PSP's frying pan to fire?

[gpzzone]

I'm currently with Netbanx via Cardsave, and frankly am at my wits end.

Cardsave, for those that don't know are effectively a consortium who negotiate preferential rates for it's members and membership costs around £200 a year. A bit like the FSB, only no-where near as professional!

Netbanx frankly have been useless, with hundreds of "unspecified error" messages on overseas payments, and monies not reaching my bank.

My situation now is such that I am determined to move from Netbanx and am willing to accept the financial penalties that Cardsave will hit me with.

I simply refuse to pay for a service which is so abysmal - anyone experiencing Netbanx's customer service will appreciate what I mean.

I am drawn towards RBS Worldpay - simply because they appear to be the leading force in PSP's and my exisiting Streamline merchant accounts can be utilised, but..............

I am fearful that I may be leaping from the frying pan into the fire & am keen to establish your opinions on PSP's. I'm sure Actinic are on the money, but am concerned that they do not have the "public presence" that Worldpay has. Naturally with that presence comes customer confidence - which is of course the primary hurdle that we all face in making the online shopping experience acceptable to the masses.

So will I regret moving to RBS, or are there other less well known PSP's (Actinic) that offer less presence but whose customer service, billing rates, and overall operation make them worthy candidates.

Thank you in advance for any input.

Craig Davies

PS - Please - no-one suggest Paypal

[Duncan Rounding]

It's worth considering Actinic Payments because of the very good backend integration.

[leehack]

+1 for me.

[Darren B]

i use AP with streamline, intergrates well and has improved alot recently so the reporting is now in timely fashion.

One question, why would you suffer penalties? if they are not providing the service you have signed up for then you need to challange it. But as you said, if your losing money already it might be better to cut your loses now

[Sean Williams]

+ 1 for Actinic Payments.
We also use Secure Hosting - never a moment's problems in seven years.
From the viewpoint of being an online purchaser, I hate finding myself in the RBS Worldpay system as I find it clunky, laboured and it often drops out (particularly at the ClickSafe stage) requiring a startover.

[gpzzone]

Phew what an interesting day!

First off I have signed up for Actinic Payments, and as part of the process you need to inform Streamline that you will soon be using AP (or credit-call specifically), that's where it gets clumsy for Cardsave customers.

Basically the Streamline merchant accounts of Cardsave customers are effectively controlled by Cardsave, and cannot be amended, transferred, cancelled or in any way interfered with by anyone other than via Cardsave.

Cardsave will of course close these Streamline accounts down when they close your account with them.....BUT.......

Incredibly, Streamline are contractually obligated by Cardsave NOT to create new "independent" accounts for existing Cardsave customers which of course means that you have no choice but to move merchants if you want a seamless transition between PSP's. Or you must accept a fortnight with no business once Cardsave have cancelled your Streamline Merchant account(s).

In effect this contract means that all Streamline / Cardsave customers that leave Cardsave in the future will be faced with the ludicrous situation of not being able to continue with Streamline - unless they are prepared to accept a period of no PSP whilst you're between Cardsave and independence.

The morale is of course choose your PSP wisely and avoid Cardsave like the plague.

I'm back at the crease tomorrow morning when I get to talk to a big cheese at Streamline.

[guccij]

You could always take PayPal during the hiatus ...

[gpzzone]

You could always take PayPal during the hiatus ...

I'd rather eat my ears!

[gpzzone]

Just to conclude this thread.

Having now transferred fully from Cardsave/Netbanx to Actinic Payments (AP) ( and Streamline) I'm quite well qualified to conclude that......

Actinic Payments is far slicker than Netbanx.

Funds transfer into your bank account is far quicker, certainly never more than 24 hours.

From the Virtual Terminal perspective (CNP/telephone), with Netbanx every single field is compulsory, ie, customer address, delivery address, unique transaction reference etc, postcode, you spend all day entering data, and if you make a mistake, you have to input EVERYTHING again.

With AP, the cardholder address is optional, the unique reference is optional, and if you make a mistake it prompts you nicely to to correct that individual field. With Actinic you can complete as few as only 5 fields and you can still get an authorisation. (Clearly this is a higher fraud risk) but it is nice not to have to write war and peace for trustworthy regular customers' payments.

Netbanx requires 10 compulsory fields to be completed - twice as much data, and it is clumsier.

In short telephone (CNP) payments with AP is far slicker, and it is possible to do it with the customer on the end of a telephone, something I'd never contemplate with the Netbanx virtual terminal.

Setup with AP is seamless. Everything you need to do in Actinic Payments is accessible via one single login. With my old Netbanx & Cardsave arrangement I had 3 seperate logins. one for the virtual (MOTO) terminal, one for the online transactions a/c, and one for the Virtual terminal transactions a/c.

In fairness to Netbanx, having seen the comments that I have made in this forum, they did have the decency to call me and discuss the situation.

Notwithstanding that, in my opinion, and based upon my recent experiences with both providers, NB are running a considerable distance behind AP, but I did get the impression they were turning on the gas.

There's no doubt that the Netbanx / Cardsave tie up is extremely restrictive, and in my opinion Cardsave is probably one too many links in the chain.

Consequently, I'd suggest that Cardsave is the big problem, because in my experience, they don't actually do anything that you can't do yourself other than muddy the waters. Indeed when I did do it myself, I ended up with a more functional arrangement, and a more beneficial transaction rate to boot!

This is the big lesson for me, third party resellers have the capacity to create confusion and frustration, especially when they restrict access to what is in effect your business.

Thankfully it's now all behind me!

[Sean Williams]

I agree about Cardsave.
We binned them a few years ago and saved plenty of money.
As you say - the main reason to be with Cardsave is for savings on other stuff such as packaging, couriers etc, but we found we could find everything better and cheaper by 'going it alone'.
That said, for a new online business, they can be the only way of gaining a merchant account so they do have a useful purpose for some people!