E-payment

[John Kennett]

Jeff

I tried just now and got the same problem, but it was OK when I tried again a couple of minites later. It's normally OK.

The other news is that PayPal now accept international users (I got the notification email about ten minutes after posting my last message!). Web site payments are billed as "coming soon" for international accounts, but the rates look very good -- 25c + 1.9%

If anyone hasn't got a PayPal account yet, you may as well sign up for one -- it doesn't cost anything, and if you use this link, FutureQuest gets five bucks!

John

[JW]

Thanks John.

I am international, too. I did sign up. Whether or not I use that is another story, but the process did make things a bit more clear.

I'd like to have basic information about the transaction in my own database, however, regarding the user account.  I do NOT want, nor need, any of the secure information, but was thinking about a form that would launch the user into PayPal, Kagi or similar with the account information that I would like, and to have that carried as hidden inputs to fill avoid having to re-do those fields in on the payment service's page.

I want to gather basic user information (email, username) PLUS I'd like confirmation of the payment other than via email when the online transaction has been completed that would also allow online activation of parts of my website in that database I just mentioned. What are the options? How can I make the email work if there aren't other options?

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated, as I'm still grasping putting the concept together.

JW.

[John Kennett]

The other news is that PayPal now accept international users

But the bad news is that they charge for the service! All transactions involving "International" (ie non-US) credit cards incur a fee of 2.6% of the amount plus $0.30 per transaction.

Apparently

This fee covers accepting payments from cards outside the U.S., increased risk and resultant costs for international transactions, and increased customer service communication costs as well as any associated currency fees.

I'm not sure why non-US credit cards should be more risky given PayPal apply the same checks before allowing the use of a card; and I really can't see how their communications costs are increased -- it's only email!

John

[Rich]

The increased risk comes from the fact that the checks (like address verification) make on US cards cannot be made on International cards. In addition, since the majority of credit card fraud is from usage of non-US cards, there is an increased risk from fraud.

The increased communication costs come when suspect transactions need to be verified. This can only be done by calling the issuing bank to verify the customer information and optionally, calling the bank's customer to confirm the transaction.

Rich
-- "You do speak 35 different languages, don't you?"