Accepting Credit Cards: Getting a Merchant Account
April 29, 1999
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Today's Web developer needs to have a thorough knowledge of how
to build commerce-enabled Web sites. One of the most mysterious
areas is the process of setting up a Web-enabled credit card
merchant account. The gold rush of e-commerce has spawned
hordes of pick-and-shovel peddlers. If you search for information
on credit cards, you'll find page after page of outfits, all
offering the Moon, but very little specific information. What do
you really need to get credit card transactions going on a site,
and how do you find a reputable bank that's knowledgeable about
the Internet? In this article, I'll explain how a credit card
merchant account works, with a few hints on creating good order
forms and choosing a payment processing system.
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Today's Web developer needs to have a thorough knowledge of how
to build commerce-enabled Web sites. One of the most mysterious
areas, for clients and Web shops alike, is the process of setting
up a Web-enabled credit card merchant account. The gold rush of
e-commerce has spawned hordes of pick-and-shovel peddlers. If you
search for information on credit cards, you'll find page after
page of outfits, all offering to get your credit card scene
together pronto and cheapo. All of them try to make the process
of getting a merchant account sound extremely difficult and
complicated (if you buy their product, of course, it becomes
easy). I am sorry to say that not a few of these outfits are
shaky, shady, or simply scams. What do you really need to get
credit card transactions going on a site, and how do you find
a reputable bank that's knowledgeable about the Internet?
I won't begin this article by expounding the virtues of credit
cards, because that would sound too much like the blobs of Spam
that appear in your mailbox every day. All I'll say is that the
first sentence or two (and little more) of those Spamograms is
usually correct - if you want to do business online, you do need
to accept credit cards. Forget about "virtual cash" and
"smart cards." Credit cards are here now, and are rapidly
becoming the payment method of choice whenever possible. Most
or all of the retail business transacted over the Web is done
with credit cards.
You can also forget the scare stories you've heard about credit
card security risks. The whole rigmarole about hackers sniffing
packets and harvesting your credit card numbers made great press,
and sold a tremendous number of magazines about a year ago, but
it was mostly pretty far-fetched stuff, and it's old news now.
If I really must debunk this bugaboo (my regular readers know
how I hate debunking bugaboos), let's briefly revisit three
facts:
- Most credit card companies limit your liability in case of
credit card theft to a small amount, perhaps $50 - 100, so that's
the most at stake even in the worst-case scenario, which is that
the first documented Internet credit card rip-off in history just
happens to happen to you.
- For obvious reasons, credit card numbers are much more likely
to be stolen when you use your card in a restaurant or over the
phone than when you use it over the Web.
- By taking a few simple precautions, you, the Web site owner,
can make it difficult enough to breach your security that it
simply wouldn't be worth anyone's time to make the attempt. If
somebody wants to run a credit card rip-off, there are far easier
ways to do it than hacking into a site that has taken basic
security precautions.
Having said all that, the fact remains that perceptions are
often more important than facts, and the majority of people
out there are probably still convinced that using credit cards
over the Web is extremely risky. It's very important for you to
make sure that your online sales system is as secure as practical,
and to convince your site visitors of this fact.
Contents:
Accepting Credit Cards: Getting a Merchant Account
What You Need - Plain and Simple
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