I was just wondering if anyone knows if its possible to charge a customers credit card for them, if I am only using paypal standard and google checkout as my payment processors for my site?
There are situations where I’m taking an order over the phone and the customer is less than tech savy and wants me to do it for them. I have a feeling the answer is no, but hoping there’s a solution for this.
I think its time to get a merchant account. I am US based and starting to get orders from overseas and wondering if anyone has any advice on good merchant accounts, gateways, payment processors that I should look into. I hear fraud is a big problem so something that will help me be protected from chargebacks is preferred.
It sounds like Authorize.net is a good option, but I’d love to get some referrals. Right now I am low volume but business seems to be picking up. My sales average from 30-$300 each or so and I’m only making a couple each week but this week we’ve been picking up and I anticipate continuing to increase our volume as we become more established, we only launched two months ago.
We are using PayPal standard. Works fine.
Yes, I have successfully processed credit cards on behalf of my customers usoing both google checkout and paypal standard, I just want to know if this is allowed. I don’t want to violate their policy and get in trouble for doing it, but if this is permitted that is great. Many of my customers know and trust me and are willing to give me their credit card info over the phone, so I would like to continue to do this but not at the risk of getting in any trouble or losing the privledge of using these payment processors.
Also, it seems that when a customer check out using google checkout, it automatically sets them up with an account with GC, and then they have to confirm this by email. I notice the card will get charged prior to their confirming their email and GC account, but is this email confirmation mandatory? In other words, if the card shows as being charged, but the customer never confirms their email/google checkout account, will the transaction still be completed, or is their a chance it will later be rejected?
I hope this makes sense, any advice here is appreciated…
[quote name=‘ecb1’]
I think its time to get a merchant account. I hear fraud is a big problem so something that will help me be protected from chargebacks is preferred.
It sounds like Authorize.net is a good option, but I’d love to get some referrals. [/QUOTE]
I have not had any problems with fraud with a merchant account. It is actually MUCH harder to do a chargeback with a credit card than it is through paypal (which is littered with fraud). I actually did a chargeback once on a credit card and it takes a LOT of documentation.
Authorize.net is NOT a merchant account. They are a processor. You have to first get a merchant account, and then authorize.net will process the card for you via internet. You are looking at anywhere between $10-$25 for a merchant account, and then another $25 on top of that for authorize.net. If you have low volume sales, you may want to manually process them (set cscart to offline) so you don’t have to use Auth.net. I just use it to save time as we get higher volume. Also, Auth net will determine immediately whether the card is good or not. Otherwise you will have to contact the customer if the card did not go through. I do manually process some orders as the get “stuck” sometimes with auth.net on international orders.
There are a LOT of merchant accounts out there with different rates, fees, monthly dues, etc. It’s a hard decision. Just look around at what suits your needs best, and then call them. Rates do vary depending on your credit rating so you may not get what they offer on their website…
If you receive credit card information and you want to manually process it by PayPal, you must use their Virtual Terminal. Do Not enter their credit card information manually any other way. Otherwise you are violating PayPal’s user agreement.