Other Merchant Providers

PayPal - In order to accept credit card payments through PayPal, you must have an upgraded PayPal account. People buying your products and services can then use their credit and debit cards through PayPal. However, once you have an upgraded PayPal account you are charged a percentage on EVERY PayPal payment you receive, not just credit card payments. It does not matter whether the person who pays you is using their PayPal balance, their credit card or their bank account. The same percentage is deducted off of EVERY payment. This even includes payments from your Grandmother in Brighton who is just sending you money for your birthday.

Have you ever made a purchase only to find out that the product wasn't as described and that you really got a bad deal? If you paid with a credit card, you place a simple chargeback and get your money back, but not with PayPal. If you read their terms of service, you will find that it says, "PayPal reserves the right not to dispute a chargeback even if the seller has provided some evidence, particularly if PayPal believes the dispute is not likely to be successful." Since PayPal is a credit card processor, they have the right to issue all the charge-backs they please, however it seems that PayPal is much more interested in its short term profit margins rather than taking good care of its customers. The reason PayPal discourages charge-backs so much is because the fewer charge-backs they place, the better interest rate they will get from the processing bank and thus will make more money for doing so. Even if your account has been stolen and unauthorised charges have been made against your account, too bad. In their terms of service, you agree to waive the right of filing charge-backs against unauthorised transactions.

If you ever want real customer service from PayPal, good luck. They hide their phone number on their website so that they don't have to pay as many customer service representatives. Instead they offer an email form that you can fill out to get help. Even if you do happen to find a warm body at PayPal, you won't get all that much help. If they think any of your actions are somewhat questionable, PayPal can do whatever they want with your money. They are the judge, jury and executioner. Even if you're a perfectly upright seller, and someone pays for one of your items with a stolen credit card, your PayPal account is flagged for "criminal behavior" and all the money in the account is confiscated.

High Street Banks - Just about all major high street banks have what is known as an acquiring bank e.g. NatWest has 'Streamline', LloydsTSB has 'Cardnet', Barclays has 'Barclays Merchant Services', HSBC has 'HSBC Merchant Services' and so on. All these acquiring banks are able to issue a Merchant ID and allow you to start taking credit cards in your business. They will authorise or decline each customer transaction, collect any payments on your behalf and pay the money into your bank account.

There are obviously costs involved - typically the bank will include setup charges, monthly or annual fees, monthly rental of a terminal for you to process card details, and maybe insist on a dedicated telephone line for the terminal. You will also be charged a percentage of each transaction which they process, you may have a minimum monthly volume of business imposed, and in some cases you will have to provide a substantial bond or deposit as extra security.

Unfortunately that's the good news! - before you can even start you will have to satisfy the bank that you are worthy of their trust in the first place, and you will usually have to provide two years audited accounts and demonstrate a sound business track record in order for your application to proceed. (Which is why some banks also require a cash bond and an extensive business plan if you cannot satisfy all that, for whatever reason)

Even if you achieve all that you will then be able to accept card payments in your 'traditional business' only. If you want to set up a web site to accept card payments you will find that the acquiring banks will not accept any information coming from you via the Internet. The banks will only accept information from a web site which has been processed by an approved Payment Service Provider (PSP).

So what now? Let Web Merchant Services help you