POS Credit Card Processing

[szinderman]

Hello again friends,
My site, www.tiesforisrael.com has been up and running and I am processing my online orders with paypal. This has worked well for me. Our product is often sold directly to the purchaser for cash or personal checks. I would like to also accept credit cards. PayPal offers a virtual terminal which will allow me to do this but there is a $20 monthly fee in addition to a % of the sale and a transaction fee. Does anyone know of any other options where I can make the transaction in person, obtain the credit card information from the purchaser, and process the information on line later? thanks again for any help.
Best,
Steven

[Bethers]

Re: POS Credit Card Processing

You would need to contract for a merchant account - which will also have some sort of monthly fee, to do this. VH has a merchant account available to US merchants, you can put in a support ticket to get information on it.

I use Authorize.net for my own merchant account only because I already had it. But there are many out there. Again, though, I don't know of any with no fees.

You can also talk to your local bank - who will have merchant accounts available - if you want to process through them offline. Some of them will or will not have virtual terminals.

[szinderman]

Re: POS Credit Card Processing

thankyou Bethers. I think I found a solution but am unsure how to do it. Can I set up a page that can not be seen from the web site but that I can still have access to it on the internet? If I can access this from my website, i can link it to my PayPal merchant account and manually enter the client's information to put my charges through. I can also set it up to enter the amount specific to the sale without shipping charges.

[Vasili]

Re: POS Credit Card Processing

"Ghosting" pages for accounting or processing purposes has been disallowed since 1999 in the USA (VodaHost is a registered US hosting company), and most processers require a static URL to designate the account to.
The SecureCard Program (VISA and MasterCard) has tightened the program somewhat in response for the new Patriot Act compliance updates of 2006 as well, and even require each page to be viewable before certain permissions are approved.

Although your circumstances might predicate your looking for a no or little cost solution to international online commerce, you should look into any possible gateway offered by your Bank (personal or business banking, no matter). Often, these gateways are easily linked to your website to securely merge with a PayPal solution or other Merchant processing provider.

>> I believe you are trying to describe (above post) the Merchant Logon Panel that is offered by most processors and within most actual gateways optimized for online processing: most such gateways do in fact have the ability to manually logon and process individual charges, at the same contracted online rate......thus you need not actually feed directly from your website. HOWEVER, it is illegal to "trap" say, PayPal "orders" and convert them into charges via your manual gateway. This is why valid charges are encrypted and sent directly to the processor.
To do what I believe you are describing constitutes "email commerce": you collect the sales info, and manually enter each charge (using your online Control Panel). You cannot, however, pretend to the client that their information is SSL or "PayPal" protected without the true encryption technology, as it is merely "compiled data, processed elsewhere."

If all else fails, please investigate how VeriSign's international commerce solutions might offer a remedy for your dilemma!

[Bethers]

Re: POS Credit Card Processing

And please, pay the costs associated to make the transactions safe for all concerned. I would be terrified to find out I purchased from you and you were not willing to pay to do the transactions where my credit card info was safe. Get a real merchant account - whether with a virtual terminal or without but through a local bank - and do it the right way.

If you are looking for a method to do this, you must think you'll have enough sales - will the approx additional $25/mo for the gateway really break the deal?

[Vasili]

Re: POS Credit Card Processing

Please!
Was not the entire process detailed for him to discover during any initial structuring, addressing the confusion about method and processing that was "missed" earlier?

Once the answer I provided about the distinctions is cogitated, the recourse becomes clearer if any of my advisories were investigated further.
It is a matter of personal choice based on evaluating the facts introduced, not following any of our justified "opinions"!

[szinderman]

Re: POS Credit Card Processing

Hi Valili and Bethers,
I hope I did not give the wrong impression. I have no intention of trying to deceive anyone or to perform any illegal acts. My company was formed to raise money for a charity and the less we have to spend to process fees, the more we are able to donate. I am not making a living by selling ties but I am having fun raising awareness and funds for Israel.
My intentions were to link directly to PayPal and process individual sales that are made off-line. I will investigate my options before proceeding but the data would be entered just as if the client was buying a tie on-line and entering data for that purchase. No client information would be stored by me or entered on my site. I will contact my bank as well as paypal and Voda to see how to do this but it didn't seem so complicated. It seems that I could just add another box on my web site that would include appropriate taxes but leave out the delivery charge. I would obtain the client information with thier consent and have a signed document that will be shredded after the order is processed. Again thanks for the input. Although I do not fully understand the points brought up, I will investigate them before proceeding.
Best,
Steven