I'm using Paypal, and looking for alternative system

I am using Paypal, and I have many people getting "hung up" on the payment stage resulting in "pending" status. My belief is that my customers don't want to have to create a Paypal account. Is there another payment system that is rock solid with aMember that is a bit more invisible to my customers? I have only recurring subscriptions, one of which is a begins with a free trial.

I want someone to be able to to pay with a credit card, and be done. Not have to sign up for additional services.

I have read several threads about Clickpay, Authorize.net, CCBill, etc. It was a bit overwhelming and just thought I'd ask for some help. Thanks.

Skippy, thank you for the advice. With recurring payments, from what I've seen and read on this forum you must use the basic Paypal instead of Paypal Pro, because Pro doesn't support recurring payments. Unfortunately basic Paypal makes the customer sign up for a Paypal account (by using a credit card), they can't just use a credit card and be on their way like Paypal Pro.

I'll check out authorize.net now.

Learnwake, basic Paypal does not make customers sign up for an account. If they don't have a paypal account, all they have to do is click continue (on the left part of the page) and type in their cc info on the next page.

If a customer is to pay by recurring payments they have to set up a PayPal account and authorize the "contract" for recurring payments. All recurring payments made against any persons credit card on all systems requires some sort of "contract" agreement. Single payment options dont require a user to set up a PayPal account.
From Paypals knowledgebase:
What is recurring payments?

Question :What is recurring payments?
Answer :
A You can use the PayPal Recurring Payments service for automatic billing.

Here's How:

1. Let PayPal know how often and how much to charge for your services and products.
2. A customer signs up or purchases the service and chooses to pay with PayPal for future payments.
3. PayPal creates a recurring payment profile of this customer and returns the profile ID to you.
4. PayPal continues to bill the customers and deposit funds into your PayPal account until the service term expires. "

If you have a "real life" merchant account and pay via a payment gateway then the "contract" is an agreement that you click to authorize multiple payments to be taken from your card and is implied as being legally binding by the fact that the merchant accounts have an agreement with your bank. Its a legal protection for all customers and no way around it, although your own merchant account via a bank will make it seem almost seamless.
Talk to your bank or merchant account providers (ones that use any of the gateway plugins provided by amember) for further details. Merchant accounts cost money to set up and have both transaction fees and a monthly fee. You are required ti have both a registered business and a viable one before setting up a merchant account however laws/regs vary country to country and bank to bank on requirements imposed on you.
HOWEVER one of the greatest dangers with most of these is the requirement that you store the credit card details in the amember database on your server which leaves you open to the possibility of attempted data attacks. Carefully weigh up the options before deciding. Very often merchant accounts/banks will require a software and server security audit before allowing you to do this. ALSO you can be held responsible for attacks and frauds made on the system.
A list of currently supported payment plugin gateways is on the main amember pro product page
A safer but more labor intensive option is to have a credit card terminal or virtual terminal from a gateway provider or bank, store credit card details OFFLINE and each month bill manually via your terminal. Generally requires a different type of merchant account than a normal internet only credit card merchant account. Go talk to your bak if you actually have a registered business and business bank account
Hope this helps, but its probably just confused you more...welcome to the world of being an internet entrepreneur

Calisolllc,
Thank you very much for your reply. I am a tad confused, but overall come away feeling a little better about my situation with Paypal. My website is a registered business, but I am coming away thinking that all of the setup might be too much. Plus, we've already launched with paypal, so managing the old members that are on Paypal with the new members on a new payment system might be one too many hurdles to leap. If I could just set it up as easily as I did Paypal, then I wouldn't mind the inconvenience, but it sounds like it's not going to be that simple.

Did you signed up with Authorize.Net by calling them or did you signed up through their reseller?

I have authorize.net with my own merchant account and it is great.

Also you might want to look at Alertpay.com. They are a spin off of paypal and you can accept payments from unverified and verified members.

Paypal does not offer a feature to only accept payments from Verified members so I get a lot of scammers, some how it is easier to just add a creditcard to open a Confirmed paypal account. Harder to open a verified with a bank account. Keeps the kids with mommy and Daddy credit cards off my site too.

Takes over a week to get a business verified but it kind of cool to know someone is looking out for businesses not just their pockets.

the best place to look is at http://www.centralstoresetup.com its a site that offers online and offline payment processor comparisons. They have various gateways, and low processing fees.

they are just a reseller of gateways and accounts. Best just go direct so our plugin work out of the box and we do not have to dev more of them for the same issue.

I highly recommend authorize.net. I use them for two of my customers and things are seamless. Amember works GREAT with them too.

We currently use both PayPal and Authorize.net for payment options (PayPal for amex and echecks) but authorize.net is so much easier to manage - we can ajdust members subscription periods (ex: give someone a free week of membership) which you can't do with PayPal.

Authorize.net is just a payment gateway. They will assist you with setting up the merchant account through an actual bank, like FirstData, CreditServiceInternational, or WellsFargo. The payments go "through" authorize.net to the merchant account.

-Scott

Have you looked at nochex? it's cheaper than paypal and works with amember quite well. I have nochex and paypal but I encourage users onto nochex from my signup page telling them they do not need a nochex account to pay.

They also use monthly but it's not automated by nochex. Amember sends them a billing email before expiry.

Great thread.

The thing I would LOVE to know from anyone using Authorize.net---how are keeping your aMember database secure?

To my understanding, you need someone who knows what their doing to be maintaining the site with updates, patches, etc. so the credit card info. stored on the aMember database doesn't get hacked.

I would appreciate any recommendations on companies that could handle this security management, and how much I should expect to pay.
Thanks!

The credit card info isn't really accessible... all I have access to are the last 4 digits and the rest is encrypted. If you asked me to dig into the database and get someone's credit card number, I wouldn't be able to... Just keep up to date with aMember security updates and you'll be fine

-Scott

I am thinking of using Nochex as well as PayPal too. On their demo though they ssem to make customers agree to this "I have read and agree to the terms and conditions of this payment and confirm that I understand I am using the service for the purchase of e-money from Nochex Ltd and that this payment will therefore appear as "Nochex" on my card statement." Doesn't that put people off? It doesn't seem like straightforward credit card processing.

Or maybe that's just what's on the demo site?

Thanks if you can help

David

Well, that's not quite accurate. The credit card is encrypted to a certain extent, but if you're a good programmer you'll be able to figure out how to decode it fairly quickly.

So yes, if you're running authorize.net you need to very carefully look after your server security. Running on your own dedicated server is a good idea. It's essential to be running a good firewall, have auto-ip blocking for script kiddies trying to log in with brute force password scripts and regularly review logs to look for any suspicious activity.

I used to use just Nochex but they have two types of account a 'sellers' (think it is what it was called) where they only accept credit cards issued in England. This is the one I had. They do not accept Irish based cards even if issued by English bank.

The other is a 'merchant' one which accepts any cards but they came up with some excuse not to upgrade to that one. I therefore went elsewhere.

Mind me asking where you went?

I've been in contact with Nochex and they don't want me! Seems they will only accept subscriptions with a maximimum life of 1 month not 1 year as I wanted.