another credit card question

cosgrove80

Sorry I know theres been a few threads on this but I can't find the answer to my paticular situation.

My company are doing an ecommerce site for a company that have a print catalogue also.

They have a merchant account already with http://www.euroconex.com.
They have one of those credit card machines that allows them to verify and transfer payments from postal & phone orders.

I suggested realex.ie as the payment service provider after peoples recommendations on these boards.

However not willing to pay the price they want to recieve the credit card numbers from the site and enter them in their existing machine.

Is this ok? If we had a sercure server hosting the site would we be ok. Surely having a list of numbers on their office pc is asking for trouble?

Any advive would be greatly appreciated. We are using oscommerce to build the site and hosting at hosting 365.

Thanks in advance

dahamsta

It's ok if their merchant agreement specifically allows for Internet transactions, which is quite unlikely. The storage of details is more of a security issue than a contractual issue. Transport to the local machine is much more critical than storage; plus of course don't actually need to be stored on-site, they can be deleted after they're used.

If I was you I'd tell a few little white lies to get them to go the proper route. The simplest is to say that if they choose to do it with the swipe, they're going to need a security consultant to ensure that they're covered if Visa mines their data and spots the odd transactions. The cost of the security consultant and the notion that Visa might come after them will knock the faux cleverness on the head.

adam

tom-thebox

Paysystems.com may be a cheaper solution for them to look at, they send payments by CQ's which can be an issue for some people. To signup with them you are looking at 50 bucks and that will allow you to process online in euro.

On the other hand if they process themselves with their own credit card machine they will probably save a lot of money in transaction rates in most cases as Adam said you still have to look at the legal aspect of things.

Worldpay.ie may be another provider to look at.

JJSolutions

Depending on how automated they want the site to be, the customer could complete the order online and get an order number. Then they need to ring in the credit card number with the order number - not exactly online shopping I know but it could be the companies first step into selling online - if the shop is sucessful, they might be willing sign up to realex / worldpay.

Something I browse the web and pick out what i want but I still ring to order the item - especially if your not sure how efficient the shop is - if the order could be sitting online for a few days before its even processed.

dynamic.ie

I don't want to suggest this but you seem to be under a bit of budget pressure, so..... Euroconex are a PSP as well and can supply a gateway for allowing you to process transactions over the web. It's called Clikpay. I think it's EUR 127 to get set up. Only do this as a last resort... 1st choice should definetely be realex.ie.

However, I'd agree with dahamsta - get them to go the proper route. You'll just get into legal crap later on. If they are processing transactions at say 2% in a customer present situation, that's fine. Euroconex have weighed up the risk and believe this to be a fair rate. But if you start taking transactions for card holder not present and being charged the rate for card holder present... they won't like it if they find out. They'll throw back the merchant agreement and say "it's outside the terms of our contract". They'll have to tell Euroconex they are selling over the web even if they continue that route and Euroconex may up the % a bit to cover the extra perceived risk!! Best be safe than sorry.

I think you did the right thing going through www.realex.ie. If you use any other PSP and then Realex, you'll see how advanced their systems and support are. Clikpay and other PSP's may be a bit cheaper but you'll save it with Realex in the support, integration, etc. Go with realex.ie - I'd say.

Best o' luck! Tell us how ya get on...

Sposs

Agree with Dynamic have found Realex excellent.

cosgrove80

Thanks for all the replies.

As far as I know the merchant account they have allows for (sorry can't remember the proper name ) payments when the person isnt present.

They don't have a shop front just a place for storage & dispatching.

I was reading the various oscommerce boards and there is a way to save half the cc number on the server and sent the other half to them in an encrypted email. That way there is never a full credit card number in one place.

Would this be ok? I mentioned realex to her and the reply was along the lines of "why should I pay them money for something I can do myself for free!" :rolleyes:

It's a small company starting out and I understand that they want to keep costs down but I don't want the reputation of building unsecure sites.

"dynamic.ie" do you have any live stores that have realex working with oscommerce? i had a look on the realex site but didn't see any oscommerce. could have missed it though

dynamic.ie

I have only played around with osCommerce. Never used it for a full site. So, I haven't got any sites that use it. I have to say it would be very easy to integrate it into realex as you'll get a load of source code samples off realex in whatever language you use.

I had the same response from a client of mine like this one:

why should I pay them money for something I can do myself for free!

I basically explained that the whole system was automated with realex, they'll check the card number is valid, has funds, not reported stolen, have security checks and can flag any "dodgy" orders automatically. This can save you a lot of time in doing all this yourself with 50 orders each morning, etc, etc. Time is money as they say and the client went with realex.

I use realex as well and just check orders that we have received. I don't ever have access to the credit card number, don't have to process it manually, just fulfil delivery.... which is also automated. Realex cuts out a lot of time and effort, which would cost more to do manually and that's your selling point to the customer.

Cheeurs...

cosgrove80

thanks for the quick reply

so you can relax with realex then?

i understand your points but again her answer will be

"but i'm going to be doing the others anyway!".

It's been hard to explain the big picture to her. it was a battle to get her to give her products code numbers even.

losing patience a bit. might just do it her way and get out

irlhost

Maybe this will help.

When we started selling hosting as a Limited company we looked around for a long time at what was on offer and in the end we got our own merchant account with bank of ireland at a rate of 2%, and use a thawte ssl cert to take in orders.

We do have to enter the details manually which can be a pain on monthly payments but we just use quickbooks pro to record repeat payments. This gives us complete control over all billing and the client is billed in our name and that appears on their statement.

In two years we have had no problems and no requests for refunds, using this system we are also able to bill US clients in US$.