So here’s the situation: I took over a large fansite a few months ago; the old mods all had fights with each other and didn’t want to do the work anymore. I happened to get it at the lovely time of year when the hosting fees are almost due!! They’ve had fundraising drives every year, and they’ve always worked before (even during the past two years, when the mods were not trying to keep the site fresh or current or exciting.) It is NOT going well this year…
Some people have said that they don’t want to pay through Paypal because their accounts got hacked earlier in the year and they just don’t trust it anymore. Even if this isn’t true ALL the time, it still seems like it would be good to not give people an excuse to not donate. SO…
Is there any straightforward way to get payments from people online besides Paypal? This may be a lost cause… but it’s worth asking all the smart people here!!
PayPal is a merchant account and gateway all in one. I think Quickbooks (Intuit) offers a merchant/gateway solution. I think Google Wallet does too, and Amazon just opened Amazon Payments to work the same way as PayPal.
You can also get separate merchant and gateway accounts (or you might need a merchant account to use one of the APIs above, I don’t know).
You can get a merchant account through your bank. You can get one through almost any bank.
Then you need a gateway. Authorize.net is a gateway. You program your web site to send payment information to their web site, seamlessly, and they run charges (or tell you the charge was denied) and then put money in the merchant account and the merchant account puts money into your bank account.
It seems like a lot of extra fees but for one it’s more seamless (altho PayPal and all the other APIs can be seamless too) and the fees probably add up to about the same as a merchant + gateway service.
Like I said, you can make PayPal seamless. Anything that’s seamless requires you program your own cart software (your own = one that you build OR one that you buy) and then send info to the gateway using the API and then deal with what happens upon response from the gateway. You don’t necessarily need anyone to know you are using PayPal or have anyone log on to PayPal to use it. You can just send credit card info to PayPal and they send some info back and you deal with it on your end.
But, if you don’t have the skills to do the extra programming, or the money to pay someone to do it, then you’ll want to look for another merchant/gateway solution that is not seamless but also not PayPal.
It’s good to know what else I could do… I think what I’ll do first, though, is to ask (in the next begging post, that is) if the Paypal thing really is causing the problem, and if so, for how many people. I think I’ll do the “one cent” thing too.
The thing with Kickstarter… does it work for pre-existing projects? This site has been around for almost ten years. Does it need to be a new project/idea/invention/ezine whatever?
These have the benefit of going through (slightly less) evil companies. I don’t know how they all stack up in fees. Looks like Dwolla is a low flat fee.
It seems only the US has complicated the transfer of funds.
I can transfer unlimited funds between two countries in Europe (and between Turkey and Europe) with low fees and 24 hour completion of transfer.
I can transfer payment of funds from my account to merchants and private citizens between different banks with minimal fees.
I can withdraw cash from my US credit unions with minimum fees and even refunds of fees.
I cannot transfer my monthly salary or pension from the US without going through a Correspondent Bank, which charge 2-10% of the amount transferred, and a 25$ charge from my CU for each transaction.
So, I take my daily limit out two or three days in a row.
Or I deposit a paper check which takes 7-10 days to clear (with the entire amount immediately available) and usually pay only the Excchange rate commission. (Why 7-10 days, though, since I can scan a check to my bank or CU, and it is immediate?).
I recently started a thread telling about my nightmare with Paypal where I had to spend countless hours to recover my money which they took from my bank account. I definitely do not trust Paypal at all. If there is any glitch you will have to spend lots of effort and time to straighten it out.
On the other hand bank fees make small transactions not worth the cost of the fees.
In old times it was not uncommon to make small payments by sending postage stamps (rather than money) by mail but I suppose today there is little use for postage stamps.
For small amounts I would just send money or stamps in the mail.
Google is shutting down the shopping cart portion of that in November. Pisses me off, too. I spent a long time designing a website to use Google Cart, and now I have to redo it.
In the UK - I pay several regulars by direct transfer, including to private accounts. I do not need any other information that what is printed on their cheques. AFAK they get little or no information about me - indeed, one problem for them is identifying who has paid. There is no charge for this service.
I also pay my major credit card this way each month - the transfer is guaranteed to be within two hours.
You really can’t. The Planet Money podcast recently had an episode about the antiquated wire transfer system we have in the US - basically it was designed in the 70s, and the requirements were never updated. It takes several business days to make a transfer. Most banks charge a large fee for wire transfer ($25 per transfer at mine, if I remember correctly), and most don’t let you do it online.
Apparently new systems have been proposed but never built, partly because the US has so many independent banks. (There are almost 7000 FDIC-insured commercial banks and 9500 credit unions in the US.)
It isn’t just that - there is a reasonably decent incentive to be as slow as your customers will allow, as it has fraud prevention benefits. The advantages accrue to the customers, not the bank itself so they’d have to demand it.
wow, I can transfer from any bank or credit union to any other and for zero dollars on line. It happens over night in Australia or immediately if the same bank.
Actually, I did think about that. I run a landscaping and gardening business with my sister, and 90-95% of our payments are through checks in the mail. Even considering the fact that we have a disproportionate customer share of little old ladies who don’t use computers at all, that is a high percentage, especially here (Portland, OR.) I think that a lot of people just plain don’t like to use Paypal, and I don’t blame them. But that’s how the old mods always had this set up.
A big problem with the check in the mail idea, though, is that a lot of our members are scattered all over the world. I was talking to one woman who really DOES want to send money, but she hates Paypal and had a horrible experience with it. She’s in New Zealand! So I don’t think sending a check would work too well…
I don’t know. If I had more time, maybe something like merchant.inc would work… but this has to be done soon. But then, I actually would be willing to pay it myself if I really could be sure I’d get it back (and they’ve always been able to do it in the past.) I don’t know!!! It’s just discouraging.
Kiwis don’t use cheques for the most part. Not any more. International transfer of funds electronically is a pain and costs a few dollars in fees often with unfavourable exchange rates, but it is possible. Most people I know use credit cards for online purchases. It can’t be that difficult to get set up to receive CC payments. (My wife did it for a small business.) This would cover you for both local and international members. I know you end up paying a percentage to the card companies but it might be easier in the long haul.
