Accepting Credit Cards Online, Part 2

Please be sure to read Part 1 before reading Part 2.

In Part 1, I explained a little about accepting payments online. Part 2 will continue to explain the pros and cons of online payments.

I explained the confusion with PayPal for new members. I finally got an email saying "You got cash" which meant my PayPal account received payment. Unfortunately, that did not mean the money was deposited into my business checking account as intended. PayPal considers themselves a bank and the money was in my PayPal account, but not my business checking account. I had to go back to the PayPal website, go to My Account, Withdraw Funds (from my own PayPal account) and transfer the funds to my PayPal-verified business checking account. The money should be there in 3 to 5 business days.

PayPal does allow you to set up an automated system of allowing future payments to go directly to the specified account (which is what I wanted in the first place). Go into My Account, Profile, and under Financial Information, select AutoSweep to enable this feature. AutoSweep will sweep the payments every night to send to the specified account, which in my case was the business checking account.

I had to call PayPal several times on behalf of my client or myself, because some of our questions were not answered in their FAQs. My client was very frustrated. I finally received the payment from my client minus the PayPal charges. By then, the client's site was complete, including a customized cgi shopping cart that accepts various payments including PayPal. PayPal prefers that you use their cart, but we were able to submit the client's cart and form data to the PayPal website.

Be sure that you set up your business account with a valid email address that you do not plan to change. My client chose to switch web hosts and when the email no longer functioned, he was no longer able to use his PayPal account! He could not make another payment to me, because his email address is not working at the new server. So, I am still waiting for money, because I didn't send my application to accept credit cards directly. Maybe this will motivate me!

I must say that though PayPal is popular for customers, I would prefer merchant accounts for businesses. I will soon accept credit card payments by using the box most often seen in stores. I decided to go with my own personal bank who does not require a minimum monthly charge (in case no client uses a credit card to pay me in any given month), no setup fee, no batch fees, and no gateway fees (because I will not process my cards through the website, else the gateway fees are $19.95/month). The only monthly fees are $5/month for the account statements. The funds will be deposited into my checking account within two days. To push buttons to enter the credit card information, the fees are 2.25% of the total plus $0.25 transaction fee. Swiping the card costs less, but would not be used often in my case. Check your own bank and compare prices and fees before selecting a payment processor.

Yvette Kuhns, Power Pages Web Design, September 23, 2002

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