchant who accepted credit cards, I have read lots of articles about Internet fraud. I recently came across one but now I don't remember which it was, that surprised me. It said that though everyone warns you to never send your CC info via email, there has not been a single reported case of a CC "hijacked" via email. The hackers would have to sift through thousands of email packets hoping that one of them *might* be CC info. There are far easier ways for hackers to get this info. So I would guess that sending it in two emails would probably be safe. But to be even safer, I used to tell my customers to send two emails to two different email IDs. In the first they would send the first 8 numbers and 8 fake ones. In the second they would send 4 fake numbers, then the second 8 numbers and the month and year of expiration. It would take a real dedicated hacker to read every email in two different accounts of two different ISPs to put this all together.
I pay 2.45% of the amount charged, plus a .30 transaction fee to my merchant bank, and a .10 per transaction gateway fee to Authorize.net, my virtual terminal.
I have a minimum of $25.00 per month in fees (no problem there), and a $7.50 statement fee. There was a $149.99 application fee and I don't rent any equipment. It is done all through the computer.
For an example, last month I had approx $4,700.00 in cc sales and my total fees were approx $140.00 to my merchant provider and $21.00 or so to authorize.net.
So, it ends up being around 2.9%. BUT I have more control than with paypal, or any other third party payment service. I have had one chargeback attempt in the past year (my first, and it is still pending), and my merchant bank is bending over backwards to help me.
