Credit card payment

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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Sun Lover wrote:During the set up I was asked to select my bank and then to give all my online login details of my bank including personal access code.............meaning anyone/someone somewhere could access that bank account.
Sunlover - you got caught out as I did. You do not need to give those details for the credit card sign up process. I'm fairly sure my account is linked to receive payments (time will tell) but Wave offer numerous other accountancy and bookkeeping packages - you needed to give your details if you were going to do that online, not just for credit card invoicing. Go back in and delete that account.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

NeatandPicky wrote:I certainly think the professional-looking invoices inspire confidence. From now on I plan to send an invoice like this for every payment. Maybe I should up the card fee a little.
In general, you're not supposed to make a profit on card transactions. Usually it's in the terms and conditions somewhere that you can't pass on more than the actual amount of fees. I have no idea where the terms are and whether we have a contract with Wave or Stripe as it was a requirement to log into Stripe during the sign up process!
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NeatandPicky
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Post by NeatandPicky »

In general, you're not supposed to make a profit on card transactions.
Thanks Nemo for the info... I didn't know that.

Adding a 1.42% transaction fee onto the rental amount equates to a 1.4% deduction off the total the guest pays, so that's what I'm planning. (Once again ignoring the 20p).
Last edited by NeatandPicky on Thu Jun 02, 2016 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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NeatandPicky
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Post by NeatandPicky »

Have just checked Stripe T&Cs and found:
You will not impose an excessive fee or surcharge on a customer that seeks to use an eligible payment card. If you impose a fee or surcharge it must be limited to reflect your costs for the use of such payment card. If you levy an additional charge or offer a reduction in cost to your customers for using a particular eligible payment card this information must be advised to your customers before the start of the payment transaction. You will provide a receipt to the customers at the conclusion of the purchase transaction that includes all information required under Network Rules and applicable law.
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Post by FelicityA »

I add the PayPal fee to my card transactions but of course give people a multiple of choices of ways to pay which are not so expensive (OK for small amounts but a killer for the big sums). I also tell them exactly how I arrive at the sum in order for me to receive the rental amount - using that very useful (Nemo - I think you posted it here?) reverse (so the sum is calculated backwards) fee calculator on clothnappytree.com and the amount is always within a penny (or a cent) of the required rent. It is designed for PayPal but you can use it with anything, just putting in the percentage and the extra 20/25p or whatever.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Yes Felicity, I use a calculator designed to work out the fees. I also have an app on my phone which is very useful but on trying to use it yesterday it no longer works. I couldn't find a free equivalent one and don't like paying for ones that may not do what I want. If anyone can recommend one for iphones that would be useful. It needs to be one you can amend the rates yourself, such as this one below.

Here's the link for the calculator online that can be used for anything. http://www.clothnappytree.com/ppcalculator/
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Post by Essar »

NeatandPicky wrote: I certainly think the professional-looking invoices inspire confidence. From now on I plan to send an invoice like this for every payment. Maybe I should up the card fee a little.
Sounds great and professional looking invoices will make your guests feel more confident.

I use WorldPay (FabPay) through FreeToBook and my fees are very cheap; I point most guests in this direction if I can, often I get HL & HA bookings and on both I only pay 1.4% for payments.

I too used to add a 1.5% handling fee to the rental for those who paid by card. Nearly 3 years ago I upped my holiday rental rates including an additional 2% to cover all card fees, I now don't charge card fees and I make a point of advertising that there are "no card fees" - virtually overnight I went from hardly any card payments to nearly 100% card payments. Guests like to see an inclusive price, I cannot remember the last time I had a bank transfer payment.
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

Essar wrote:
I too used to add a 1.5% handling fee to the rental for those who paid by card. Nearly 3 years ago I upped my holiday rental rates including an additional 2% to cover all card fees, I now don't charge card fees and I make a point of advertising that there are "no card fees" - virtually overnight I went from hardly any card payments to nearly 100% card payments. Guests like to see an inclusive price, I cannot remember the last time I had a bank transfer payment.
I too have decided to go that way and have increased rates after the summer to compensate. A couple of people have moaned about the fees and in another couple of cases, the guest actually entered a new payment total, overriding the one calculated by my website payment page, to pay the amount without any fees at all.

People like to think they are getting something for nothing. Instead I might offer a small reduction for bank transfer. People like to get a discount too!
nealh
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Post by nealh »

I have been tinkering around with this and it seems Wave is the way forward for us. Only one or 2 people a year have requested CC booking so to set something up that entails annual fees etc wasn't cost effective.

Up until now we have taken CC payments through OD but with the addition of the TSF I think that avenue has been closed (the writing is on the wall for renewal in any case - but that's a whole other story!).

Maybe more people would prefer to use CC and once it is offered on our web site more prominently there will be a greater take up. Having said that, as our guests are generally at the older end of the scale, perhaps they are not so keen to look, book, pay in an instant.

It would be so much easier if someone would just come along and tell me what to do... although perhaps not so much 'fun'!
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Post by Mouse »

I use WorldPay (FabPay) through FreeToBook and my fees are very cheap; I point most guests in this direction if I can, often I get HL & HA bookings and on both I only pay 1.4% for payments.

I too used to add a 1.5% handling fee to the rental for those who paid by card. Nearly 3 years ago I upped my holiday rental rates including an additional 2% to cover all card fees, I now don't charge card fees and I make a point of advertising that there are "no card fees" - virtually overnight I went from hardly any card payments to nearly 100% card payments. Guests like to see an inclusive price, I cannot remember the last time I had a bank transfer payment.
That's interesting essar. So people prefer to use cc if no charges.

Can I ask about the system you mention? Do you pay an annual fee and is there a restriction on transaction amounts?

Mousie (still researching)
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Essar
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Post by Essar »

Mouse wrote:Can I ask about the system you mention? Do you pay an annual fee and is there a restriction on transaction amounts?

Mousie (still researching)
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I use FreeToBook as my booking system (a bit like PIMS); FTB has a tie up with both WorldPay and Stripe. Within FTB their payment processing system for cards is called FabPay.

Using Stripe with FTB is a bit like using PayPal with eBay - you set up your Stripe account and FTB link to it for the payments. You pay Stripe separately and FTB charge you a transaction fee (I think it's 1.20 per payment).

Using WorldPay is a different ball game altogether; FTB set you up a WorldPay account, there is some form filling to do and an annual PCI compliance checkup to complete. There is a joining fee (I think it was £90 + VAT), no annual fees and no recurring fees. FTB use tokens to make the transactions, these are a PCI compliance thingy and work really well, you buy 800 for £75 + VAT, they use 2 or 3 every transaction including refunds. So, each transaction costs about £0.23 or £0.33 depending upon the checks done. On top of this you are charged by WorldPay for the card processing; depending upon the card (credit or debit and operator Visa or Mastercard or Amex) you get charged slightly differently: debit cards are about 0.85% (M/C) or £0.32 (Visa) and credit cards vary between 1.15% and 1.58% depending upon value of the transaction.

Here are my 2016 WorldPay costs:-
January - I charged £642.50 and gave £200.00 refund = £18.06
February - I charged £2009.60 = £48.02
March - I charged £2222.36 = £17.62
April - I charged £6280.50 and gave £600.00 refunds = £49.64

Total charged on cards £11156.96
Total refunds to cards £800.00
Total cost £115.72
Average cost 1.117%

The FTB changes amounted to £14.50 for the same period.

The difference in fees is down to the card operator - Visa or M/C (M/C are more expensive for credit cards than Visa).

I did use to breakdown the costs per booking, but I just now account for it monthly against the properties it applies to.

This accounts for about half my card processing costs (my website & BC) the rest come through HA, HL, AB & HT.

FTB operates as a Channel Manager for BC; they are integrated synchronously (both ways). All BC reservation payments are processed through FTB automatically.
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Mouse
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Post by Mouse »

Thanks for that easy to understand explanation essar.

I suppose I have to take into account that I could be dealing with quite a large amount if I ever get around the non UK address issue.

Mousie
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OrangeBlossom
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CC payments- residence and tax issue

Post by OrangeBlossom »

Thanks for that easy to understand explanation essar.

I suppose I have to take into account that I could be dealing with quite a large amount if I ever get around the non UK address issue.
I concur with your thanks to Essar, Mouse and have some further questions for everyone regarding CC payments but will post those as a separate reply because I want to return first to Mouse and other's original issue with bank accounts and residence. Two ideas occur to me.

1. I had to make a short term move in the UK once and it was no hassle to change the address associated with my bank account and change it back when I moved home again. Since you have an address you can use in the UK, couldn't you change your address on your account from Spain to UK until you'd set up the UK PPal account etc. and then change it back so that you'd still get your statements or whatever in Spain?

2. Some of the issues seem to arise from the company knowing where you are logging on from but these days it is pretty easy to use either a VPN service or the alternative Smart DNS to make it seem to PPal or whoever that you are logging on from the UK. These days you can subscribe to one of these services for about a fiver sterling a month but if you don't need to take CC bookings very often right now, you might not need to have a paid subscription as a lot of the service providers provide a free one or two week trial. If your CC bookings take off, you could then sign up for the service.
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CC payments -Fraud protection

Post by OrangeBlossom »

Casscat wrote:Why is the guest so adamant that they want to pay by CC? For the fraud protection? I don't think they'd get that with PayPal, only via their own card issuer.
Isn't the lack of fraud protection going to be true for the alternative ways of taking CC payments discussed here too? It might even be true when making payment via Online payments with OD and the like, after all, they use a third party to process their payments. I'm sure I remember reading somewhere ( a Which article perhaps) that the Fraud Protection when paying via credit card was invalidated if the transaction was not direct between service provider and recipient.

As a customer, if I was booking a holiday rental, I might seriously consider the Which advice mentioned by e-richard to avoid sites that don't take CC payments. Suspecting that customers would think like this was one reason I accepted Online Payments via OD when I signed up with them in April 2015. Now I don't know whether I can avoid my clients having to pay the service fee without deselecting Online Payments altogether. The help section on their website implies that I could still avoid my clients having to pay the fee (though other threads on here suggest it would put me further down the listings) but so far I had only one booking via Online payments with no previous phone or email contact and one where the client paid the initial deposit via CC but then agreed to pay the rest via transfer so I'm not sure that the type of client I'm typically getting cares about CC payment. My bookings have gone up considerably since I started getting 5 star reviews so I think more people are searching based on that.
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Re: CC payments -Fraud protection

Post by abode »

OrangeBlossom said
Isn't the lack of fraud protection going to be true for the alternative ways of taking CC payments discussed here too? It might even be true when making payment via Online payments with OD and the like, after all, they use a third party to process their payments. I'm sure I remember reading somewhere ( a Which article perhaps) that the Fraud Protection when paying via credit card was invalidated if the transaction was not direct between service provider and recipient.
You are right.

If you sign up for card acceptance directly (eg via Worldpay) then you are required to meet compliance standards but credit card customers do not get S75 protection and debit cards are not automatically covered by chargeback.

Customers paying by credit card via Owners Direct also do not get s75 cover - it is Homeaway who are providing the protection - which they will no doubt chase the owner for in the event of default.

There is a very good explanation (from the consumer's viewpoint) of credit card (and debit card) protection on moneysavingexpert.com here

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shoppi ... -purchases

Customers ARE NOT covered using credit card via Paypal (although most don't necessarily realise this - so get comfort using it).
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