Can You Take Payments Over The Phone If Using PayPal???

[FitnessCrazy]

Wondering whether any of you can help with this question, it's been on my mind for a while, and I know that Shell members are excellent at giving out advice so here....

I've been told that I can take credit card details of customers over the phone and enter them into PayPal as if they were my own. But surely if they came to buy again then it would recognise the same email address matching the same credit card details? I didn't think you could take credit card details over the phone with PayPal, or can you? So far, all of my customers are entering their details through the secure site; but I was thinking of expanding and offering ordering over the phone/mail order etc.

Thank you in advance...

Deren

[Martin]

I'm trying to find some concrete proof on their website but I'm sure you can't do this with Paypal.

It's to do with fraud, and when you take out a Merchant Account this is a factor to the service costs you'll pay. The more "Customer not present" transactions made, the high the chance of fraud - and so costs.

[openmind]

Short answer? No. They have no virtual terminal service. The only way to do it is to create a request money link, button or email.

Your best bet if you want to do this is to move to a real payment gateway such as Protx and use it conjunction with a merchant account.

[FitnessCrazy]

Ok then, not a problem, I just needed to know for reference - thank you. I will be looking into getting a merchant account today.

Thanks

Deren

[InnoCreate]

Daren,
The other option is for you to get a traditional pdq machine from the bank. I'm not sure on the costings and if the monthly fees would work out cheaper.

[openmind]

Originally posted by InnoCreate
Daren,
The other option is for you to get a traditional pdq machine from the bank. I'm not sure on the costings and if the monthly fees would work out cheaper.

As this will require a merchant account capable of taking "Customer not present" transactions anyway and this is a web based business AFAIK, may as well kill two birs with one stone by setting up Protx though?

[FitnessCrazy]

I've just had a look at the Protx website and looks like I will go ahead with it - as far as I can see there is no setup charge involved, and just the monthly subscription.

But, does it work the same way and you receive the PDQ machine to enter details for Customer Not Present, or do you capture the details over the phone from customer and then enter it into a software program?

Deren

[openmind]

You are correct there is no set-up fee, just the £20+vat subscription as long as you do less than 1,000 transactions per quarter. If you go over that they then charge 10p per transaction.

You don't get a PDQ as it is all web based and you just enter the transactions directly into your browser on their admin area. Don't worry, it is secure

Bera in mind that you will need to have a merchant account set-up before you can set Protx up.