30 Day free trials?

CC Billing options for free trials of intangible goods

[MrDogg]

I am having trouble finding a 3rd party CC checkout service which will allow me to accept and validate credit card details, but defer any payments for a 30day trial period. Being based in Australia makes things even harder since many 3rd party services are US only.

The alternative is to send them a link to pay after the 30days is over but unfortunatley this seems to have a much lower sucess ratio.

Has anybody else had a similar requirement for the sale of intangible goods? Are there any alternatives to 2checkout and paypal that will allow you to specify when the transaction is to be made?

[time919]

Not Sure if these are considered US only, but we have used both Authorize.net and Verisign for this purpose.

You can create an ARB - Automatic Re Billing Transaction

Set your sale for the initial amount such as shipping cost, create the ARB for the rebilling amount. Viola

Make sure your disclaimers are big and bold if you are to use this. We have had re-billing programs that did not work so well due to customer chargebacks. People can easily say i did not authorize further transactions and will try to get their money back from the CC companies.

[lgn1]

Under VISA, MC and Amex rules. Authorization (holds) can only be placed for a maximun of 30 days. So you need to charge the actual card before the 30 days are up, or else you could face a large number of chargebacks, if the credit card holder is max out.

On the other hand, many people forget about free for 30 days offers and don't cancel in time. If the price of the article is small, most people who were planning on cancelling, will put it down to their own forgetfullness and live with it.