Search results matching tag 'IPN'

Very advanced questions / AlertPay details (WARNING: Long post)

frankceh — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:14:46 GMT

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

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.

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 4^th 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

Re: Changing The Alert URL

nyhahany — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:35:45 GMT

If we can insert the alert url directly inside the form, it's will help full for all of us, especially if we running referral or membership program where require member to pay another members directly (i'am taalking in the secure way).

Current alertpay url setup is annoying for most people, especially if they need to setup alertpay url in case they need to receive the money (using ipn).

If the alert url can embeded directly in the form, only site owner will need do the task, and not his all members.

There are several other reasons why this needed, but since my english is limited i can't tell more.

If you remember how e-gold handle the return url, perhaps it's will helpful, people do not need create hassle task to create the return or status url on their account everytime they create a new program or joining new program or site

hope it's helpful.

thank you,

Re: Changing The Alert URL

practice — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:15:28 GMT

Hello,

Ferhan told me about this thread, and i'd wish to thank you guys for taking an interest in this.

I'm working in building a sort of pyramid scheme system. Users register to my client's system and pay a fee for the registration. In the case the user(let's call him Jimmy) was invited to the site by another user, this latter user (the parent - i'll call him Jim) will receive a commission of the registration fee. Commissions are generated together with the IPN script (so they are calculated on the AlertURL page) and saved in the system's commission database. So far so good. The problem becomes clear when the site administrator tries to pay commissions. Basically in this case, from AP's point of view, the admin is the client and the parent - Jim is the merchant, so the AlertURL for this payment is the one defined in the Jim's AP account. So i cannot use IPN in order to update the status of the commission, cause the IPN won't ever return to the system the payment data.

Apparently this is a minor inconvenient, but in general, any payments generated on a site for a given number of users/entities won't be able to use IPN.

Imho your system is great when it comes to receiving payments, simple, effective, easy to understand, but when it comes to issuing payments, it cannot be used at all. And in this case the complicated socket notification of the paypal comes in really handy.

Calculating Alertpay Fees

Martyn — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:08 GMT

I calculate fees on receipt of an IPN and up until recently this has been no trouble. However the amounts calculated now are sometimes wrong and checking the fee schedule at https://www.alertpay.com/info/Fees.aspx I noticed the following line which is probably the cause of the issue:-

*Certain industries may be subject to a fee of 3.90 % + €0.59 EUR for receiving funds and 6.40 % + €0.59 EUR for receiving funds by credit card

Can someone point me to a list of "Certain Industries" and also explain which end of the deal has to pay (the vendor or the customer)? It appears one of my customers has been hit with this additional charge on practically every payment whereas I have only been charged this amount when he pays me (so is it his industry and do Alertpay charge if either party, customer or vendor, is involved with one of these certain industries?).

This isn't a complaint about fees btw (although if complaining will reduce them please consider it as such :D) rather how do we know when they are going to be charged and how can we accurately calculate them in each IPN.

Re: New Shopping Cart developed mainly for Alertpay client

milestheman — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:21:39 GMT

Well; Just to give you My feedback on this

Great job in making a shopping Cart for AlertPay; I wouldn't pay over $30 for a script to deliver Downloadable Goods after a sale; and probably wouldn't pay more than $50 for a Shopping cart; but that's just me.

I am still Hoping more Open Source Coders who have experience with Payment Gateways would go to work to put together some scripts to Help the Community of people who Do use AlertPay as a processor could begin to truly Flourish as the way I see it -- we are all IN it together.

The better the Scripts "available" for people to use are; the more likely MORE Site Owners will Look to AlertPay as a viable Option to use; which makes the company Stronger; and gives us All even More Tools to use to grow our businesses online.

Good luck to you with this new product!!

Hopefully you'll consider some lower priced Scripts that will benefit those of us on Smaller Budgets (which is a pretty large number of site owners)

To your Success!

Re: [purchase type field is invalid]? HELP ME PLEASE!!!

AlertPay_Phoun — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:26:40 GMT

Hello,

Please do the following to resolve the issue:

1. Log into the Administration Panel of your osCommerce website.

2. Click on Modules/Payment and you should see the AlertPay payment module listed.

3. Click on Edit and enter a description under "General product description".

4. Click Update

The "General product description" field is required and can not be left empty.

[purchase type field is invalid]? HELP ME PLEASE!!!

Aimewrt — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:00:38 GMT

I m running some test with the ipn for oscommerce but i try to buy i receive this message from alertpay "Sorry, the merchants payment button settings are incorrect [purchase type field is invalid], if you are a buyer, please inform the merchant."

It s maybe nothing but i can t find a similar probleme on the forum i tried to install and uninstall several time the modul change the description but nothing

I you got anything please.

Web Invoice - Invoicing and billing for WordPress supports AlertPay (including IPN)

mohanjith — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:28:55 GMT

Web Invoice - Invoicing and billing for WordPress has added supports AlertPay (including IPN) in its lates version.

Web Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients. Ideal for web developers, SEO consultants, general contractors, or anyone with a WordPress blog and clients to bill. The plugin ties into WP's user management database to keep track of your clients and their information.

Once an invoice is created from the WP admin section, an email with a brief description and a unique link is sent to client. Clients follow the link to your blog's special invoice page, view their invoice, and pay their bill using AlertPay. The control panel is very user-friendly and intuitive.

You can download Web Invoice and read all about it at http://mohanjith.com/wordpress/web-invoice.html

IPN Not working

Yuri Lopardi — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:43:40 GMT

Hello,

I have a problem with the AlertPay IPN...

My system capture the Total Amount of the transaction. Before the update, the value received was, for example, 10.25, but now the value received is $10.25 USD.

My system don't recognized the value in numbers, and don't update the user account after the payment.

How can i solve this?

Thanks"

IPN Upgrade

AlertPay_Phoun — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:45:02 GMT

Release Date: March 31, 2009

From now on, when AlertPay sends IPN posts it will make sure that your web server receives it. If AlertPay does not receive an acknowledgement that your server received our IPN post, then it will try again up to 9 times until your web server successfully receives the post. The attempts will occur as follows:

•   The first 3 attempts will occur every 15 minutes
•   If the previous attempts fail, the next 3 will occur every hour
•   Lastly, 3 final attempts will be made every 8 hours

The intervals between the attempts will give you enough time to correct anything on your server that is preventing you from receiving the IPN posts.

If all of the 9 attempts fail, then the IPN notification will be lost for that transaction.

Reasons for changing our IPN

Many of our merchants have to contact us when they do not receive an IPN for a given transaction. We then have to manually re-send it.

For example, if a merchant has a script that is updating an IPN in the database, then they have to do one of the following if the IPN was lost:

• manually update the database
• contact us and wait until we manually re-send the IPN

This can be very troublesome. An IPN can be lost due to your server being down, a bad AlertURL address, a network glitch, a firewall issue or any other unknown reasons. We now make sure that your server properly receives it and we will automatically re-send at a later time if it fails.

The intervals at which the attempts are made will allow you enough time to detect and correct any issues that may prevent you from receiving our IPN.

Search results matching tag 'IPN'

Very advanced questions / AlertPay details (WARNING: Long post)

Re: Changing The Alert URL

Re: Changing The Alert URL

Calculating Alertpay Fees

Re: New Shopping Cart developed mainly for Alertpay client

Re: [purchase type field is invalid]? HELP ME PLEASE!!!

[purchase type field is invalid]? HELP ME PLEASE!!!

Web Invoice - Invoicing and billing for WordPress supports AlertPay (including IPN)

IPN Not working

IPN *Upgrade*

IPN Upgrade