New Website just launched - paypal have pulled the plug on us

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Anna Maria O'Flynn on February 7, 2009 at 1:17pm

Hi Alex/Dee,

Yes of course I would be happy to look at the thread and give some feedback.

Anna-maria

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anna Maria O'Flynn on February 6, 2009 at 2:22pm

Thanks Dee.

Will have a look at this. Interesting about the court case.

Anna-maria

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on May 22, 2009 at 2:08pm

Hi Anna

I spoke to PayPal at a travel conference where they were exhibiting.

I now have a contact there who will, for TourCMS customers, explain why certain issues occur in specific situations. e.g. why a limit is sometimes put on an account, why money is held back etc

This is a real human person (and team) rather than going to PayPal support helpdesk.

Probably not of much use to you now - but adding it to this thread incase anyone else would find that useful. However I won't follow up problems like this unless you are a TourCMS customer otherwise I could be here all week!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by workingNOMAD on February 7, 2009 at 9:26am

Many years ago, in internet terms, I used a company in the US called 2checkout and even back they were brilliant for payment solutions.

I am looking at them again as they now support £ sterling transactions.

So that might be a possibility for anyone struggling to accept credit card payments. Here is some more info..

http://www.2checkout.com/community/blog/category/getting-started/in...

Please note that I am not affiliated to theses guys!!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Murray H on February 7, 2009 at 1:58pm

Rather salutory lesson, this. What Dee Edwards has said on this post is excellent and pretty much spot on. Combine any two elements of travel, any two, you must have protection. Even advertising without protection is not permitted:

"These Regulations apply to packages sold or offered for sale in the territory of the United Kingdom"

There is this matter of "split contracting" and this is a little unclear but clear enough to be a serious matter (eh?). It means that you cannot write out one invoice for one element (eg a hotel) and the another for another element (the travel bit) as they are clearly still a package, irresepctive of any time lag - they are mutually dependent, however you dress it up. Fortunately, you do not appear to be involved in air travel, but the principle remains. Bonding will cost and must be taken as a cost of running a travel business, if that's what you choose to do. You must have it and there is no cheap and easy way around it.

Apart from anything else, if Jo Public does not see clear and recognisable bonding protection they may well avoid you like the plague, irrespective of if you can take money or no. The suggestion of using an offshore credit card collection facility shows a rather tenous grasp on this issue. You are in the EEC, you sell packages (to anywhere on (or off!) the planet, incidently), you must get protection. Period. Another thing is that, as bonding is not cheap, if a bonded agents spots you trying to circumvent the issue, they will report you to Trading Standards / anyone who will listen faster than you can say "The coach now departing..."

Given that a lot of your work may not involve people departing the next day, why not just get them to send you a cheque? There is no shame in that! ... And they should complete and sign a booking form (for "packages"), anyway.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Georgie Furst on February 23, 2009 at 3:59pm

As a start-up I've found your advice invaluable whilst researching the bonding and the various travel regulations - thank you.

Would I be right in assuming that 'package' doesn't apply to travel experiences under 24 hours?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Travel2help.org on February 13, 2009 at 1:50pm

Hi,

Moneybookers!

You are welcome, :-)
Travel2help.org

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on February 13, 2009 at 2:29pm

Hi Travel2Help
Just checked Moneybookers and seems that travel is OK !

API not quite so nice - but it may just be an answer for basic requirements

Thanks for pointing that out

Alex

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Travel2help.org on February 19, 2009 at 9:53pm

Moneybookers can actually do some nice advanced stuff. Check out http://www.moneybookers.com/app/help.pl?s=merchant - Their fees are reasonable: http://www.moneybookers.com/app/help.pl?s=m_fees and the merchant guide should help with implementation: http://www.moneybookers.com/app/help.pl?s=m_manual

To see our implementation, click http://www.travel2help.org/en/submit-your-deposit and http://www.travel2help.org/en/make-a-payment

For more, you can also PM us.
www.travel2help.org

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gareth Thomas on March 5, 2009 at 11:14pm

Hi Anna Maria

I haven't read all of the replies to your post fully, but there seem to be some really helpful answers in there.

I just wanted to say that we worked with PayPal for a while using the API that Alex talks about. We found that a combination of high transaction costs and a high drop-out rate were loosing us way too much money. Basically we found them to be rubbish.

We switched to using CyberSource with Streamline and RBS and I wish we had done it sooner. They are not amazing by any means (is any bank?) but our drop-out rate is way down and we get a lot less problems.

There are minimum transaction charges but it is starting to work out to be cheaper per month also.

Hope that helps - Gareth

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Dee Edwards on March 5, 2009 at 11:32pm

Gareth - did you have a deferral system? i.e. did Cybersource give you immediate settlement of funds or did you have to wait say 30 or 90 days before you received funds into your bank account? If so, how long before the terms were changed?

Disturbingly, I heard tonight at a travel trade event forum that Barclays Merchant Services have got very worried about exposure in this current climate and now bringing in 90 days for customers who have previously had more favourable terms. (They already had 90 days in place for new customers).

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gareth Thomas on March 5, 2009 at 11:53pm

The settlement of funds is pretty immediate. TBH I'm still getting my head around it but basically CyberSource just does the authorisation/fraud checks/processing then we get batches of payments (usually a day or two later) from Streamline (into our RBS merchant account).

For fraud prevention reasons, we hold on to payments until the stay has been completed. However this is because of the industry that we work in (self catering/serviced apartments/etc.). If we did not do this, technically someone without a property (but some pictures that they found on the web of an apartment) could sign up and start accepting bookings.

CyberSource and RBS insisted we work this way, but we were happy to go along with that.

We are currently working with them to reduce the support costs though as we resell the account to our clients and each one is paying £40/month in support, when really the support is through us and we go to CyberSource if we need to.

▶ Reply to This

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page