Forum Moderators: buckworks
The client wants the system to be able to notify them by email when someone has made a reservation and process the payment automatically through the site. The site should then give the user a printable receipt.
The client is currently using Bank of America to process their payments with a parent company and would probably use this system. But how are they going to accept PayPal payment? It seems to me they'll have to get a whole new system
How would I go about setting this up? What's the best way to do this? The site must send back a ton of information to the client (via email form) and the user must get a printable receipt.
From my research I need a e-commerce platform, a gateway and a merchant account. My client already has a gateway and merchant account with Bank of America, but will it work with PayPal to accept PayPal, or do they need a who new service provider. Any help is appreciated.
However, I *strongly* warn against allowing PayPal payments for this. They offer absolutely *NO* protection against fraud for service transactions. It doesn't matter what type of evidence you have, the merchant is always left on the hook if/when the buyer simply decides they don't want to pay for the service.
After being burned, we have removed PayPal as a payment option.
How would that (being burned) play out in a reservation. Once the person makes a reservation, they also enter their credit card info. And the money is sent to my client. The client gets the money up-front.
PayPal says not a problem, notifies the seller that they are doing an "investigation" into the payment, and immediately takes the money out of the seller's PayPal account. After 1-2 weeks (or more), they finally decide to tell you that their investigation has concluded and that they have returned the money to the buyer's account (or credit card).
You can lodge a complaint with PayPal and they will very politely point to their ToS and explain how you chose to proceed with a payment outside the scope of their Seller Protection (making it sound like the seller was engaged in criminal activity), and therefore not covered for the fraud. Oh, and they will thank you for being a valued customer.
You are free to file a police report and/or attempt to recover the money through other channels. If all your customers are locals and you have sufficient documentation (e.g., a copy of their driver's license, signed contract when they get the service, etc.), you might have a case. But if the customer is from out of town (or worse, from out of the country), most likely the police will play jurisdictional ping-pong, especially if the value of the transaction is not very substantial.
