| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
alindsey
Starting Member
14 Posts |
|
|
newbycartuser
Starting Member
32 Posts |
 Posted - December 11 2005 : 00:37:32
|
I would not touch Paypal with a barge pole.
It might be a nice choice for Americans, but anywhere else, they are not to be trusted, and to top it off, for amounts over $100, they require the extended number on the credit cards, and this has cost me over $1000US in lost sales this year alone......and 2 very famous customers who will never come back because of the way Paypal treated them.
And, I have a Paypal card that lets me pull the money out of the account, and they send you an email saying x dollars have been taken out on your purchase at x store..... and then a few days later, they credit that amount and take a few dollars more. I asked them why, and they say it's not them, it's the store, I ask the store and they know nothing, and I ask the credit card company and they say it's Paypal, and paypal doesn't answer... and then freezes your account, and you can only get that resolved if you call them because their "prompt reply within 48 hours" is BS...... and after a week of waiting, I called them, was put on hold for 34 minutes while they looked at what the problem was, admitted they had frozen the account for no reason and have refused to refund the cost of the call.
And Ebay, their parent company, does precious little to correct this and many other problems I have heard of.
I take Paypal only under duress......
So be VERY careful when you deal with them. |
 |
|
|
alindsey
Starting Member
14 Posts |
Posted - December 26 2005 : 12:39:05
|
quote:
Originally posted by newbycartuser
I would not touch Paypal with a barge pole.
... snip ...
I take Paypal only under duress......
So be VERY careful when you deal with them.
Every now and then I see something like this from a Paypal customer, but we have had nothing like this in the several years we've used Paypal. But I'll keep my eyes open for problems.
In the meantime, Website Payments Pro appears to offer a superior ecommerce payment solution than any other we've seen or used. For instance, all the problems pointed out in the previous post are problems we experience WITH OUR CREDIT CARD MERCHANT ACCOUNT!!!
I have shopped high and low for a good merchant account and gateway solution (these are not always together). The bleeding we do every month to these vultures is almost scandalous - but we have no choice, as I haven't been able to find a better one yet. If you dig deep enough, every single one has hidden fee this or extra fee that. Statement fees, Monthly minimum discounts, AVS and CVV service charges (PER QUERY!!), card "qualification" surcharges, gateway fees, ...
For instance, they charge us 2.4% for "qualified" transactions, but 3.4% for "mid-qual" and 4% for "non-qualified" transaction - and give us no way to test for the "qualification" in advance of the posting. So we hold our breath every month to see how many of the transactions were posted at the higher rates. It almost seems that they arbitrarily buffer their revenues using this completely arbitrary mechanism. And there's NOTHING we can say or do about it posteriori.
They charge $.25 for every time some customer runs his bad card through my system. Or it's a good card, but they can't read the CVV code because it's worn off in their wallet, so they try ten times with different numbers - and the credit card company goes "cha ching" with another quarter on my bill every single time.
If I want to take American Express or Discover, there are BIG EXTRA FEES, in the form of high discount rates (3-5% generally) and monthly fees. Sometimes they'll waive the service fees, but the discount gets you anyway.
Then, if you take paypal too, those charges are independent of the credit card charges so I'm dividing my volume every month and missing out on discounts for higher sales volumes. With ebay, it's well-nigh impossible to do business efficiently without paypal payments, so I can't even realistically require my customers to use a credit card on my site. (NOTE: this can be done - we do it - but it's not efficient without some serious development work that we haven' invested in yet. By the time we get that big, we won't need ebay anymore...)
To be honest, it's the merchant account and gateway providers that I think folks should attempt to circumvent. And here's the rub,
Paypal has a solution called Website Payments Pro that provides good answers to all the above plus more. I'm not a Paypal salesman, but if they can give me an integrated gateway/merchant account that charges me 2.2% plus $.30 per transaction (for our volume) and $20 per month service charge, without all the extra baggage - and all those sales count toward my monthly volume with the rest of my paypal payments from other sources, I can honestly say I don't know a better deal anywhere in ecommerce world.
If someone knows something better, I'd LOVE to hear about it.
Go to Top of Page |
|
|
|
bmw000
VP-CART New User
137 Posts |
Posted - December 26 2005 : 21:43:04
|
Paypal pro is NOT a merchant account and therefore they do not have to follow any rules. They make the rules. They can freeze your account and ALL funds forever if they want. I have heard true stories where this has happened. You get along ok for years, but when the one time does come, you will wish you had the merchant account to protect you.
Even though you think merchant accounts are getting you for this fee and that fee, I honestly feel it is well worth it. I am by no means a large website or high volume seller, and with my merchant account/gatway package, I average around $30 a month in fees total to accept credit cards. I certainly think and average of $30 a month is very reasonable and affordable to accept credit cards. I have very good discount rates due to extensive research and the help of some very talented coleagues. Good rates are out there, you just have to research them. You will find, sometimes you can get better rates going through your webhost provider than going direct to the gateway/merchant companies.
I have had problems in the past with chargebacks with paypal and through my own experiences, paypal sides with the buyer, not the seller. Even if you get a whiney buyer and they just complain even if you did nothing wrong, paypal steals the funds and gives it back to the buyer. They claim they investigate, which is total crap, because in every case I provided more than enough proof of no wrong doing, paypal still stole the money back from me. Not cool in my book. From now on, I never deal with paypal unless it is for a small amount that I am paying for or I know and trust the sender of the money. Then I get my transfered funds out of the paypal system as fast as possible.
Brian Weber
BMW Solutions, LLC
http://www.bmwsolutions.com |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
All Forums
Any plans to add PAYPAL Website Payments Pro
New Topic
Printer Friendly
TrustGuard - PCI Security Scanner
