[Asterisk-biz] credit card payment

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Herman Webley wrote:

> This person was just being helpful to me. I am not even sure who you are
> attacking (the other poster or me).
Lemonade stands :) I'm not attacking - just pointing out that this list 
has constant complaints about them.

> Why must your comments always so harsh. I can't move away from the
> lemonade stand operation, as I am still picking the lemons!
> 
> I believe I did outline that my information says that getting a US
> merchant account without having a US business presence is more dificult
> than the regular process.
a) You don't have to have a *US* merchant account, you need *a* merchant
account, located in your country of residence or incorporation. Yes, I'm
aware that in many countries (as well as US), it is a hassle. But, to my
knowledge, it isn't all *that* expensive. (In other words, <1000$
normally).

> > Why would a customer trust you when you only accept paypal payments?
> > Its instant sign of "hello, I am very small and I can't even afford to
> > bother setting up a merchant account".
> 
> What if I can't a afford to set up a merchant account! Should I just
> give up? I sincerely believe that I can deliver quality service to the
> customer base that I plan to serve. Shouldn't I try? Should I really
> just continue to be poor just because I have little financial capital
> despite my expertise and knowledge?
Exactly that, I think.

Converting expertise into money requires money as a catalyst. It is a fact
of life. You can be a rocket scientist, but if you aren't sufficiently
capitalized, you will end up providing *bad service* despite your
intelligence. I'll be frank: I learnt this the hard way. Clue can
substitute for *some* money - not using the most expensive hardware, for
example. However, it is not a complete substitute. You need to have money
to pay your accountant and attorney to find out which taxes you must
charge. You need capital for your hardware. The end result is, no matter 
how smart you are, you *need money*.

Yes, VOIP business has particularly low barrier to entry. This is why 
there are lots of crappy voip providers, and every other thread on 
asterisk-biz is "provider foo sucks, they are unreliable etc". My guess 
this is a direct result of not running a smooth operation due to lack of 
capital.

-alex