Peter,

I never said your procedure was illegal, Just not safe for the retailer making the sale. If you wish to take the chance by doing it that way it's your choice. I used to do it that way until I got hit with a massive chargeback and fee. As I said, if that has never happened to you, you may not understand. Believe me, once you get hit you do change your ways. The processor I was using at the time was First Data, one of the largest CC processors in the world. Many small processors go through First Data's system. There are only a few processors that make up the backbone of CC processing and First Data is one of them. Things are changing rapidly in the CC processing world because of fraud on a massive scale. And everyone is reevaluating the way they do things. Something that was considered OK a year ago, may be considered taboo now.
I was just making sure that anyone reading these posts doesn't think that taking a customers number by email(even just 8 digits)and putting it through their processor themselves, is the proper way to do things, it's not. The customer needs to do this themselves.
Now maybe if you're a hobbyist selling a few things you make yourself on the internet, you may not worry about losing a couple of dollars. But if you are retailing for a living losing any money at all hurts the bottom line, and could potentially put you out of business.
Everyone complaining about Paypal needs to understand that if your customer inputs their info to Paypal to pay for their transaction, and Paypal verifies it, you get the money guaranteed. That is why I prefer to use them for all online sales. I believe Google checkout is the same, but I'm not sure.
Don't take this the wrong way Peter, I'm not insulting you. And you certainly have the right to do things the way you want to. I'm just trying to save someone else from going through the same headache I went through by sharing the knowledge I learned the hard way.

Hi Craig,
If you think that PayPal will NEVER do a chargeback, let me introduce myself. They can and WILL. And since they have access to your account, they will do so and THEN tell you.

Keith,

I never said they will NEVER do a chargeback. But, if they verify the person buying your product, and you will see if they do when you go to Paypal to complete the sale, they WILL NOT do a chargeback. There are a lot of times they don't verify the person, depending on what information the buyer is willing to give to paypal. In that event the money is not guaranteed and you will have to make up your own mind whether you want to complete the sale. In that case I never complete the sale. I just will not take that risk anymore. If Paypal can't verify a persons address then as far as I'm concerned it's not a valid address. I've been down that road before and it's not one I want to travel anymore. Get burnt bad once and you tend to learn all the rules the hard way. Paypal IS the safest way to take money online as long as you know what you're doing and follow all the rules.
And as far as taking the money without telling you before, that is the case with all processors since they all have access to your account.
This is getting off topic anyway. The issue was taking a CC number and inputting it yourself into a payment gateway instead of the customer doing it themselves. Totally legal, but completely unsafe, and can open you up to hefty fees and possibly a fine. Anyone reading this has the right to do what they want and make up their own mind. I just thought I'd try to save someone the same hard knocks I've experienced by sharing the knowledge I've learned the hard way. You can take it or leave it.

I have had similar problems with unconfirmed addresses (paypall)

And charge backs (paypall)

Hence i refund as below, got to agree with Craig Wood.

Item Amount:
£135.00 GBP
Postage:
£3.50 GBP
Packing:
£0.00 GBP
Quantity:
1
Item Title:
Cart Order No: 090413-053159-5576
Item Number:
090413-053159-5576
Invoice ID:
090413-053159-5576
Date:
13 Apr. 2009
Time:
12:32:30 BST
Status:
Refunded
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Postal Address:
P......... W..........
93 Bron y Wern
BAGILLT, CLWYD
CH6 6BS
United Kingdom

Unconfirmed
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I feel that I must stick up for Coffeecup here and mention that I do think that more payment options would be great, but I also sell on e-bay and have customers from all over the world ( Germany, Ireland, France, Holland,Lithuania and many more.) buying from me and using Paypal to to pay with out any problems what so ever, so I dont see what all the complaints are about.

Could you please tell me how to use
2checkout and worldpay fpr the quoted post below, i cannot see the options in my shopping cart.

Would it not be a possiblity to have an option to "switch off" the links to pay with paypal, and be able to insert simple code into the desctipption of the item itself for the buttons yourself?

e.g. i don't want to use the standard checkout, i want to offer my customers the express checkout.

1. i tick a box in settings that says to use "Alternative Method"
2. Coffee cup make a small script that now appears on each item detail screen.
3. Coffee Cup now takes the price and other details from the basic info field to add the link to a button in each particular products item detail screen.
4. A button now appears in the item detail with the scripting in the link to go to paypal.

You could also do this to allow the option for "Subscriptions" and other types of paymen that are supported by this method.

It is our hope to eventually support more merchants as time goes on. Right now our priority is to make the software as robust as possible and then start adding more merchants. The 'pro' version due out later this year will have support for other merchants as well as offline payments.

However it is importing to point out that there are hundreds of merchants out there and not all can be easily integrated with a 3rd party application. Our goal is to first support all the big players first and then decide which niche markets to look at next.

Like it or not, PayPal really is the industry standard for a lot of people. Are the they perfect choice? Maybe not for everyone, but for most, yes.

So with all the bitching and defending done.

I need a cart that can do offline processing. Long story short we ship tobacco. You can as of now but soon will not be able to send tobacco orders that are processed on line. Many of my competitors have already set up back up accounts for the same reason. We have dodged the bullet on this buy off line processing (3 years now) 1 attempt charge back and we won that 1 also.

So if there's a way to do off line processing let me know I am so ready to make a new cart.

Thanks, Neal

I need offline processing also.