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The Almighty Buck Businesses

Recommendations for Website Payment Systems? 76

Posted by Cliff from the that-age-old-question-of-micropayments dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I run a smallish website that provides stock quotes, charts, etc for a very under-reported stock market. (I won't link here due to the Slashdot Death Ray effect, and because this is a real question, not an advertisement). Over the recent weeks, many of my site members have been asking if they could make a small contribution to help off-set costs, which I am considering. 'Tip Jars' seem tacky and I know many people aren't comfortable with Paypal. So, should I roll my own, or are there any highly recommended ways of doing this that I am missing? Any suggestions?"
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Recommendations for Website Payment Systems? More

Recommendations for Website Payment Systems?

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  • Paypal? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @06:16PM (#12049966)
    Most of the people who are uncomfortable with Paypal are the ones who think whining about it makes them seem experienced or intelligent. For simply sending money, there's nothing wrong with it (as long as you don't mind using them).

    The money you lose from people who enjoy bragging about how they refuse to use Paypal will be more than made up for by the time you save not having to implement something like this yourself.

    • Re:Paypal? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @07:19PM (#12050527) Homepage
      The money you lose from people who enjoy bragging about how they refuse to use Paypal will be more than made up for by the time you save not having to implement something like this yourself.
      Yep. I started by accepting only PayPal on my site, and then started accepting credit cards as well. The credit card stuff is a huge hassle. It's not just the hassle of setting it up initially, it's the hassles that come after that. For instance, I got a $1000 order from a woman an Nigeria who was using a stolen CC number. The CC companies I've had to deal with generally have horrible support. One thing you might not realize is that when you set this kind of thing up, you're not just setting up a business relationship with the company you signed up with. Although the company I signed up with was PayQuake (not recommended, BTW), I've actually had to work with all of the following: PayQuake, Authorize.net, Global Payments, American Express, Discover. Discover kept pestering me to add their card to my account. I said no, because my business is 95% wholesale, and people don't use Discover for wholesale. Well, all of a sudden, I started getting charged a certain amount every month to take Discover. They'd just gone ahead and done it without my permission.

      With hindsight, CC ordering is only worth it if you're really doing serious amounts of business.

      • This is a plug... but a useful one I hope. You can quickly get a handle on the "web's opinion" on things like this with compare-stuff, here's how:

        Four micropayment systems compared with respect to the words/phrases:
        excellent [compare-stuff.com]
        no hassle [compare-stuff.com]
        efficient [compare-stuff.com]
        extremely helpful [compare-stuff.com]

        As you'll see, I'm trying to claw back my hosting fees with Amazon product links... Hasn't worked yet ;)

      • Re:Paypal? (Score:5, Informative)

        by John_Booty ( 149925 ) <johnbooty@NOSPaM.bootyproject.org> on Saturday March 26, 2005 @12:39AM (#12052286) Homepage
        Yep. I started by accepting only PayPal on my site, and then started accepting credit cards as well. The credit card stuff is a huge hassle.

        You can now accept credit card payments over PayPal as well, if you're a verified member and you have PayPal linked to a bank account. It's worked really well for my (very small) business... PayPal charges fees on each transaction, obviously, but it's a turnkey solution... none of the hassles described by the above poster, who had to deal with separate credit card merchants.

        There are some downsides to PayPal, but those are well-documented all over the 'net. But most of the PayPal "horror stories" I've seen don't sound any worse than typical hassles you'd get with any credit card processor.

        The typical PayPal "horror story" seems to go like this. "This guy PayPal'd me N dollars! Then PayPal reversed the payment because there was evidence of credit card fraud. Now I don't have my #)*&#)%%^ N dollars! WTF, (*&%*$% PAYPAL!" ...Well, that definitely sucks, but guess what? That's a risk that you take as a merchant whenever credit cards are involved. People will commit credit card fraud. You will have charges reversed. PayPal or not.

        My advice: if you do go with PayPal, take extra care to let your customers know they can pay with PayPal via credit card even if they don't have a PayPal account. The perception is that you have to sign up to pay with PayPal, and it's not true any more.

        I've only been using them for a month, though. So take this very tentative endorsement with a grain of salt. But it was easy to implement and so far, so good. (And I *have* implemented e-commerce solutions from scratch before using other products like PayFlowPro, at previous jobs. Just FYI.)

        • The typical PayPal "horror story" seems to go like this. "This guy PayPal'd me N dollars! Then PayPal reversed the payment because there was evidence of credit card fraud. Now I don't have my #)*&#)%%^ N dollars! WTF, (*&%*$% PAYPAL!" ...Well, that definitely sucks, but guess what? That's a risk that you take as a merchant whenever credit cards are involved. People will commit credit card fraud. You will have charges reversed. PayPal or not.

          I've never personally had my funds locked out, but I am f

          • "In the past it use to be that if one of the parties involved with a transaction was under suspicion of fradulent activities, the funds in BOTH accounts were frozen and/or the accounts locked"

            This wasn't my experience. In my case, they simply reversed the charges. Then again, I'm new to Paypal (about 1.5 months) and this was a relatively small dollar amount ($36). I don't know what they did in the past or how they might handle suspicious transactions involving larger dollar amounts.

            Freezing both accoun

            • This helps to an extent, as I understand it. But should your PayPal balance actually go negative they are quick to EFT the money out of your bank account and/or send collection agencies after you if you don't quicky bring your PP account into the positive. From what I've read, anyway.

              They are welcome to try to EFT funds from my bank account. It's kept delibretly empty for this reason. If they try to take funds out without my authorization, then my bank gets involved. They have a little more bite then I d

              • They are welcome to try to EFT funds from my bank account. It's kept delibretly empty for this reason.

                I do that too but it isn't perfect. If your bank is anything like mine they'll just send the money and charge an overdraft fee. It's still better than having thousands of dollars locked up over a small dispute though.

                If they try to take funds out without my authorization, then my bank gets involved.

                When you sign up for PayPal you DO authorize them to take money out of your attached bank account pr
            • I wouldn't recomend keeping more than a specific amount in any non-interest bearing account. My cut-off would be not more than enough to keep thing running for 5 weeks. The account used for any transaction processor would be used only for that, once you have a handle on what to expect in charge-backs, fees, including the one that "sneak in", make a policy and stick to it, don't let the account creep over or under that amount. The Normal checking account should probabley in a different bank. A good accounta
      • Well, all of a sudden, I started getting charged a certain amount every month to take Discover. They'd just gone ahead and done it without my permission.

        you may want to sue them or even press charges for fraud.
    • PayPal doesn't play at all with many countries.

    • Re:Paypal? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @08:10PM (#12050850) Homepage Journal
      Most of the people who are uncomfortable with Paypal are the ones who think whining about it makes them seem experienced or intelligent.
      I'm sorry, but that's a bigoted, arrogant attitude. There are a lot of legitimate complaints against Paypal relating to poor customer support and indiscriminate anti-fraud measure that often victimize innocent people. Even the complaints against Paypal that don't have a legitimate basis are mostly from people who can't accept that Paypal doesn't indemnify against fraud. Which is certainly lame, but not the sort of nonsense you describe.

      That said, Paypal is my first choice for all online transactions. Every system has problems, but Paypal doesn't do all that badly, compared to the alternatives.

    • If you are doing business with people outside the US, make sure Paypal supports that country.

      That's the only gripe I have with Paypal. Other than that, never had a problem with it.

      I have, however, heard a lot of horror stories about people whose checking account is emptied or locked without due process, etc. All of it mght be exageration, but do your homework before comitting yourself.

    • Re:Paypal? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by vince1 ( 660035 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @10:50PM (#12051770)
      Most of the people who are uncomfortable with Paypal are the ones who Think whining about it makes them seem experienced or intelligent.

      Excuse the bluntness, but that is pure bull crap! Take a look at the thousands of horror stories in the Paypal Wall of Shame on http://paypalwarning.com/ [paypalwarning.com].

      I would say that class actions lawsuits and thousands of horror stories are very legitimate reasons to be "uncomfortable" with dealing with a company. Unless you are an idiot.

      As it says on the paypalwarning.com site:

      Can PayPal hold my money with no explanation? The answer is YES.
      Can PayPal freeze my account for no reason? The answer is YES.
      Can PayPal take money out of my account without my knowledge?
      The answer is YES.

      We used to use Paypal to sell on eBay but after finding it impossible to to update our credit card and having no phone number to resolve problems, we started searching the net to see what kind of other problems people were having. When we found the Wall of Shame, we closed the account and closed the bank account it was linked to before we became one of the victims.

      I wish more people would boycott companies that treat people so dirty and quit rewarding them just because it appears to be convenient today.

      • Re:Paypal? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Chess_the_cat ( 653159 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @09:20AM (#12053701) Homepage
        Can a bank hold my money with no explanation? The answer is YES.
        Can a bank freeze my account for no reason? The answer is YES.
        Can a bank take money out of my account without my knowledge? The answer is YES.

        Guess I better get my money out of the bank.

        • Re:Paypal? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by way2trivial ( 601132 )
          can I call my bank, or visit it- to discuss the matter? yes

          • [way2trivial wrote]

            can I call my bank, or visit it- to discuss the matter? yes

            You can, but it will not do any good. Unlike a credit card, there is no way to reverse a draft from your bank account. Also, banks, at least in America, have absolutely no security. They are to stupid to even provide any kind of simple access control list so that you can white list and/or black list merchants from arbitrarily pulling any amount of money they choose out of your account. Anybody with a merchant

            • [i]You can, but it will not do any good. Unlike a credit card, there is no way to reverse a draft from your bank account. [/i]

              This is wrong see Electronic Funds Act
              http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-31 00.html#6500205.3 [fdic.gov]

              • [way2trivial wrote]

                This is wrong see Electronic Funds Act http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-31 00.html#6500205.3 [fdic.gov]

                When I spoke with my bank (Norwest at the time) about the unauthorized drafts from my account that I mentioned in my other posting, they said there was nothing they could do about the drafts that had already taken place. I could pay $30 for a stop payment on the next draft attempt but there was nothing stopping them from turning right around and doing

                • Once you agree, online or in writing, to allow anybody to take funds from your account there is nothing you can do to control them but close the bank account.

                  Why in the world you would you ever agree, online or in writing, to allow anybody to take funds from your account?

                  What's wrong with "If you want my money, send me a bill and I'll give you a cheque."
                • the two days refers to you losing your ATM card & pincode.. the 'access device"

                  the resolution section is at
                  http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-31 00.html#6500205.11 [fdic.gov]

                  • the two days refers to you losing your ATM card & pincode.. the 'access device"

                    No, it is not limited to that. "the access device" is any means in which to access your account to electronically transfer funds. Here is part of the definition from section 205.2 Definitions from the Electronic Funds Transfers regulations. [fdic.gov]

                    (a)(1) Access device means a card, code, or other means of access to a consumer's account, or any combination thereof, that may be used by the consumer to ini

                • When I spoke with my bank (Norwest at the time) about the unauthorized drafts from my account that I mentioned in my other posting, they said there was nothing they could do about the drafts that had already taken place. I could pay $30 for a stop payment on the next draft attempt but there was nothing stopping them from turning right around and doing it again.


                  FWIW I had the exact same conversation with my bank (Bank One) a couple of years ago.
        • The problem is your analogy doesn't quite work. If you read the problems some people have had with paypal, you will find that not only have they done stuff with the money in "their" account, but have also taken money out of the person's bank account.

          I would never use paypal unless I had a separate bank account for them to use, and that doesn't have any overdraft allowance, etc. So, even if paypal wants to try to suck money out, there isn't anything for them to get.
    • You have obviously never tried to cancel a Paypal account. When you do, you'll understand.

  • Paypal (Score:3, Informative)

    by white1827 ( 848173 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @06:17PM (#12049974) Homepage
    Paypal is awesome. I use it on www.frostedcookies.com to collect payments. No one has to register with paypal to send money - they can just enter their CC or checking account information and be done.

    • Re:Paypal (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 )
      Since eventually you will have some type of issue with paypal, if you go that route, make sure you've setup a bank account that is completely seperate from any other aspect of your life.

      Consider a seperate bank (not just a seperate account). Do not leave large amounts of money floating in either PayPal Land or the attached bank account.

      Make sure your bank(s) have firm instructions not to transfer money out to PayPal w/out your say so. Or at least tell them what will and what won't be normal account behavio

      • All excellent advice and rules I have already been living by. Except I always advocate boycotting companies such as Paypal when you know they are screwing so many people. Don't keep rewarding them with your business until they straighten out their act. However..

        Make sure your bank(s) have firm instructions not to transfer money out to PayPal w/out your say so. Or at least tell them what will and what won't be normal account behavior.

        This one never does any good. The banks refuse to

        • my thinking is that its probably not such a trivial thing for banks to setup a nationwide system with individualized blacklists.

          anyways, I know some banks specifically allow you to block access by acct number if thats what you want to do.

          I didn't know about the $30 fee for stop-payment orders... that seems like a real dick move on their part.

          Does your CC company do the same thing when you tell them to cancel/reverse charges?

          • my thinking is that its probably not such a trivial thing for banks to setup a nationwide system with individualized blacklists.

            There would not be anything very difficult about it. Just a simple data file that has the company names, or other identifying information about the company, to blacklist or white list. You could do simple string compares to the the information from the incoming request. You could set transaction limits with simple less than / greater than comparisons. It's grad

  • yahoo stores (Score:4, Interesting)

    by a11 ( 716827 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @06:18PM (#12049993)
    http://store.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] lets you set up a store that takes credit cards directly. you could "sell" contributions in various amounts.

  • Rolling your own payment system (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CDarklock ( 869868 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @06:19PM (#12050013) Homepage Journal
    I'd recommend going with some established solution that fits your budget. Rolling your own is likely to expose your users to all kinds of subtle security issues that could result in some nefarious jerk getting their credit card numbers or the like.

    A creative solution I heard once was to auction "thanks" on eBay. For $2.50, you could buy the seller's "thanks", and you could buy as many (or as few) as you liked through the usual Dutch auction process. I don't know if anyone ever actually did this, but you might want to consider it.

    Personally, I always use PayPal for website donations. I've never had anyone object.

  • zerg (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @06:22PM (#12050045) Homepage
    Rolling your own is begging to be owned.

    Ignore people's unease, the real reason you don't want to go w/ paypal is the massive bite they take out of whatever people send you. You can't even ask people to donate a quarter because the entire quarter disappears.

    Google for "amazon honor system" (minus quotes). I can't link you directly because it'll probably end up w/ a referral to me in the URL. ^^;; It might be what you're looking for.

    Alternatively, for webcomic creators, Scott McCloud suggests [scottmccloud.com] trying BitPass [bitpass.com], Yaga [yaga.com] or Peppercoin [peppercoin.com]...
    • BitPass has worked great for me on Mperia.com as a purchaser, I have no complaints so far about it.

      Of course, PayPal works great for me as a purchaser also, so I guess I'm just not angry enough in general or something...

      • Re:zerg (Score:3, Informative)

        by Lord Omlette ( 124579 )
        D'oh, my bad, I meant to say that paypal has large fees for the seller, not the buyer.

        Actually, you're absolutely right, the goal should be to make it easier on the donor, otherwise they'll just shrug and walk away...
    • Many webcomic artists have been trying to find a method to finance webserver costs, but it usually comes down to "direct donation" via paypal, or buying stuff through a storefront for related goods. Most authors [little-gamers.com] don't mind hitting up people for a few bucks, but others [megatokyo.com] have spoken in the past that donations "rip off" the readers of what they believe to be "free media" Personally I support the storefront option for that kinda site, but for something like a piece of software, donations work all of the same. I
  • If your visitors own a scanner, that's half the battle.

  • get over it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25, 2005 @06:27PM (#12050102)
    And put a donation button on your site that goes to PayPal. Just a small elegant button that says "support this free service" or something like that. Link to PayPal, or to a page explaining your expenses.

    It's not begging. It's not tacky. It's just common sense. Bandwidth and time cost money. You can't distribute them for free like you can information. It makes sense to pay for them. Like I always say, "Information wants to be free, but bandwidth wants to be expensive."

    After a while you can experiment with the other obscure services that people use, but PayPal is *it*. Yeah, "paypal sucks" but most people haven't had any problems (including myself). Just don't pretend they are a bank.

  • Too late (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by awtbfb ( 586638 )
    I -just- emptied my spam folders. I'm sure there would have been something you'd find useful in there...

  • Bitpass (Score:2, Informative)

    by wrenhunt ( 704610 )
    You might be interested in http://www.bitpass.com/ [bitpass.com] for micropayments. Sounds good in principle but I've not yet implemented any of it on my site...

  • Whatever you do, do it carefully... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) * on Friday March 25, 2005 @07:14PM (#12050495) Homepage
    If you're accepting micropayments, you'll get bitten by the credit card companies and their merchant account fees.

    Your best bet is to use something established like paypal or western union. The risks from a few customers not using the service because of it's name/reputation is must less significant than a lawsuit resulting from a mistake in your DIY financial solution.

    Paypal has been a great solution for me.

  • Nothing wrong with Paypal for donations (Score:4, Informative)

    by dreamer-of-rules ( 794070 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @07:23PM (#12050552)
    The people I've seen complaining about Paypal are merchants who get bit by disputed transactions for services rendered. You won't have any dispute issues, so Paypal is great. From the customers POV, Paypal allows them to use a credit card in a very-secure website (time-tested) without giving the small-website-owner anything but money and an email address. Paypal doesn't require them to create accounts anymore either. Look to the other comments for tasteful display suggestions.
  • Enquiring minds like to know.

  • Amazon Honor System (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Eric Giguere ( 42863 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @07:27PM (#12050576) Homepage Journal

    If you're based in the US, the Amazon Honor System [amazon.com] is an option if your users are PayPal-wary.

    Eric
    See your HTTP headers here [ericgiguere.com]

  • Send donations to... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jgardn ( 539054 )
    Why not ask for checks in the mail? It seems to work for the credit card companies. It doesn't sound like you want to hide your sneakernet address.

    If the contributions were going to be typically large and more numerous (more than $20 and thousands a month), then it would make sense to talk to your bank to get one of those machines to make CC transactions. Then ask for their credit card information on a secure section of the site. Store the transactions in a database, and then type them all in at the end of

  • hyperwallet.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by dan.hunt ( 613949 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @09:35PM (#12051311) Journal
    This company is one that I have used for years. Read about the micro payment solutions [hyperwallet.com] Email $5.00 or $25.00, total transaction cost including the recipiant's cash out fee is $1.00. When an envelope and a stamp and a cheque can cost more, why would you use anything but?

  • Big players (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bitsy Boffin ( 110334 ) on Friday March 25, 2005 @10:55PM (#12051795) Homepage
    The only two real options are
    a) Paypal - sure a few people get turned off by it, but they are probably not your audience. This is the easiest way if you want to accept payments in USD/CAD/JYP/GBP/EUR or AUD.

    b) Moneybookers (moneybookers.com) - like paypal with a few differences. If you sign up for thier merchant program you can use them to accept CCrds in the same way as you can with Paypal, except that.
    1. No chargebacks. Moneybookers is "hard" currency, once you have it it's yours to keep.
    2. More currencies. Moneybookers allows you to accept payments (and hold balance) in more currencies than paypal.
    3. To pay via credit card your users will (the first time they do) will either need an SMS capable cellphone handy (they send a confirmation code to it so they at least have a known-good cellphone number) or a fax machine.

    The other options (2checkout.com, a real merchant account etc..) would likely be too expensive and too much trouble.
    • . .

      1. No chargebacks. Moneybookers is "hard" currency, once you have it it's yours to keep.

      Moneybookers do look far more organised than any other merchant acquirer pass through i have seen, and i would decidely prefer to deal under UK law with a firm i can locate in my neighborhood, but you are wrong to say that chargebacks do not happen. I see no way that a _customer_ of a merchant network / acquirer can unilaterally negate terms which the network (Visa e.g.) imposes universally on all merchants.

      I

  • Have them all give you cash, in hand, and you must meet them and decide if they are worthy of the product, ensure that you only have good customers, and you get more in-touch with them. Of course, this is crazy, but it is very secure if you have an array of body guards [or a beowulf cluster of them].

  • PayPal+eSellerate (Score:4, Informative)

    by AdamInParadise ( 257888 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @02:44AM (#12052692) Homepage
    Hi,

    I went through the same problem last month for the website of my company (see sig). PayPal may be OK for "donations" but it is not good enough for e-commerce websites. PayPal is down or broken in some way about 100% of the time. Also, many people (including me) don't want to pay with PayPal because of all the problems you can read on PayPalSucks [paypalsucks.com].

    So I offer CC payments through eSellerate [esellerate.net]. I handle my own shopping cart and the user picks the payment means when he checks out. eSellerate is good for me because the commission is 10% flat, without a fixed fee. Most similar services charge something like "5% or $2, whichever is higher". My product cost $6.99, so $2 is a lot of money.

    Also, you can really customize the checkout process on eSellerate so that the customer can't tell the difference between your site and the eSellerate checkout site. You can't do that with PayPal.

    As a conclusion, please do not offer PayPal only. PayPal is not a reliable company and lot's of people avoid them.

  • Bitpass (Score:3, Informative)

    by xanderwilson ( 662093 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @09:48AM (#12053781) Homepage
    You can use it as a tip jar or as an online subscription gateway. I've had good luck with them for Telltale.

    Alex.

  • Dissent. (Score:2, Informative)

    by njo ( 870963 )
    Paypal is not a bank. Micropayments are a joke. Authorize.net or Verisign's PayFlow Pro and a merchant account.
  • Paypal has worked just fine for the past year for collecting maintenance donations for a website I co-maintain. If all you're doing is accepting donations, this is probably as good a way to handle it as any. Since your site visitors can use credit cards to donate via Paypal, they don't need to register their own accounts. If they're especially paranoid, they can visit their bank's website - they should type in the URL on their CC statement, though, rather than guess it or Google for it - to get a virtual
  • First off, I'm no amateur when it comes to security issues. It is interesting, then, that I got bit by the Pluto credit card theft ring on the card I've used with Paypal, but NOT with the card I use in general.

    This should NOT, however, be taken as proof of anything. It is curious, it is worth keeping an eye on, and if anyone from Paypal visits Slashdot, I'd seriously suggest running a quick security audit. It is doubtful that that's where the problem is, but I can afford to cancel one card far more than t

  • Ever heard of zgeek?
    Its a little like slashdot but run by an Australian and much much funnier.
    Anyway he justs puts his bank account up on the web.
    You probably have a company account or such that you can use instead of your personal account.

    http://forums.zgeek.com/faq.php?faq=new_ faq_zgeek#faq_new_faq_who

  • Here's a bit of a different perspective. A user's perspective. I have used Paypal and use it frequently for my ebay purchases and sales. However when I go to any site where I want to buy something from and I see Paypal, I just don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling. It just creates the impression of a second rate site. Since last one year, I have been buying content from some sites that use a different payment system that I have not seen a lot of 'buzz' about. However, from my experience, it is a truly wonderf
  • Onetime payment and then they charge you a fee on each transaction...

    Similar to paypal actually...

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