Preserved Topic: Credit Card Transaction, anybody knows?

Hi!! I have a spanish page that pretend to sales National Handcraft; i have my shopping cart done, and i want to accept credit cards. There´s a company that only makes the transaction for me? i mean, that only when the customers says "buy" the go to that page to do all the credit card stuff, and then they send me the money, or wathever.......

Thanx for collaborating with the National Handcraft.......

Yeah i would like to know about this also...

This is a more complicated issue than it might appear at first. One of the biggest legal hassles is that YOU CAN'T CHARGE THE CARD UNTIL YOU SHIP THE PRODUCT! Now, if you're selling software or access to a website, something that can be delivered in the virtual world, right away, then you can charge their card in real-time. If not, all you can do is check their balance to see if they have enough money *now*, and then 1-2-3 days later when you actually ship, *then* you can try and charge the card and hope they still have the money!

Unles you're expecting to be totally swaped with orders, ie: the most opular product of all time! You might be better off just getting youself space on a secure server (your host probably has this option) and then doing your credit card transactions there, saving and/or mailing the number to you for processing later. Take as many opportunities to cover your ass as psossible, encrypt everything, and better if you don't save all the numbers, get rid of them as soon as you don't need 'em anymore, safer in terms of legal risk, heh.

Your pal, -doc-

So the over all recomendation is to use the e-commerce options available by your host?

Hmm, not quite so clear-cut as all that. If your volume is low, all you need is an SSI server that can send you the credit info securely. Then you use the telephone to process the cards when the product ships. This is if you're shipping the products yourself, cool? If you get somebody else to do it, they are acting as a "Fulfillment Center", and they could/should have their own methods of processing such things. Frequently, all they want is a list of numbers and/or orders, generated in a certain format so that their database applications can send a batch processed job to VISAnet or one of the other credit card networks. If you want, many of the places that can help you get a merchant account (necessary for processing CCs!) also offer integration into your website. Here's a few... http://www.cardservicesouthcounty.com/ http://www.mktmkt.com/
...

(I'm at work, I'll see tonight about adding more to this list later.)



[This message has been edited by DocOzone (edited 01-16-2001).]

Just a small correction to the post above. It should be SSL (not SSI), which means Secure Socket Layer.



[This message has been edited by mr.maX (edited 01-15-2001).]

Hmm? That was too strange! I am DocOzone, and I wrote that post! Hmm, I was testing some settings, and had fixed the spelling of Drakkis's name in the database, seems my cookie must have been set to say that I am him. Any misinformation posted in that above post is by me, I must have SSI on the brain! Heh. With the exception of the mis-spelled acronym, I still stand by the info posted.

Your pal, -doc-

Well Doc, you should fix that post so that it shows your name, just to avoid confusion...

mr.maX

Which post was it that messed up? The third one from the top?

I got checked some pages, and i found intresting http://www.2checkout.com they make all the transactions, what do you think?




Edit: Thanx for helping, Doc - alias Drakis-

[This message has been edited by Wakkos (edited 01-16-2001).]

Nope, that was the 5th from the top, claimed to be from ... (whoop! almost did it again.) ... I doubt I'll go to the hassle of editing that post, there's no convenient tool for fixing something as basic as "who posted that", I'd have to go into the text files and risk screwing something up, hardly worth the risk! Yah, 2checkout looked OK to me, there's dozens of companies like this, it's a common service, and something that most everybody outsources.

Your pal, -doc-

Ok on that road, then what would be a good rate. 5.5% and a $0.45 charge on top of that?

To me it seems a bit excessive. When selling some products, computer supplies for instance, a bill of 2 or 3 thousand dollars is not seen as excessive. On a 3000 dollar sale they are taking 165.45 dollars. That seems like a little chunk of money.

Yeah, well, my items are not more than $15 each, so, it won´t be a hard hit to pay comission. But i´m still thinking:

I´m going to ship the items by myself; i think that is better if i get the Credit card # and charge it when shipped the product. I go this afternoon to check that on the bank, i need to see if i can charge a credit card just with its number (all the credit card data i mean) by telephon.


Let´s see and i´ll tell you how i´m going later......

Hey Wakkos! You'll need to set up a "Merchant Account", probably with a special bank account just for that, something to do with taxes I believe. Typically they base the rates and percentages you pay on just how secure the transaction might be. Even with the best of security, since you don't get to see the people buying from you or check the signature, the percentage of fraud and back-billing is highest with internet purchases, that's the way it is. (Most secure would be I look at you and your picture ID, check the siggie, and then process. Best rates that way.) Learn to live with the higher rates until you have enough traffic to become a "staistical universe" and can prove how little problems you get, heh.

Your pal, -doc-

Yeah Doc, i´m trying to get my merchant account with my bank here, i have to pay 8% (or around, i´ll be sure tonight) rate, but is my easyest solution for me. I´ll wait foe my partner and we will discuss the options: getting a merchant account and do ourselves every transaction or either get a "merchant account - credit card proccess" service, i´m still a little bit confused, but i´m investigating....