Best method to charge customers

Authorize now or later for our service?

[jchance]

We have been using paypal for our websites for some time now. Lately we have a new idea for our website where paypal wont work. I have never had a merchant account before so I don't know if what we are trying to do is even possible or not. Heres the idea:

Customer signs up for a 30 min phone consultation and enters their credit card information. Then during the phone consultation they either can agree to purchase additional services from us, or purchase another 30 minutes for additional consultation time or neither (and just get the 30 min consultation they paid for). Also, if they purchase additional services they would not have to pay for the initial 30 min phone consultation.

So the idea here is before they get the consultation they will be agreeing to pay something (either the consultation or the additional services). My question is how would this work in an online payment environment. When the user initially signed up would we simply authorize the credit card for the 30 minute consultation up front and then during the phone call if they wanted additional services we could authorize additional charges to the same card?

Also, if we wanted to give back the fee for the initial consultation (because they purchased a service) can you release an authorization?

Is all of this possible / feasable?

Not sure if it matters or not but we wanted to use Authorize.net's AIM feature for accepting payments.

[martyt]

An authorization doesn't do anything but verify that the card is valid and that funds are available. They can be "voided" but the void doesn't really do anything.

When you do a post-auth capture, the money actually comes out of the customer's account and eventually ends up in your account.

You could initially authorize for some amount greater than you are going to charge and then capture for a lesser amount, once you figure out how much you're actually going to bill the customer. That way you're assured that the funds are available before you ever get started with the consulation and you don't have to refund anything.

So, for example, if you know you'll never charge a customer more than $150, authorize for that amount up front. Then if all they want is the inital consultation, you capture $30.