I am trying to convince my boss we need to set up some alterative payment arrangements for our customers. Currently we only take cash or cheque and many customers don’t find this convenient. I’ve suggested we offer the following - direct transfer of funds into our account, credit card and debit card facilities (via the eftpos system) and BPay.
My boss’s response is that in the United States people have tried all these options and gone back to the traditional cash/cheque payment methods because they are the only ones that are secure of fraud and its easier to keep track of your finances. In this comment he includes all forms of Internet and telephone banking.
This just doesn’t sound right to me and what about the rest of the world - how do they pay their bills?
I personally pay my student loan through direct deposit and a lot of my other creditors (car payments, electric) have tried to get me on that bandwagon, as well, so I’d say that a lot of the businesses have that set up just in case.
Your boss is simply making stuff up. Automatic withdrawal and credit card are payment options for the phone and power companies where I live, and in my experience are pretty common options in the US. I’d be suprised if a company didn’t provide a CC option for someone who’s just about to get their power/phone shut off. I forget exactly what ‘debit cards’ are; in the US, the usual way to use a ‘direct card payment from your checking account’ is to have an ATM card that has a credit card logo, which looks like a credit card to the machines and gets treated like one.
I’m also not sure why someone would say that checks are free from fraud, checks are fairly fraud-prone and you have the risk of rubber checks (insufficient funds) screwing up your accounting.
I pay my phone bill by credit card. I pay the credit card via on line banking. In fact I pay most of the traditional send in a check kind of payments with online banking. However, I think that in some cases the bank mails people the check if they don’t have some kind of electronic system with who I am paying.
I pay my mortgage via direct withdrawal I should try for the deposit option that interface2x talked his creditors into. My cable company wants me to pay via direct withdrawal as well but the want to charge me 10 cents for it. I am not going to pay 10 cents extra for something that saves them money. They should pay me 10 cents.
Does the US have anything like BPay (linked to in the OP)? It’s the next step from internet banking, and EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) in shops.
Bpay can be accessed via the internet, over the phone, or at your local Post Office. Every financial institution, utility, insurance company, etc in Australia has a BPay number and gives each customer a “customer number” (printed on their bill). I pay all my bills in about ten minutes once a fortnight on the internet. I can also make deposits in other people’s bank accounts (with any bank) on the net using the BSB (I think Bank Suburb Branch) number, which is like BPay, but for individuals.
Basically, it’s combined and streamlined the various electronic systems, and still allows old-timers to go and pay cash to a human being at the Post Office.
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*Originally posted by leechbabe *
I am trying to convince my boss we need to set up some alterative payment arrangements for our customers. Currently we only take cash or cheque and many customers don’t find this convenient. I’ve suggested we offer the following - direct transfer of funds into our account, credit card and debit card facilities (via the eftpos system) and BPay.
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All of the above methods are sufficient, and used regularly in Australia. I used all of them when I lived there for various transactions.
With all due respect, but your boss is a fuckwit. Here in the USA we use all the types of transactions you mentioned. They just depend up individual circumstances.
The reality here in the US is many transactions are now via credit card and/or electronic. Checks (cheques) seem to be on the decline here. Then again, idenity theft may play a role in this.
That makes a huge difference when deciding how to accept payment. For example, we wanted to set up a website that would accept credit card payment for a conference we’re planning. Setting up a secure website for those purchases worked out to cost something like $70 a person for the number of people we were expecting to pay by credit card. Considering that the conference fee was only going to be about $150–we couldn’t justify the extra expense. Of course–people can still pay by credit card–they just need to call or fax us the number. The only reason they can do that though, is because we go through a large contractor who has an account set up with a bank to handle credit card payments. I interned at a non-profit a few years ago and part of my duties were to investigte setting up an account so we could accept credit cards. The fees were not exactly cheap. For a small company, they could be prohibitive. Perhaps when your boss says people have tried and failed in the US, he is speaking of small businesses rather than large scale ones.
We are a medium size business and the costs vs the income pan out very well. Even our Auditor agrees with me - which is unusual as more often than not we violently disagree but he is very pro internet banking.
We organise Expo’s and our exhibitors come from all over Australia so they need to have a variety of payment options. Alot of them get cranky because they went to pay by credit card and get frequent flyer points (or similar).
I’ve always known my boss was anti-technology I just didn’t realise how deep it goes that he is now lying to me just to get his way.
I trade on the web from London, England. The USA is my biggest market. I only accept credit card payment (secure processing via my online store). No problems or complaints from my many US customers. I’ve had about half a dozen US customers ask if I can accept an International Money Order instead, but the vast majority seem to think a credit card is a perfectly normal way to pay for stuff.
My own experience of working for other people in various companies, before I started working for myself, leads me to offer a fairly sound rule-of-thumb: at any time, it is not only possible that your boss is mistaken, it’s actually probable. If you come up with a reasonable suggestion and your boss dismisses it, then the probabiity approaches certainty.
You’ll find every instance of this phenomenon more frustrating the one before. Cumulatively, it’s very soul-destroying. Maybe it’s time for you to move on!
The last time I went to Canada I was rather frustrated by how little I could use my debit card. People seemed rather put off by it too.
I hardly carry much cash anymore since most places in the US will take my card and give me cash back if I decide I need it. The Canadians seemed much less enthusiastic about this idea.
I think we United Statians are very keen on electronic money.
Perspective, you were using your ATM card as an ATM card, then, right? NOT as credit card, it would seem. I’ve only seen merchants offer “cash back” using your card as a “debit,” which is processed as an ATM transaction and subject to bank fees for “non-affiliated” ATMs. If your card has the Visa or MasterCard logo, tell the merchant “credit” – NOT debit. Sure, you can’t get cash-back, BUT there are no ATM fees.
I’ve never had a problem using them as “credit” in Canada – I spend quite a bit of money in Windsor and Sarnia.
There’s nothing that standardized here. I use a service called ‘BillPay’ on the PayPal system to pay my credit cards; I pay my utilities, car insurance, and car payment via direct funds transfer from my checking account (without the PayPal intermediary). I haven’t mailed anyone a check in quite a while …
I work for a very large company and we do as much of our Purchasing as possible via an Extranet system. Think billions of dollars. We also use a corporate credit card system to do additional billions of purchasing. Then we do a lot of materials purchasing with other types of electronic systems. Not sure how all of these are settled, but I’d bet (a lot) that with regular customers it’s done via electronic bank transfer.