Which payment provider to use for UK

[Guest]

Hi guys, just realised there was a payment forum after 6months in 'general/installation' :) .

 

My situation is I'm starting up with online trading and let's say I havn't had the greatest relationship with my bank(s) in the past (!) I've only been with my current bank for 6 months, so they probably aren't going to offer me a merchant account. My sales will for the moment be within the UK only, my guess is Paypal (who I'm not a fan of atall) and Nochex are the two best options to at least get going with? - opinions anyone please?

 

I know of Fastpay by Natwest which seems a similar model to the previous 2 is also available, but the bottom line is I'm not going to have a setup that enables customers to stay within my site without obtaining a merchant account right? - and one that supports CURL if I do ever obtain a merchant account?

[holtyboy]

Protx is only a gateway terminal. You have to have a merchant account to back it off.

 

Worldpay is the obvious answer for UK vendors. You do have to pass off to Worldpay's site to capture CC details but you can customise the WP page to look and feel like your site.

 

I'm currently looking into Protx / SECPay together with a merchant account for my site. Have been using Paysystems which is a Canadian based 3rd party processor but (as has been widely publicised on most ecommerce related forums) they terminated all their accounts on Saturday as their bank has shut them down.

 

I think in the longer run having a real merchant account is a better bet than Worldpay.

[Dave_Drossel]

I have used Worldpay for a few years.

 

They are okay some of the time but I have to say not as good as before. It now takes me an average of 3 emails to get through to somebody who understands any problems and suggest the correct answer (a few days waiting between emails). I gave up using their phone lines when I had lots of time wasted when I kept getting put through to their overseas call centre - maybe they have altered this now as it was useless as most of these centres are! Recently they do seem to have got even worse. I need them to alter my installation which they have done in the past but now they claim I am selling lots of different products (news to me!) and I need to pay for another account! I am so far failing to get any sense out of them. Time for a change I think. Also, a while ago their system failed to keep going during a denial of service attack - this cost me lots of missed orders - a reduction in fee may have been nice but was never offered. So when it works it is good but expensive - with good, but far from perfect anti fraud systems (always get their pre-authorisation service - then you can manually inspect and vet the transactions). When there are problems however they drive me up the wall.

 

More and more of my customers now use Paypal and I do find this good (you should upgrade to business though) with very helpful and quick to rspond staff. Nochex is also a good service but people just do not seem to want to use it.

 

These are only my experiences so you may find them totally different (and for your sake I hope you get the service I used to get from Worldpay if you use them - that was excellent)

 

There are also services from HSBC & Barclays that have set up costs but compare well with Worldpay.

[Guest]

cheers Dave - that was some good info shared - esp about WorldPay, nothing like raw customer feedback - I thought Nochex were becoming more popular, and paypal gets barrowloads of bad press from it's users - I know they're ripped me b4 on a customer level - I suppose you don't know how 'good' your choice is ti'l things go pear shaped with them, I'm still looking at Merchant options that are UK based and will post any useful info here. ;)

 

Thanks. Sean

[Nairn]

Despite their supposedly being dedicated to digital content commerce solutions, 'Metacharge' (http://www.metacharge.com/) do actually offer their services for companies with physical wares.

 

I suggest them as they are who we use for our credit card fulfillment (our company sells 'non-standard' items which normal banks don't want anything to do with).

 

Unfortunately, you'll have to do your own integration between their backend and osCommerce. I am currently working out how to do this myself... or PAY someone (*hint..) to, at which point I would make the contribution public.

 

Just in case anyone missed that:

 

"I WILL PAY SOMEONE TO WRITE A WORKING CONTRIBUTION FOR METACHARGE PAYMENTS". There.

 

 

 

[edit... added Metacharge url]

Edited September 7, 2004 by Nairn

[radders]

It seems that Metacharge pricing is pretty similar to that of Worldpay The major difference is that you get your own merchant account because, as we have seen, the credit card companies are not too keen on agregators any more. I'd like to stay in touch with this one.

[Guest]

SeanJ, have you found a decent merchant here i the UK yet?? I am in the same boat as you. I do use paypal but i keep messing up the IPN install and so have given up at the moment but i want a simple CC payment method which doesn't involve the customer having to join paypal first...

 

 

Cheers