Forum Moderators: buckworks
On a website I am developing, my clients customers will be sent an e-mail with their product total, invoice number, and secure website to "check out", in which they will need to type in their product total, invoice number, billing information, and charge card number. There is no shopping cart.
My client already has a merchant account with a bank he insists on using (he uses it at his brick and mortar location). Can someone please help me identify the most expedient way to accomplish this? I'm open to all possible solutions, but it is a must that he use his current merchant account.
Thanks,
Chris
This requires collecting, storing, and saving the information somewhere online, or (God forbid) receiving it via email. Most of these methods are dangerously insecure, especially when implemented by someone who is not real sure about how to go about it.
For this reason (and others,) doing so will almost always be in violation of their offline merchant account. Those are for processing swipes and CNP phone-in orders, the contracts explicitly outline their use and are not to be used for gathering Internet orders. This can come back in a year or two in the form of charges in arrears for orders collected on the Internet, and even hefty fines.
If this doesn't arm you with enough info to set your customer straight, have a look through this recent thread [webmasterworld.com].
The correct way to do this is through a merchant gateway account or fairly complicated secure methods of data storage that insure PCI compliance - if you're not familiar with PCI compliance, it's probably a good idea to let this customer's project become someone else's headache.
I should have been clearer in my original post. The client does not wish to run purchases through their offline terminal, rather, just utilize their merchant account number and setup an online checkout that will process the card through a gateway. The non-negotiable, it seems, is using their merchant account ID.
As for Paypal, that was my recommendation to this client, but that is not the route he wishes to go.
I look forward to your response.
Thanks,
Chris
just utilize their merchant account number and setup an online checkout that will process the card through a gateway.
Well this one's easy then! :-) They need to connect with their merchant account provider and find out what gateways are supported by that account. Most likely it will mean increases in the fees on the account, because Internet transactions are more subject to fraud.
