Mechant Account Recommendations & Lessons Learned

[JoshFink]

Well, I have been reading for a while now and I think it's time to step up to the plate and get a full blown merchant account. Before I do, I would really like the opinion of all of you.

I'm not really sure how you implement the Merchant Services Provider into your web site, but I'm hoping that anyone that I go with will be able to explain it all to me (if you guys can't).

If you could do the following for me:

Name of Merchant Service Provider :
Costs Associated :
Pros :
Cons :
Things to watch out for:
Would you reccommend again:
Contact there (this would be great if I decide to go with them)

Anything else I didn't think of.

Thanks so much for the help,

JOsh

[Skystar]

Hi Josh - Finding the right online payment processing setup can be a pain, but I know what you mean - you gotta do it if you wanna sell stuff on the Net and not wind up paying 10% - 20% for 3rd party processing like ClickBank or some of the others.

Some of it depends on your site and what you’re selling. Some banks still don’t get it, and have such tough restrictions that they’re not worth considering. I’ve been through the mill looking for the right payment processing for a weekly financial newsletter I sell online, with the worst of all being NetBilling.com. Complete horror story - _forget them_ ! I finally went with iBill. They are considered an ‘adult’ payment provider, but they also handle all kinds of other sites, and have pretty decent customer service. www.worldpay.com is another good one. Can you get a merchant account from you bank? Do they understand Internet billing? We got ours through Signature Card Services, (888) 334-2284 but haven’t been with them long enough to be able to recommend them yet.

Here’s a good site that features lots of payment processing sources and rates them etc: www.Merchantseek.com . The guy that runs it is very helpful.

Here’s what worked best for me: I sent them all a very detailed email, stating I didn’t want to pay a set up fee, they had to have recurring billing, I had to be able to use my signup, card declined, card accepted pages etc., gave them my site to review, etc. and then saw who had the best service and rates. One iron clad rule I have is never doing business with a site that doesn’t feature a phone number - period. We’re all so busy - when I need an answer I need it _now_.

A fabulous setup, (one of the best on the Web), is AccessPoint Communications. www.apc.net. Call Frank or Claudia at 1-800-977-4770 x 106 or 121 and mention my name. Here’s a real friendly, professional, _responsive_ organization that will help you with your payment processing, online ordering, etc, etc.

Good luck, hope everything goes well.

Earl Brown
skystar@silcom.com

[jaiem]

Charge.com has been given very high rating by many people.

As Skystar said, it depends what you want/need from a merchant account. Shop around.

[friend]

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