Gaz Auctions - Quick Summary to Services for Paying Online

The online payment services, shown below, are an easy route into collecting or making payments online.  

They aim to remove the trauma and difficulty of obtaining bank-issued merchant service facilities for small volume sellers, and to provide a secure system for buyers who don't like entering their credit or debit card numbers into Internet sites.

The services, and using them, are affordable and generally painless for anyone who has the strength of character to run any form of business venture.  Initially the whole process looks complicated, but, by working slowly and carefully through their registration processes, anyone can master them quickly.  For UK based users who don't conduct international business, FastPay, NoChex, and ppPay are the best services.  However, if you're not UK based or do conduct international business, then PayPal= or MoneyBookers will be needed to send or receive payment.

In practice, only PayPal= has proved to be difficult beyond belief, but that's only if you live at a different address to the one your bank has registered for your plastic cards.  Additionally, if you do not use a CREDIT card to register (i.e. you opt for the direct debit system or a DEBIT card), then PayPal= will insist on various documents being sent to them before you are allowed to use their system to collect money from other people.  As of January 2004, they have also forced major changes on UK-based users, including transferring accounts from other country sites to the UK site, claiming conformation with the UK's Financial Services Act, but incidentally causing higher fees for some users.

The documents PayPal= require include copies of a national ID card (UK doesn't issue them - yet), copy of statement for bank plastic issued to the address you used for registration, copy of photo-ID driver's license showing the same address, AND a copy of a utility bill for that address that shows you as the account holder.  Naturally all of this is great news for people living away from home and using mixed addresses, or for those lodging with relatives etc.  

The irony of this is lost on the support team at PayPal= who issue extremely stroppy account cancellation notices if you state you are unable to supply any one of these items - but it takes them the longest to reply to emails anyway, so don't bother applying with them - use one of my recommendations.

Debit Cards?

Debit Cards are like paperless bank cheques - if you've got the money in your bank account, you can charge it on the card instead of writing a cheque manually.  It's why they are becoming the preferred cards for issuing banks = no bad credit risks.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the financial world is catching onto the advantages of debit cards over credit cards.

Partly, this is because banks will give almost any current / checking account holder a debit card, provided they show a history of receiving funds into their bank account.  Credit cards, on the other hand, at least have some type of creditworthiness criteria attached to them - that appears to be why certain online payment houses still show preference for them (especially those of American parentage). 

The reality of the situation for merchants and merchant service providers is that credit cards receive a far higher rate of "charge-backs" than debit cards receive.  This appears to be because the card holders are more careful with debit cards.  The debit card gives access to real, hard-earned cash-in-the-bank money that the card-holder has accumulated through their own effort and salary.  Credit cards however use the banks' monies and have many abuse and fraud protection systems in place for the card holders.  

All that protection costs money, which is why credit card fees are so high.  It is those protections that cause "charge-backs" - where a seller has to refund the money to your credit card account, even if the goods have already been despatched and are never returned to them.

That is why many payment clearance institutions are moving to handling debit cards, and why many of them insist on a "NO CHARGE-BACKS" policy for both buyer and seller.  And that IS good news if you're a seller.