[Asterisk-biz] credit card payment

[Bob - TeleSys]

Chargebacks are something else to be considered as well.  

Merchant accounts are subject to having the entire amount charged taken back
from you if card was lost or stolen - if customer claims fraud you don't
even get to argue your side;  and, they usually require a personal
guarantee. 

Does PayPal charge back for fraud or lost/stolen accounts?

Best solution we find is prepay by Western Union. 



-----Original Message-----
From: Rusty Shackleford [mailto:john97 at flatline.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 6:09 PM
To: 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion'
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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