Goodman's Guide to Online Payment Services
First posted on July 1, 2001- updated April 10, 2002. |
|
|
|
Who Pays? |
|
|
|
|
Merged with MoneyZap in September of 2001
Achex has finally confirmed that it will now take at least 5 business days
to clear funds and another three to transfer them. Since they now charge a fee, and it is faster to mail a check and deposit it, there isnt a whole lot of reason to recommend them. |
|
|
Achex will soon begin charging the recipient $1 per transaction. |
|
|
|
|
High fees and some reports of problems and slow customer service. BidPay does provide great safety for seller and a
decent measure of safety for the buyer. |
|
|
$30 and under - flat rate of $2.95
$30.01 to $100 - flat rate of $5.00
$100.01 to 700 - 2.25%
+ $5.00 |
|
|
|
|
Sellers are warned to accept credit card payments at their own risk.
Reports of Billpoint charge backs are still
rising and particularly cases where the customer name and address does not match the card and even in a few cases where the customer emailed the seller demanding a discount or a charge back will
be made. |
|
|
35 cents for $15 or less.
35 cents plus 1.75% over $15 if credit card used.
35 cents plus .75% for
electronic check, though currently electronic check is free. . |
|
|
|
|
Good protection for sellers against chargebacks. On occasion C2it will process a transaction as a cash advance and the
customer gets charged a $20 fee. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
No protection to seller. No customer service. Fees to be introduced 12/17/01 |
|
|
2.5% + .30 cent fee per transaction. |
|
|
|
|
Seller protection against fraud: high.
Buyer protection against fraud: high if credit card is used, acceptable
otherwise. Seller protection against chargebacks: high. |
|
|
$5 sign-up fee for new sellers.
Money order fees:
$2.89 for up to $20.
$3.99 for up to $100.
For
transactions over $100 there is a fee of $3.99 plus 2.25% of the purchase price. |
|
|
|
|
This is ePier's Payment system. I did not rate this service because my emails were returned as undeliverable |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PayPal has recently received an "Acceptable" rating from the BBB.
Customer service has improved lately.
Seller
protection against fraud: if credit card is used: almost none. Buyer protection against fraud: high if CC used, otherwise almost none. Seller protection against charge backs: almost none. |
|
|
Personal accounts are free and are limited to receiving $100 in credit card payments per month until
November 6, 2001.
Premier and Business accounts are separated into two pricing tiers: Standard Rate, which is 2.9% + .30 and Merchant Rate which is 2.2% + .30. |
|
|
ProPay
 |
Seller protection against fraud: moderate. Buyer protection against fraud:
high. Seller protection against fraud and chargebacks: none.
ProPay offers two advantages:
1) You can pretend to have a merchant account, since you charge the card yourself and 2) the address
verification reports if the address given to you matches the cardholder.
They also have two problems: 1) You don't find out if the address matches until AFTER the charge goes through. 2) If it
doesn't match, you only have a small window of opportunity to cancel the transaction. |
Seller |
3.5% plus 35 cents on making the transaction and another 35 cents on withdrawing
money. An additional 35 cents if you end up crediting the transaction back to the customer. |
|
Yisroel (Izzy) Goodman owns Complete Computer Services Inc. and sells electronics online. He publishes
reports about online payment services on his Web site http://www.ygoodman.com . His informed opinions are based on his own experience and from reading about others' experiences with payment services as well as discussions with users,
representatives of the services and experts in the field. (Note: He is not affiliated in any way, directly or indirectly, with any payment service.). |
|