Elavon causing delay in site launch

Nice1

I'm almost there in terms of setting up an online shop. I have the site, the stock, the bank loan, the marketing material, the lo-call number everything basically, except the payment processing. This is due to Elavon changing from a local to an international platform. They stopped processing new applications at the end of July until the end of August and have now advised me that there's going to be a further 6-8 week delay. After this is sorted, I still have to give Realex a chance to set up their side of things, so realistically, it's likely to be November before I can actually take payment through my shop. I'm also in the position where I'm now repaying the business loan with the loan itself and if I don't start selling soon, I'm going to end up with no means to repay the loan.
Has anyone any advice/bright ideas as to how I can get selling without accepting payments online? The stock isn't really suitable for a tupperware party type set up!

Bandara

Have you gone back to your bank and explained the situation and asked them to freeze your access to the money from the business loan in your account and suspend the payments on it until you start to trade?

The bottom line they need to consider is that if you have to replay the loan with the loan itself you are just going to have to reapprach them for more funding which increases their exposure and risk even more.

Alternately, they can freeze the funding for you and give you a three month break in making payments and spread the cost of the three months over the remaining nine months of year one, obviously this is not ideal as you will pay more interest, but it will get you into a situation where at least you get to the end of November when you will you have revenue coming in to fund the debt.

Hope it goes well for you

aidan.connolly

Hi,
I run a small site and currently use Paypal as a method of processing payments. The fees are qute high, but it does work well. My aim is to move from Paypal to realex, but I need to get more business through my site. Would Paypal be an option for you. Some web designers can switch payment providers on websites without to much trouble and expense.
It would get you up an running faster and you could switch back to Evalon/Realex when you get connected.

Good luck !

keithmc

Hi Nice1,

Sorry to hear about your delay in getting the site up and running. As far as I am aware, Realex are not just tied in to Elavon which would mean that you can apply for a merchant agreement with one of the other banks in Ireland (AIB and Ulster Bank). They would hopefully allow you to set your account up quicker than the 8 weeks that are forecasted by Elavon.

AIB Merchant Services : 016412500
UB Merchant Services : 017025845
Elavon Merchant Services : 1850202120

Hope this helps and good luck!

TheWaterboy

As one poster said, I would go down the Paypal route. Simple to setup and integration isnt too bad. I have integrated Paypal into a few sites without a problem. Costs are only higher when you start to make a lot of sales. As your site is only starting out I dont expect this to be a problem. Not sure what your selling, but getting your site live in mid November could miss the Xmas rush!.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Nice1

Thanks for all those replys. As far as I'm aware, because my business banking (and by that read business loan) is with BOI, the merchant services provider needs to be Elavon. The merchant services account needs to be in place before Realex or paypal or whoever get involved. Is that wrong?

aidan.connolly

Hi Nice1,

You can set up a Paypal account seperate to your Merchant Account with a bank.
It takes about two weeks to set one up. I have put the link below which will give you more information.
https://www.paypal.com/ie/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_onboarding-list

I hope it works. If not the site address is www.paypal.ie


Regards

Aidan

Nice1

That's exactly what I'll do Aidan, thanks so much

eamon234

Don't forget the Boardsies discount code!!!;)

Mickk

Nice1 wrote: »

Thanks for all those replys. As far as I'm aware, because my business banking (and by that read business loan) is with BOI, the merchant services provider needs to be Elavon. The merchant services account needs to be in place before Realex or paypal or whoever get involved. Is that wrong?

Just so you know you can stay banking with boi and use aib or ulster bank merchant services. Elavon did this to me aswell and at the end of it (12 weeks of jumping through hoops) actually rejected my application! I got it sorted with ulsterbank in about 2 weeks.
My bank manager was behind me completely and even rang them infront of me giving out to them but they wouldn't budge, he said he has had loads of problems with them and now even gives out ulster banks merchant services contact details to his customers, bank of ireland used to own them but sold up so have real control over their decisions...

Dabko

Elavon = pain, suffering and lengthy nightmares!

If you deal with them, make sure you haggle like hell on the rates they are charging.
Also, if not required, reject the terminal they will send you out, fuking rip off!

And, deal with secpay ( i think they re-branded recently to paypoint.net) as the payment gateway provider. Very good rates and easy to deal with.

Best of luck

ismise69

In fairness guys Elavon aint that bad, (as an ex employee i know how they work)
If you're wanting an new application, remember to ask your sales rep about having more than 1 terminal, this might reduce your rates, and depending on how many cards you process, could work out more lucritave in the long run for yourself, sure you'll be paying rental for extra terminals, but if it means lower rates then happy days, just make sure you can afford it by means of transactions,
Terminal Types:
remember, state what type of phone lines you have on your premisis, you wouldnt beleive the amount of people who order terminal and get set up with them and then don't have compatible phone lines, so the going ones are PSTN(Analogue) & IP(An IP Questionnaire will have to be filled out if going IP)
In my opinion the T4220IP(Comes in PSTN also) is the best going, optional external pin pad.
There are also the M series(Portable terminals)
M4230 GPRS
M4240 Available over PSTN & IP

The going rate for transactions when i left was:
Visa & MC roughly around 2 - 2.1% per transaction
Debit cards 25c per transaction this can go as low as 12c - Haggle, but also remember, that this is not a free service, Elavon mostly make their money from Rates, Terminal rental & an account processing fee (MSC) its a monthly fee for servicing your account.

There are also Exception fees, these were hidden, but with new PC Compliancy, All customers of Elavon must be complient, they're pretty much saying that the best and most secure way to take a transaction is with the customer present, chip and pin. obviously for mail order sales there are exceptions, and Elavon allow this. Just make sure that you're processing with all the information inputted into the right sections of your terminal, any questions most of the tech help-desk are very knowledgeable, contact is: 1850 20 21 20
I also beleive that they are the only merchant provider that can supply individual funding, this means that anyone in any country can be funded in any country and in any currency depending on their needs, this was the IPP Conversion that was discussed in another thread.

They also offer an imerchant connect facility, this is a free of charge service they provide to all merchants who request it, its a handy little tool, allows you to view transactions and batches in relation to your account however many merchant accounts you have..

so the 5 main things to remember when are:
1. Ask your sales rep everything about the application, even scan and keep the original app when the sales rep sends it to you, keep your own copy..
(get a contact name and number also to follow up enrolment)
2. get the best possible terminal for your service required, in my opinion get IP terminals, quicker, and no phone lines needed, plug into your router and away you go.
(ensure terminal is suitable for your line usage)
3. Call the help-desk early, get to know one particular agent, and be nice, they tend to help you more that way.
4. Any changes made to your account need to be in writing.
(a fax on letter headed paper with you account number and signature will cover this)
5. Changing your bank account details?
(let them know first, otherwise your account will be on hold due to redirects)

Anywho..
Best be off, anyone any questions or comments i'd be more that happy to answer or reply to any..

Sincerely

R

lecheile

eamon234 wrote: »

Don't forget the Boardsies discount code!!!;)

Is there such a thing Eamon?

keefg

ismise69 wrote: »

In fairness guys Elavon aint that bad, (as an ex employee i know how they work)

As an Elavon customer I would have to disagree, they are an incompetent shower:mad:.

Agonisingly slow to set up a new account and a customer service dept that leaves A LOT to be desired.

I had to wait about 6 months for my Realex account to be set up because of delays caused by Elavon. They "lost" all the documents I submitted with my 1st application but didn't tell me for weeks then I had to start the application process again.

After waiting another few weeks I called them only to be told that the person dealing with my application was away on holiday and no, no one else could process it in his absence :mad:. All my phonecalls to Elavon to get this sorted out got the same standard reply "Oh, very sorry about that sir, we'll look into the matter and get back to you". Guess what? They didn't bother getting back to me :rolleyes:

I eventually had to get my biz account manager from BOI to sort it out with Elavon. When guy from Elavon did contact me with my new account details he was very abrupt, just rattled my account number off to me over the phone and made a snide comment about BOI getting involved.

But hey! Maybe they are a fantastic company and I was just unlucky.

Darragh29

Nice1 wrote: »

I'm almost there in terms of setting up an online shop. I have the site, the stock, the bank loan, the marketing material, the lo-call number everything basically, except the payment processing. This is due to Elavon changing from a local to an international platform. They stopped processing new applications at the end of July until the end of August and have now advised me that there's going to be a further 6-8 week delay. After this is sorted, I still have to give Realex a chance to set up their side of things, so realistically, it's likely to be November before I can actually take payment through my shop. I'm also in the position where I'm now repaying the business loan with the loan itself and if I don't start selling soon, I'm going to end up with no means to repay the loan.
Has anyone any advice/bright ideas as to how I can get selling without accepting payments online? The stock isn't really suitable for a tupperware party type set up!

I found Realex great. You could be up and running with them in a week if you are at all handy with the integration end of the work. I had to build my own integration solution for their system as they didn't have one ready to go for me but any help I needed with it, they were very supportive. I wouldn't be entertaining a payment processing company that is making you stall OP. You need to get up and running, if any company is dragging you back, get rid of them, you haven't time for dilly dallying, my best advice to you is to make a decision and execute it and don't change it. If you ditch Elavon, put all your efforts into dealing with another processing company and don't revisit the decision to change.