 Poster: A snowHead
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Some of know that I rent 3 apartments in France. Due to some rule changes our existing facility (a 3rd person) is no longer going to be allowed to accept payments by CC on our behalf.
This is at least tedious.
The last time we looked our own bank (CA des Savoie) would not give us direct facility to accept payments (our business then was only 0 years old, not its current 6) and while this might have changed (we will ask) I would prefer to know if there are any alternatives.
A constraint being that we are Swiss resident - so any of the online services (e.g. iZettle) are not available to us. (I will also ask our UK bank but I don't think that's going to help for non-resident reasons).
We do use Paypal but find it's quite expensive (not that I'm expecting anything else to be a huge amount cheaper). And quite reasonably many of our prospective tenants want to use CCs rather than bank transfer (which are, in any case, a little tedious to administer). Having a CC number from which we can deduct damages rather than a deposit that we have to return is much easier all round.
Any bright ideas gratefully received, thanks.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Not heard of iZettle but have you tried French operated ones such as Paylib, Kwixo and S-Money? With the number of French people hopping over to Geneva every day the French-operated ones might be more understanding of your situation. Paylib is a new one from La Poste and BNP Paribas btw, the others belong to individual banks.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Company I worked for over the summer used SagePay. It took CC payments over the internet so was similar to Paypal, fees might be less so could be worth a look.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Thanks folks, albinomountainbadger, those are particularly "local-useful" as I was having trouble searching for French ones.
Cheers!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You could potentially upgrade Your Paypal account to a merchant account and get a virtual terminal which would allow you to process CC's, as you mention not the cheapest but may be the simplest and quickest.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Quote: |
You could potentially upgrade Your Paypal account to a merchant account and get a virtual terminal which would allow you to process CC's, as you mention not the cheapest but may be the simplest and quickest.
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I wouldn't recommend this. We used to use exactly this system but paypal would limit our account all of the time for things such as "suspicious IP address access" (ie logging on in france or switzeland) "suspiciously high or low turnover volumes in a given month (ie operating a seasonal business) etc etc etc Each time it gets locked you can get it unlocked but it usually takes several weeks and requires sending millions of scans of bits of paper. We now use barclaycard which are about a million times better.
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try NetBanx, you don't even need a merchant account for them.
http://www.netbanx.com/
I used to be their DBA so can vouch for them.
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| Snow and Sunshine wrote: |
| Quote: |
You could potentially upgrade Your Paypal account to a merchant account and get a virtual terminal which would allow you to process CC's, as you mention not the cheapest but may be the simplest and quickest.
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I wouldn't recommend this. We used to use exactly this system but paypal would limit our account all of the time for things such as "suspicious IP address access" (ie logging on in france or switzeland) "suspiciously high or low turnover volumes in a given month (ie operating a seasonal business) etc etc etc Each time it gets locked you can get it unlocked but it usually takes several weeks and requires sending millions of scans of bits of paper. We now use barclaycard which are about a million times better. |
I had my account locked once in 7 years and that was my fault. It was unlocked in a matter of minutes over the phone. Happy to agree that a 'proper' bank is likely to be better in terms of customer service when you need it, if You can get an account.
It also depends if you go for a physical terminal or a virtual terminal as to what you are charged or pay in terms of fees and differs from bank to bank and from account to account. Barclaycard have lots of 'non' resident customers.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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UBS are wanting to start a service / hookup with Sumup; it's been delayed (I gather Six et al really don't want to allow their little cartel to suffer) but it's in the pipeline.... I started a thread about it on English Forum:
http://www.englishforum.ch/business-entrepreneur/184882-accepting-credit-cards.html
Now leaving aside the doom-mongers on there (like the operators wouldn't have thought about security), could that be an option (albeit maybe a longer term one)?
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| feef wrote: |
try NetBanx, you don't even need a merchant account for them.
http://www.netbanx.com/
I used to be their DBA so can vouch for them. |
Bit of a "fail" for me just due to the jargon on the web site 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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under a new name, a few French gites owners use Paybox linked with their CA account. There are two versions, Paybox Mail where you email a link to your guests to pay you online and Paybox which you can use to take details by phone. .
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| feef wrote: |
try NetBanx, you don't even need a merchant account for them.
http://www.netbanx.com/
I used to be their DBA so can vouch for them. |
But you would need a merchant account to accept payments over the phone wouldn't you?
Last edited by And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports. on Tue 22-10-13 23:07; edited 1 time in total
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Have a look at Wirecard in Germany - they work lots in the travel industry, we use them, and find them very good.
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You know it makes sense.
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| ansta1 wrote: |
| feef wrote: |
try NetBanx, you don't even need a merchant account for them.
http://www.netbanx.com/
I used to be their DBA so can vouch for them. |
But you would need a merchant account to accept payments over the phone wouldn't you?
Adbaston and db2 DBA in a pre ii us life, though adabas getting market exposure again due to big data projects. Ho ho. |
Unless it's changed, they have a package that allows mail order over the phone, where you're entering the card details into a 'virtual terminal' on their online systems. You don't need a merchant account for that either.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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That's interesting ansta1, we always joked that our account was jinxed - maybe it really was!
Are you UK based or abroad?
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Snow and Sunshine wrote: |
That's interesting ansta1, we always joked that our account was jinxed - maybe it really was!
Are you UK based or abroad? |
UK based.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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We are trying to set up Paybox through CA at the mo... we have looked at all the options over the years but this seems the best value (fees are really not bad). Should be all set up but just struggling to get it out of "test" mode..
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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SnowRetreat, do please post how you get on. I'm just waiting for them to get back to me.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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ansta1,
Ah - that explains it - we aren't jinxed after all!
I think that it is things out of the ordinary that caused the problem for us. ie having a UK account (for £ payments) and foreign IP address (France) when taking the payments was more than their system could handle.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Snow and Sunshine, if that's how they work (or don't, in your case!) is the solution simply a cheeky VPN service to fake your IP as being in the UK?
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| albinomountainbadger wrote: |
| Snow and Sunshine, if that's how they work (or don't, in your case!) is the solution simply a cheeky VPN service to fake your IP as being in the UK? |
You can define up to 16 IP specific addresses that can log into the paypal manager function (which then lets you run virtual terminal) of course this only helps if you have a static IP address. In addition they have now changed the password unlock process and you setup a series of questions, which lets you self serve the unlock process without having to speak to anyone.
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ansta1, well yes requiring a static ip address would have been an effective means of denying small businesses their service...
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| albinomountainbadger wrote: |
| ansta1, well yes requiring a static ip address would have been an effective means of denying small businesses their service... |
that kind of depends, mine is static, well it is when I am not out and about that is.
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and remember, the requirement isn't a static IP address, just that you can if you want define a number of specific IP addresses that can have access, I don't and can use the virtual terminal on my Blackberry, Ipad, other peoples machines. Yes all uk based but not one provider and not one device.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| ansta1 wrote: |
| and remember, the requirement isn't a static IP address, just that you can if you want define a number of specific IP addresses that can have access, |
Ah, the way I interpreted your previous post was, "access is limited to 16 IP addresses".
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
Snow and Sunshine, if that's how they work (or don't, in your case!) is the solution simply a cheeky VPN service to fake your IP as being in the UK?
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We do have one of these for TV etc at home but I don't think that a company selling an international payment solution which is advertised as working worldwide should need one.
There were other issues too - large payments, seasonal volumes etc - all of which seemed to raise some sort of internal lock and put the account onto hold. We always got the holds lifted but often it required scanning and e-mailing reams of paper and then waiting for a manager to unlock it again - unfortunately in our case it never seemed as simple as answering questions to unlock it.
In the end we just got fed up and voted with our feet and now use barclaycard who in my opinion are much much better, although overall a little more expensive I think.
Guess it depend on what you want to do because it seems like Paypal work really well for ansta1,
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I actually use Barclaycard for the other business, it just didn't make sense at the time to use anything other than PayPal. So technically I am dual acquired as they say.
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You know it makes sense.
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This isn't quite what you were asking about, but I tripped over it last night when trying to pay for French accommodation where they only accepted a direct bank transfer.
Our bank wanted c.£25 for the transfer of €300, so about a 10% charge. I did a bit of Googling and came up with www.transferwise.com where to deposit direct into a French bank in € cost me about £1.27 in fees, and I got a decent exchange rate.
I don't think it would count as 'accepting payments' for a French bank, as it is simply a transfer.
The whole concept is interesting, as it's about matching currency trades and cutting out the bank profits.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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sj1608, good shout, I need to have a better look at this, but it could come in useful.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Hells Bells If you're going to use it, please can you PM me with your email and I will send you an 'invitation'. They're offering £50 for three referrals that actually transact, and if we manage to get £50 it will go towards some fund-raising we're doing.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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sj1608, ok I will do.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Update on paybox with CA.. after a couple of telephone calls this morning (all in French - well done to my OH), we are now in test mode and have put some test payments through and its stupidly easy. Have set up different login's for different people with different authorities.. i.e. you can choose if users can just take payments or take payments and do refunds etc. Feeling fairly happy with it now...
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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SnowRetreat, had a helpful email from them this afternoon, looks promising!
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FAQ
