From: ekovar at att.net
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Online Billing [was: Re: [WSFA] Re: Re: The End of Austerity?]
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 02:12:25 +0000
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

There are considerably more security issues with PayPal than with credit
cards, though, although they claim to have a 'secure shopping cart', and you
don't have the same financial protections that you do using credit cards.

I gather that Keith isn't going need someone who knows CGI scripting, though.
 A company that gives you a credit card handling account that can be used
online isn't going to want you (that's "you" in the general sense) messing
with their interface by trying to write your own.  And Ron is correct in that
their interface is going to cost -- I think I've heard about $1,000 but my
memory may be off.

Unfortunately while I've learned how *not* to accomplish online billing from
discussions of various comcoms each trying to reinvent the wheel, I don't know
how to accomplish them.  There's the Worldcon method of getting a bank and a
business package that you install on machines that you are certain are secure,
or Mike's method of letting another company handle the whole thing.

I'm guessing that there may also be a way of setting things up so that someone
can send you their credit card info using a secure form (again, to a secure
email account and on a machine you trust to be secure) and you use hardcopy to
process the information through the credit card account.

But that's easily beyond my limited experience.  I just start with "credit
card info should be kept highly secure and other people's credit card info
even more so" and go from there.

Elspeth
>
> On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 22:22:32 -0500 (EST) "Keith F. Lynch"
> <kfl at KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
>   We could have a "secure
> > shopping cart" to sell convention memberships, books, etc. online
> > to
> > anyone with a credit card or a paypal account.  (I would need some
> > help setting it up.  Anyone here have any experience with CGI
> > scripts?
> > With billing credit cards?)
> >
>
> Possibly the easiest and cheapest way to arrange to accept credit card
> payments on the web is to get a PayPal business account, which is free
> (or nearly so) for small businesses.  PayPal provides a link which
> redirects a buyer using a credit card to a secure PayPal interface.
> PayPal processes the charge, and transfers the money to the PayPal
> account.  There is a small fee imposed on each transaction.  I think
> PayPal also provides a basic shopping cart interface.
>
> Another option would be for an individual club member to get a business
> PayPal account in their own name.  PayPal requires having a street
> address, a U.S. bank account and a credit card.
>
> Traditional merchant credit card accounts are available for small
> organizations such as WSFA, some for a monthly maintenance fee of as
> little as about $10, and they usually require opening an account at a
> designated bank to receive the funds.  But that would not necessarily
> include a web interface for accepting credit card charges - such a
> feature might cost substantially more than $10 per month, from a
> traditional bank, as opposed to from PayPal.
>
> Another advantage of using PayPal is that people can pay using their
> Paypal account, if they have one.
>
> Ron Kean
>