[Asterisk-biz] credit card payment

[Preston Garrison]

Paypal doesn't let you charge an arbitrary amount every month.  Most 
accounts uses a pay as you go type plan for asterisk, which means your 
bill changes on amonthly basis.  We are buying phone service, not porn 
site memberships :)

Unless paypal has really changed, which I hope not, b/c the entire 
reason I use paypal is so I KNOW what i am being charged.  Paypal is 
great for ebay, or sending your friend some money.  If you can not 
afford $29/month for a merchant account, I certainly don't want you 
providing my phone service.

Preston Garrison
direct: 877-748-4142
fax: 310-774-3901
cell: 623-748-4140

-----Original Message-----
From: Rusty Shackleford <john97 at flatline.com>
To: 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion' 
<asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com>
Sent: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:08:50 -0800
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] credit card payment


> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of
> Preston Garrison
> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 2:14 PM
> To: asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] credit card payment
>
>
> We pay $29.95 for our merchant account and less then $50 for startup
> fees.

In the U.S., sure. The OP is NOT in the U.S. and does not have a U.S.
bank account.

>  Any reputable business should not have just one
> merchant account
> but TWO.

Arguably, this is true.

 I don't know about you, but having my phones cut
> off because
> i didn't go to my paypal account and add more funds to my account
> doesn't sound like a good idea.

Re-read the thread. PayPal has not had this requirement for several
months now.

>I want my phone company to charge my
> card every month for what I owe, so I don't have to worry
> about that.
> You can exactly do that with any of those billing services.

Let's compare apples to apples, shall we?

A flat rate monthly telephone service certainly should offer the
customer the option choosing to have his credit card charged
automatically each month. PayPal does NOT offer recurring billing.

Then there's the traditional post-paid billing situation; you pay for
what you used in the last billing period. Again, to support this, in a
manner that would not require the customer to actively cause this
payment to happen, one would need a conventional merchant account.

A pre-paid VOIP billing arrangement(where calls are charged against this
pre-paid account) is probably more common, at least in the circles that
frequent this list. Such a setup does not lend itself to recurring
billing. PayPal would be a good fit in this situation.

Look, I'm not a PayPal evangelist. Far from it. While the PayPal brand
is close to becoming a household name, there's just something
"less-than" about a business that uses somebody else to collect their
revenue. But for certain businesses, particularly the shoe-string
start-up operation, it is a perfectly servicable choice. Ideal? No, but
it get's the job done, and getting money from our customers is what
we're in business for in the first place, right?

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