Lay My Hat

Virtually all my payments thus far have been received via BACS but I want to find out more about the best ways to receive credit card payments.

My property is in the UK and so are the vast majority of my customers. Is PayPal likely to be the most suitable CC service for me? And if so...

Can someone explain which the best PayPal service to use is? They say transfers between friends and funded by debit card (ie not CC) are free, but presumably that's not suitable?

Paypal funded via credit card is 3.4%+20p but do I need a "PayPal here" gadget? Seems unnecessary as I never need to physically handle someone's card. Or do I simply send an invoice to them from my own PayPal account?

Do I get charged to refund some of the money (eg return of security deposit) ?

Finally, how easy is it to set up a second PayPal account? I want to link it to a different bank account to the one I use for personal eBay purchases and sales.

Or are there any better CC alternatives for use with sterling only transactions?

Newtoit wrote:Finally, how easy is it to set up a second PayPal account? I want to link it to a different bank account to the one I use for personal eBay purchases and sales.

Dead easy... I'd just use a second email address.

Paypal is the most expensive. CC processing comes down to whose the cheapest. Choosing Paypal for me is the same as choosing the most expensive cc processing company. I would recommend sumup.

Thanks Donnylu

I've looked into sumup and signed up! Their 1.95% across the board is attractive. However it seems you can't make transactions without having the physical card present to insert into their machine. Is that what you do or have you found a way round it?

I have a Paypal card reader so I can take card details over the phone. It's quick and easy to use and e-mails a receipt to the customer.

Yes you do have a fee to pay for cc but I am upfront about that and tell people there is an additional amount to pay to cover the fees so in effect I have 2 prices one without payment by cc card and one with.

donnylu wrote:Paypal is the most expensive.

They are only the most expensive per transaction.
With zero monthly fees, and no initial setup, then depending on how few transaction you make, they could be the cheapest.

Sumup also have no monthly fees and no per transaction cost. Just the 1.95% (and it seems the £60 card reader - one off cost) But not being able to take payment without the card present is the stumbling block for me.

Keep in mind that if you handle the card processing in some form you need to be PCI DSS compliant; AIUI, although I may be wrong on this, it applies if you take the details over the phone and then enter them manually, as well as payments via your own website.

The simple means of issuing a Paypal invoice and the guest paying does not involve you at all - you receive no information that's sensitive. I believe there's one Paypal option for web use that does not require you to demonstrate your own compliance. Beyond that, compliance gets increasingly complicated.

It's not a huge deal, and for our level of business answering the self-assessment questionnaire is likely to be enough - and that doesn't cost anything except a couple of paracetamol. As an example, I have a merchant gateway with Barclays (a deal with Visit England) which means I can take credit/debit card payments on my website. However, the guest is transferred to the gateway for all the card entry process and all I ever see is a confirmation with the last 4 digits of the card number. PCI DSS compliance is reasonably straightforward via the questionnaire.

Beyond what I've had to deal with I know very little, so it's worth googling for more information.
PCI DSS compliance is a legal obligation, it's not simply a recommendation.

Don't forget that you still have the option to receive a Paypal payment by echeck. It does take a while to clear, but the payment I received yesterday only cost me 5€ in fees for a 1000€ payment. Now in this case, as the guests concerned are already almost a week late in stumping up the cash, I would rather they'd paid me with a normal Paypal or by bank transfer as instructed