Muse Site Legality

[Sven]

I also had a bit of a struggle with Paypal. A client did not have a clear pathway to the door and the deliveryservice could not deliver. The shipment was lost for a few weeks (but actually on its way back). During this the buyer canceled his order because his client did not want it anymore, which he was entiteled to by terms of sale he had agreed to.

Paypal settled the buyers dispute by refunding the whole amount where my terms of stated that the shiping cost would need to be payed by the customer (for a canceled order, not if it was lost).

Indeed, they alway take the buyers side.

Id love to use a different system. I have used moneybookers once but they were soooooo cumbersome, never again!

Are there any alternatives?

[DaveinHackensack]

Sven,

One alternative is to build the capability into your own site to accept credit card payment, as I have on my site's join page. To do that though you need to get an SSL certificate (from Comodo, in my case), a payment gateway (Authorize.net, in my case), and a merchant account (from Powerpay.biz, in my case).

[charliedavis]

I've also had problems with Google Checkout, currently going through a chargeback from a customer. They hate it as I was using it to get customers to pay for invoices as opposed to actual products.

They have requested additional information from me 3 times, and frozen my account for a week each time.

I've also had a Paypal account frozen in a similar way.

Having said that I have used Protx backed by LloydsTSb Cardnet merchant services with absolutely no problems, so I agree merchant services are better. They were even able to offer a web portal that allowed us to take card details over the phone.

[webgal]

Google checkout has been a nightmare lately.

[funinthesun]

So Paypal and Google Checkout leave a lot to be desired it sounds like. That being the case, what is everyones' favorite merchant account provider? It would also be helpful to know which merchant account providers should be avoided. Don't forget to say why you like or dislike them!

[jakediddy]

I can tell you that the majority of my company's clients use Authorize.Net for their gateway, but I'm not sure what merchant account providers are the most popular.

Having had integration experience with AuthNet, 3DSI, CyberSource, BeanStream, and PayFlowPro credit card gateways I would have to say hands-down that AuthNet has the best documentation for developers if you need something beyond what they already offer in a canned package. Outside of the developer realm, though, I don't know if their documentation represents the rest of their company (but I'd still choose them out of comfort).

[funinthesun]

Thanks jake, I am familiar with Authorize.net for a payment gateway and will probably use them. However, I was wondering which merchant service providers people are using (i.e. companies that handle the credit card transaction). There are a number of independent service providers in addition to using those provided by different banks. What do you use for such services?

[jakediddy]

A decent number of our customer have Wells Fargo merchant accounts. Sorry I don't know any more details than that, though.