Hi
Let me first tell you how much I enjoy AlertPay. It is truly
a great service and after two weeks of semi-intensive use, I can say I am
extremely satisfied and impressed by it.
I, however, have a few advanced questions. Let me tell you I
consider myself a very advanced player. I am skilled at adwords, adsense, PHP, MySQL, Ajax, CSS/XHTML analytics,
etc. Therefore, my questions are VERY advanced.
Let me start with my suggestions.
SUGGESTION
1)
The only thing that is truly missing in AlertPay – the only
feature I was not able to reproduce by other means – is PDT (Payment Data transfer)
With it, data are passed all along the shopping experience,
so that the customer is redirected to a custom post AND variables, such as amount,
are posted on a php page on my website. This allows a custom redirect page after
ordering.
With it, you can track Google convertions, i.e. how much
money each person spent. You can also track MUCH more advanced analytics. This
features is integrated into paypal.
2)
Also, your Payment IPN is definitely not secure enough. A
simple PHP vulnerability would easily lead a ill-intentioned person to view the
security code, and be able to abuse your PHP script through fake IPNs.
Finally, I am unsure of this features, but I am not sure how
ECHECKS would be handled (or if you even offer them – if you don’t, good, they
***).
I strongly suggest a fopen script to make sure the
connection is made with AlertPay and not a third-party.
STRONG POINTS:
In my opinion, AlertPay’s strongest point, aside from low
pricing and ease of use, is the ability to create one business for each
website. Props to the person who thought of that. Also, the idea of not taking
part in disputes – letting the merchant solve it – is excellent and reduce
costs, while improving customer satisfaction. Finally, the ease of use of the
whole website is excellent, and the fact you can do a lot – products on the
fly, IPN, etc – makes AlertPay a serious payment processor.
With that in mind, here are my “advanced” questions
1)
I consider myself a developer. I develop A LOT
of websites. I have around 60 websites, each would need its own IPN’S script.
Obviously, I would need 60 sub-business accounts. Is that possible?
2)
I currently transit payments through the
following: moneybookers, paypal/ebay x 2, merchant’s account, google checkout, clickbank,
bidpay and obviously AlertPay (told ya I’m a big player). Each of these has its
pros and its cons. For example, paypapy has little support for sellers and few
features, but a distinctive, classic look and low ***. Google checkout has 0%
fee, but cannot be used in Canada for sellers. Paypal is cheap, but IMO has a
much higher risk of ***. (ten times as many as AlertPay). My question is: are
you interested in getting details “from the field” from a merchant? I could
very well produce a comparison of all services. If you are wondering why I use
so many payment processors, it is simply because, in my opinion, each product
has a payment processor that serves it best, depending on the price, nature and
location of the item. For example, some products are better handled with
ClickBank’s affiliates, some products can only be sold through merchant
accounts, etc.
3)
In terms of reliability, what can I expect from
AlertPay? Paypal has a down of two hours which made me lose quite a bunch. Also,
what are your conditions for limiting/suspending accounts? I am not a criminal
(my business is obviously 100% legit, going in its 4th year) but I
need to be informed of the payment processing risk.
4)
I have had a customer tell me, when he tried to
order with a credit card, that he would need to create an account absolutely
and wait 5 days for the account to be verified before he could order.
Obviously, that’s not acceptable (unless
of course there was a risk with the person’s credit card, then I congratulate
you). Is it possible for someone to
order just by entering address, name and CC information ?
5)
Last but not the least: subscriptions. Part of my business are subscriptions. How
reliable are they? Do you sometimes cancel subscriptions (except of course when
payment fail) or are only the seller and the buyer can able to cancel them? If
the person subscribed with a CC, will he be charged on his CC automatically
each month? Just making sure. Is there any case where AlertPay can cancel
subscriptions? I am asking because it is frequent to see cancelled
subscriptions where neither the buyer, nor the seller asked for it to stop (and
the money was still coming)
6)
I have looked in details at your acceptable use.
I don’t sell any item not related to that. However, I do sell some items that
could be considered challenging. For example – not that I intend to sell this
item in particular on AlertPay – I sell a guide telling people how to win at
casino games (not cheating or illegal – tactics
at blackjack, roulette, etc). Would that be acceptable to sell on AlertPay? I
understand you cannot give me a direct answer but I like to steer clear of
problems. Is there any e-mail I can contact for possibly problematic products?
For example, I could give them a copy and wait for their permission. If I do
list this item and AlertPay later decides for whatever reason it is not
acceptable, what will happen? Will I only be asked to remove the item from sale
with AlertPay OR will my entire account – with possibly 60 businesses – be put
on hold? That’s a complete questions but after all I’ve lived, I prefer to be
100% sure. If you cannot answer this question, I would understand.
Just to make this very clear: I don’t sell anything even
remotely related to anything that AlertPay does not allow. However, I did have
some bad surprises. I sell products in various categories and sometimes for
some people. For example, I did help a locksmith to sell lockpicking items on his website which led to some problems on Google Checkout, or
somebody to sell self-improvement newsletter which led to suspended subscriptions on Paypal. I prefer to be very, very
cautious when it comes to new payment processor. A single day of not being able
to process payments possibly represents thousands of dollars in losses, both
for me and my customers. Sorry of this is potentially redundant or repititive; these answers will help me take the best decisions.
These are all the specifications I need to start working on
my project and, hopefully, migrate more of my projects to AlertPay. Long post,
but lots of information. I feel this can help clear some confusion and help
develop AlertPay furthermore.
I stand ready to give any information at your disposal if
you wish.
Cheers to you,
Frank