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Complete Computer Services We accept: Paypal, credit cards, U.S. & Canadian money orders, U.S. checks. |
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Complete Computer Services We accept: Paypal, credit cards, U.S. & Canadian money orders, U.S. checks. |
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Payment Services
Read What the payment services don't want you to know
Read A lawyer's interpretation
Helpful phone numbers and web sites dealing with Internet fraud www.Basestealer.com.
Don't play with fire!
For the curious, My Credentials.
Ratings of payment services
Features: Paypal has millions of more users than Google. It is the payment service of ebay, making integration much simpler for auction sellers. Implementing Paypal buttons and shopping carts is easier than integration Google. When someone pays you with paypal, the funds go into your account immediately. With Google, you have to charge each individual transaction. If you forget to charge it for seven days, the funds go back to the buyer. I learned this the hard way, after I shipped an item and was then unable to charge the transaction. The buyer decided to stiff me and would not pay the invoice I emailed even after promising to do so over the phone. This is the only time someone has even cheated me. With Paypal you get the buyer's email ID. With google it's optional. If the buyer doesn't choose to send it, you get a long string of characters which points to google and they are supposed to forward it to the buyer. On several occasions it came back as undeliverable. With Paypal you get a print shipping label button which lets you print a shipping label to the buyer's confirmed address. With Google you have to use some other method and cut-and-paste the address.
Safety: Paypal offers buyer and seller protection if you follow the rules. While there have been numerous complaints in the past that this wasn't true, Paypal has taken many steps to correct this. Complaints to me have fallen off drastically. Of the few I get, most of them are due to the writer failing to follow one of the rules. My own personal experience is positive. I recently received my first complaint after more than 8 years and thousands of transactions. A buyer complained that the address I shipped his item to was one from which he had moved years ago. However, this was the address in his Paypal account. which he had never bothered to update. Tracking showed that the package had been delivered. I told him that though this was entirely his fault, I would replace the item for half price. This was not good enough for him. He wanted me to pay the entire cost of his mistake. He complained to Paypal who told him it had been shipped and delivered to the confirmed address and therefore they were not getting involved.
I recently helped a large cell phone distributor with eight stores and an active web site set up Paypal and Google accounts. They do over ten thousand dollars a day in online business. Because they immediately began to receive thousands of dollars, both Paypal and Google froze their ability to withdraw the money until they could furnish additional information. We gathered the info and faxed it. Several days later, I called Paypal to ask when the limitation would be lifted. Within minutes, an agent was explaining to me that one of the tracking numbers we had provided was inaccurate. I looked up and provided the correct number over the phone and the limitation was lifted. Google has no phone number and everything must be done via email. It takes them several days to answer. They claimed the first fax we sent them never arrived. They claimed the second one was illegible. We finally scanned it and emailed it to them. We are still waiting to hear. It has been several weeks and there is almost twenty thousand dollars in the frozen account. In the meantime, we have removed Google as a payment method from the site. We have yet to see if this will require a lawsuit to recover the funds for items already shipped. This is customer service at its worst.
Because this firm does such a volume of business, there are a few complaints. Some may be mistakes made at the stores and some may be from customers who simply don't bother to read the description of what they are ordering (and some may be scammers). Paypal notified us of each claim. Someone researched it and either exchanged the merchandise, refunded the money, or explained why no further action was being taken. Some customers complained about "quality of goods" or "misrepresented item" issues. (In a few cases, the customers assumed that since the cell phone was bluetooth enabled, this meant a bluetooth headset was included and complained that it wasn't. The item description is very specific about what is in the box and a bluetooth headset does not automatically come with the phone.) In those case, Paypal explained to the buyer that they do not get involved in such disputes. Google on the other hand allowed a customer to charge back a $250 order which was sent with signature confirmation because the customer claimed he did not make the purchase. What?! Google was the one who validated the card - not the seller. If the address provided by Google is not the cardholder's address, it is Google's mistake for validating it. It if IS the cardholder's address, then the claim is a lie! Why would a thief steal someone's credit card and order merchandise to be sent to the cardholder's address? And why isn't the cardholder responsible to return it? So Google's promise of protecting the seller is as worthless as their customer service without a phone number.
Here is an email I received about Google checkout not from a scammed seller, but from his customer:
I do remodel work, and I've been making large payments to a subcontractor using GCK since
summer 08. The sub signed up with GCK at my request, and I'm the only one paying him.
In the Fall of 08, Google froze his account and asked for verification for his business
license. He couldn't receive any payouts at the time, but a few days after his license
was provided they re-opened the account and all was well.
Fast forward to this month. On February 10th, they closed his account. He received an email message which began, "It has come to our attention that your account ID:....does not comply with our Terms and Conditions.As a result, your account has been closed." But later it reads, "Finally, for security reasons I am unable to provide further details regarding this issue."
Of course this is boilderplate, and there is no violation of T&C's anywhere. Basically
what we have is GCK simply deciding they don't like the account, so they're closing it.
That wouldn't be so bad--they have that right--except for what they do if they do take
this action. First, they not only prevent you from using GCK, but they also prevent you
from accessing any of your sales and purchase history. I can't fathom a reason for this,
and it can cause massive headaches. Even worse,
here's what their offical page on closure
Note the amazing policy included on their second link at the bottom:
Risk: I already shipped orders to my buyers. How do I receive payment for these items?
Google Checkout will issue refunds to buyers for any pending orders for which tracking
information has not been added. If a payout has not been initiated to your bank account
for orders which you have already shipped, we recommend ordering a 'stop shipment' from
the shipping company used. If you're unable to order a 'stop shipment', please reconcile
payment with your buyer directly, as this order has been refunded back to your buyer".
WOW. So even if the shipment is legitimate, and you can prove it, Google will refund the purchase price because they unilaterally decided that they would close your account. I thought this was disconcerting.
An even stranger thing is that Google is known as the king of search engines. You would think they would bother to update their own site. They allow buyers to post reviews about sellers who accept Google checkout. A year ago a buyer posted an untrue negative comment about me. Since then 30 other buyers have posted positive comments. Yet if you find me on Google, it shows that I have only 4 comments and one of them is negative. Come on, Google, wake up! Don't you update your own site more than once a year?
The main thing preventing me from wholeheartedly endorsing Google Checkout was the difficulty the average seller would have making it work with their web site. A lot of programming work was needed if you had ever-changing items and discounts. But Google has made this easier with e-mail invoicing and payment buttons, similar to paypal. Your customers place orders and press a payment button. With a little coding, you can make it calculate shipping, tax and any discounts or extras you offer. Clients can also email and indicate that they wish to use Google checkout. You sign in to your Google account and send them invoices. They pay those invoices and the money goes into the bank account you have set up in your Google account. It's not as easy as paypal, there is no customer service number and it appears that there is little fraud protection. But I find that many of my customers find me due to Google searches and I guess clicking the checkout button is easier for them. Competition from a real player can only be good for all of us. I also like the fact that buyers can give feedback on sellers, though this can be abused just like ebay. For reasons unknown to me, one of my buyers posted untrue negative feedback. What's strange is that even if he did have a problem, he never bothered to contact me. With google as with ebay, negative feedback is NOT the way by which you notify the seller of an issue. It is to be used only AFTER you have complained to the seller and no corrective action has been taken. But I think most people realize that you can't do business with thousands of people on the net and not run into a few who simply can't be pleased. One bad feedback in the midst of many good ones should be a good indication of a seller working hard to please his customers. One of my customers actually told me he would be suspicious of any seller who had hundreds of good feedbacks and no bad ones. I guess that makes my ebay record suspicious.
New payment services keep popping up. Many of them use the public's fear of certain heavy-handed services like Paypal to garner "customers." Their sites say things like "Are you tired of payment services that can freeze your whole account? Well, we won't." Then they make all sorts of grandiose promises. Some offer bonuses for signing up and referring your friends. Be very careful! Some of these so-called payment "services" are no more than frauds set up by thieves. Their purpose is to get you to reveal your credit card number, bank account, even social security number. You give these thieves access to your identity. The cost of identity theft is incalculable. It has cost people thousands of dollars, many hours of their time, any possibility of ever owning a home, and worse. Do not sign up for a payment service without checking them out carefully! Here are some tips:
Who is behind the service? A number of these services do not reveal the names of the principals or the companies behind them.
When was the site registered and who owns it? Some of these payment services were registered recently to a single individual using a hotmail (or yahoo, juno, etc) ID. Not a very reassuring sign of stability.
Read the text carefully Some of these sites do little more than bash Paypal and then make vague promises. One particular site has contradictory statements. After promising they will never freeze accounts, under their terms they mention "and if your account is frozen." After saying they won't allow chargebacks like Paypal, they mention "and in the event of a chargeback." Their legal terms could not have been reviewed by an attorney because they make statements that even a non-attorney like me knows would never stand up. For example, they claim that their terms can change at any moment without notice and customers are bound by this. Even Paypal understood that customers have to be warned about changes to the terms and given the opportunity to accept or reject them. They claim that making a chargeback for any reason is fraud. Cardholders have the right to make chargebacks under certain situations and this is not fraud. So to me these are all warning signs of a service that is at best being run by rank amateurs or at worst, by someone interested in harvesting credit card and bank account information.
Citibank's unwanted, ignored orphan child has finally been put out of its misery. In its inception, this payment service seemed like a ray of hope: a service run by a reputable company that followed real regulations and couldn't just make up the rules as they pleased. But very quickly it started showing signs of being an unwanted child. Citibank seemed unwilling or incapable of addressing the many bugs, which prevented many people from signing up. It wasn't as if they were spending nothing on the service. There was 24/7 toll-free support. Transactions which did make it through were completed quickly and efficiently and, for a long time, at no cost to buyer or seller. The site was updated regularly with new information and new graphics. But the bugs were not fixed and the frustration led to more people abandoning C2it as a viable option. Soon the service will be gone and I doubt it will be missed. Only Citibank can explain why they spent so much money and effort in order to produce a failure.
Sellers, beware of dealing with the wrong merchant!
Some folks have asked about getting involved in drop-shipping deals, where they run the auctions and the goods are sent directly from the merchant to the customer. Though I and others have been doing this for years and it works very well with the right merchant, it is very important to know who you are dealing with. Dealing with the wrong merchant will leave YOU holding the bag. The link I posted about this is no longer on the web. Incidentally, this crook, like many others, used paypal to receive money from his victims. Months later, his account was still open despite numerous complaints and despite his sending his victim a letter boasting about how he was a "safe as teflon because nothing sticks to him." Paypal was of absolutely no use. We discovered that complaints had been made against him months earlier, some of which had even been upheld and the buyers reimbursed. Why did they allow him to continue to scam?
Credit card scammers arrested in NY.
Merchants are fighting back. Join a group of Online merchants who have banded together to exchange information on fraudulent cards and methods of combatting online fraud. Merchant911.org.
I have stated in the past that when folks use an online payment service to make a payment, they may be giving up their charge back rights. I was told this by officers in the credit card department of several banks. Here is a link to an article which states this. Note that it is a bit out-of-date, particularly in reference to the fees being charged. Online Payment Services.
Author meets with celebrities and lawmakers to discuss online payment services. Article and photos
My 7/1/01 AuctionBytes Article on Payment Services Quick Ratings Chart with Fee Information
1) I am not an employee of, consultant of or have any connection to any payment service except as a customer or former customer.
2) I personally have never had any charge backs from any payment service and my account has never been restricted. My personal experiences with all payment services have been good.
I post these web pages as warnings based on information that I received via email or found on the boards. You can choose to disbelieve them all if you like. You can decide that hundreds of posters had nothing better to do than make up stories about companies providing them with free services. You can also wonder why, if these stories aren't true, the companies didn't just say so. Instead, those (like Exchangepath and Paypal) who bothered to go to the sites where the complaints were posted, either blamed the complainer or the complainer's ISP or made excuses for why it happened.
Note about credit card services: There are three problems to worry about in a transaction: 1) the buyer is using a stolen credit card, 2) the buyer will receive the mechandise and charge it back with a false complaint 3) the seller will receive the payment and not ship or ship something very different than what was ordered. Because credit card rules are so badly skewed in favor of the buyer (see What the payment services don't want you to know) sellers run a high risk when they accept credit cards and an even higher risk when using a third-party payment service. Banking laws are more clearly defined and validation of payer ID is higher. Therefore a service that uses a bank account payment will be safer. I have therefore rated the payment services based on how they respond to these three problems.
General note about fraud: A basic fact of a business transaction over the Internet is that there is no way to protect both parties. The method will either favor the buyer or the seller. Credit cards favor the buyer and many sellers have been taken by scamming buyers. Money orders favor the seller and there have been buyers scammed by dishonest sellers. I believe that it is the sellers who need protection more than the buyers for these reasons:
1) There are far more buyers than sellers. If there is a tool that can be used by buyers to scam, it opens a much bigger door for fraud than a tool that can be used by sellers.
2) Buyers can choose their sellers. Sellers don't have the luxury of choosing their buyers. Buyers can check out a seller's ratings before making a bid. There is a reason why the famous saying is "Buyer Beware." Only the buyer has the means by which to be aware.
3) Sellers have to maintain a reputation, buyers don't. So it is far easier for a buyer to keep changing their ID and scam victims than for a seller to do the same. Most buyers who have been scammed on auctions bought something from a seller with low ratings. In a sense, they asked for it. Now I don't condone taking advantage of a person under any circumstances, but if someone fails to exercise their due diligence, they have no right to complain that another party (an auction site, a payment service, a government agency) should have protected them from their own ill-conceived actions. There are laws to protect people from muggers and burglars. But should we make a law that if someone leaves their wallet in a restaraunt and it disappears, they can sue the restaraunt? Some people want to hold the payment services or auction sites responsible for their own negligence. Paypal tried to come up with a plan to protect everyone. The result became so convoluted that only the scammers managed to stay protected.
If you feel you have been defrauded on the net by an individual, company or payment service, you can fill out an online fraud report.
Beware of another auction scam!
Egold is a payment service similar to paypal but with a few significant differences. 1) It is based on gold. When you open an egold account, you are actually buying a quantity of gold. If the price changes, the value in your account changes. 2) The price you pay depends upon the quantity purchased. The more you buy, the better price you get. 3) There is a minimum amount which must be purchased. 4) Payments are made to account numbers. You don't see the name of the recipient. 5) Payments are non-refundable. If you pay the wrong account by accident, it's too bad.
Because of these factors, it is common for people to open egold accounts with large purchases and then sell them in smaller blocks to investors who can't come up with the minimum purchase. There are also sellers who accept egold for their auctions. If you win one of their auctions and don't want to open an egold account, you might pay an existing account holder who accepts paypal to act as a middleman and ask him to then pay your seller.
A well known egold seller received several emails from someone telling him that some payments for egold were on their way and giving him an egold account number in which to deposit these payments. He then received some money orders and payments via other payment services, just as he had been told. He began depositing egold payments in the account that he had been instructed to fund. Along comes a money order with a note reading, "this is for the digital camera on ebay."
Now this egold seller does not sell anything on ebay. So he called the person who had included his name and phone number along with the money order. He was shocked to discover that a seller had been offering all sorts of popular and expensive items on ebay and instructing his winners to send checks, money orders and electronic payments to this egold seller. The egold seller had then sent off non-refundable payments to an annonymous egold account. The actual scammer remains completely untraceable and the egold seller is on the hook for a few thousand dollars.
The moral of the story:
-know who you are doing business with. Buyers should not have been bidding on the expensive items of a brand new seller with a hotmail address and no ratings.
-always include some basic information with a payment, particularly who you are and what the payment is for. If the first few buyers had done this, the whole scheme would never have worked.
Bidpay ***
After disappearing for a while, Bidpay is back. The company was bought by another consisting of some of the original managers. Bidpay also has a whole new way of doing business which appears much smarter than the old way. This is the first payment service which appears to fully protect both buyers and sellers. Buyers use their credit cards, so they have all the protection offered. Sellers receive payment directly into their bank accounts. No more waiting for money orders which have on occasion gotten lost in the mail. No more receiving emails to ship the product, only to get one later saying "Sorry, don't ship yet." (When this did happen, which was rare, Bidpay covered the cost.) Bidpay also guarantees the payment. As long as the seller adheres to some very simple rules, they are protected. Seller must be able to show proof of shipping to the buyer's registered address - not proof of delivery, (which you can't get on foreign shipments). Bidpay will never go into a seller's account to remove the payment. (Unlike Paypal's promises of protection which are often voided.) At the moment, because they never go into a seller's bank account, they don't even offer a refund option through the service. If the buyer or seller can't complete the deal, they have to come to their own agreement. However, in the future Bidpay plans on offering order cancellations and bank account to bank account (ACH) tranfers. Bidpay can be used for auctions only. It is not an open-ended payment service like Paypal.
In a change of policy, sellers pay the fees. Originally, buyers paid the fees, but sellers were protected from charge backs. This model makes more sense. Payment services have always been buyer-oriented or seller-oriented. A credit card is buyer-oriented because the seller has little recourse against charge backs. A money order is seller-oriented because once it is sent, the buyer has little recourse against seller fraud. I believe Paypal's big mistake was trying to be both. I also believe that the "customer" is always right (or at least most of the time) so I don't understand services which take the other party's side against their own customer. The "customer" of a credit card is the seller. It's the seller who pays the fees. Yet the buyer wins in most disputes. The "customer" of a money order is the buyer, yet a seller paid with a money order almost always wins. Bidpay protects its customer, the seller, against charge backs, while the buyer's credit card protects him.
The service is still "new," so some features may become available in the future such as refunds and direct bank account to bank account transfers between buyers and sellers.
Seller protection against fraud: high. Buyer protection against fraud: high. Seller protection against charge backs: high.
Payingfast.com
Payingfast is gone.
Paypal *** (if used caution)
There have been a number of improvements, particularly in the area of customer service. There is a toll-free number and I was able to get through fairly quickly to a helpful person. But my situation had nothing to do with fraud or a chargeback, areas where people tell me paypal is of little use. Complaints in general have gone way down. But every so often I still run into a seller with very high feedback who tells me he was forced to pay a scammer, despite the other person's numerous negatives on ebay and repeat offenses. Some sellers had their accounts frozen over one or two complaints. This is unconscionable. The only excuse for freezing an account is if there is a valid reason to suspect fraud. Can you imagine if your bank froze your account over a single bounced check and then held on to your money for months? Continuing to accept money into frozen accounts, money which the seller can't even refund to the rightful owners, is tantamount to fraud in my opinion. When a seller commits to accepting paypal, puts it all over his site and in every auction, and then has his account frozen over one complaint, he can be put out of business. Though it is happening rarely, Paypal should not be permitted this practice.
I also don't understand why I can accept credit card payments from a verified account with a confirmed address and have paypal show me that it is not eligible for protection.
Sellers thought if they did not accept credit card payments they would be safe. That is not true. Scammers have reversed non credit card payments. Buyers thought were safe if they used credit cards. That is not true. The charge sometimes goes through as a service of money transfer, rather than as a payment for goods. Therefore the service was provided and no charge back can be done even if no merchandise is received. I received an email from a buyer who used his Discover card via paypal and received nothing. Paypal refused to help and Discover denied his charge back. So while paypal works if both parties are honest, it leaves the field wide open to scammers. If you want more details, we have a detailed Paypal page.
So while I still recommend paypal as a safe way to pay and accept payments, provided some caution is taken, I strongly advise NOT to make it your only payment method. The chances of your account being frozen are low, but would you do business with a bank who froze even 1% of their accounts?
Seller protection against fraud: minimal. Buyer protection against fraud: moderate. Seller protection against charge backs: almost none.
Propay *x0 (use extreme caution)
At 3.5% + 35 cents per transaction, and another 35 cents to withdraw the funds, they are rather pricey. But they do offer two advantages. You can pretend to have a merchant account, since you charge the card yourself and the address verification reports if the address given you matches the cardholder. They also have two problems. One, you don't find out if the address matches until AFTER the charge goes through. If it doesn't match, you have a small window of opportunity to cancel the transaction before you are charged transaction fees. Two, I have tried to charge at least 12 cards and in every case it reported that the address didn't match. The last card I tried was my own, which I have used successfully for years. Propay reported that the zip code didn't match. I tried it twice and it's hard to misspell a zip code. So I am pretty certain that Propay's verification doesn't work. Yet their customer service wants me to believe that the same problem is the fault of 12 different banks.
You have to wait a few days for the money to be available in your Propay account. Then you have to withdraw it to your bank account and wait another few days. Propay's fees are rather high for less service than you get with Paydirect and longer waits for your money. What kind of protection does a seller get? Absolutely none. Sellers are responsible for all charge backs plus charge back fees. Though some sellers have told me that they like the fact that Propay lets them pretend to have a merchant account, I feel that the fees are too high, the service too low and the potential for charge backs too high to justify using it regularly. But because there are foolish buyers out there who think that you are somehow more reputable or that they are safer if you charge their card directly, I did use it before I got my merchant account.
Seller protection against fraud: moderate. Buyer protection against fraud: high. Seller protection against charge backs: none.
Incidentally, a site once popped up called Paymentalt that copied Paypal's text. Whole sentences were copied right out of Paypal's pages. I warned folks to stay away from them, since any company that does this is not to be trusted. Sure enough, about 14,000 folks signed up and later many found fraudulent charges on their CC. Last I heard, the owner was being sought by authorities. So beware of new sites that pop up, offer incentives for joining and have no background info on the principals.
The Good News
Even Visa itself is responding to the complaints of numerous vendors. They are now beginning a program which will allow even online vendors to verify that the person making the charge is indeed the cardholder. If the merchant belongs to this program, then the cardholder can not claim the charge was unauthorized. Visa Security article
