Again, related to the 10-year reunion I'm helping to plan, I'm now thinking about how we're going to collect funds for this.

The only method we can think of at the moment is Paypal, but I'm concerned about the fees associated with it. That's basically my concern with any solution I can think of. We're already going to be tight on cash, and taking 2-5% of everything is going to hurt.

Probably the simplest way is to have people mail checks/cash to us, but that's a whole lot more difficult.

Any ideas?

Bitt, do you remember what the deal with Obopay was?

I don't know how the system is over there, but how about just setting up a bank account and then everyone can just transfer money to that account the same way they pay any other bill?

Stig

Ugh.

Not sure. I'm not sure if that's possible, though. You'd need to give everyone the account/routing numbers, wouldn't you?

I'm pretty sure if you use a "personal" paypal account (instead of a "business" account), you won't be charged any transaction fees.

They've twiddled with their fees quite a bit recently, and it seems rather difficult to "pay a pal" without them taking a cut of it now.

A pal recently send me some funds, and they managed to nick several percent from the US$57 transaction, leaving me short a couple of bucks.

If it's defined as a personal payment there is an option for the sender to collect the fees - last time I made a payment it was quite obvious.

I am not a banking expert, and am relying solely on my personal experience. That said:

You can use your bank's BillPay for anything, but unless you are a recipient that they have a good reason to have a direct-deposit relationship with, they're going to send out a check in the mail. This does save the sender the cost of a stamp, but I don't imagine that's your concern. You're still going to have to deal with opening several hundred envelopes, endorsing that many checks, manually transcribing that data into your database, etc.

You can have people have a bank transfer made, but it's going to cost them an outrageous sum, like at least $20.

You still have to deal with Paypal-like systems.

Since the last time I looked, though, it seems Amazon has entered the market with TextPayMe. I can't immediately find any limits or fees....

Also, mPayy. Free for P2P transactions. Can't find any data on maximums.

This space still sucks. Visa and/or MasterCard really need to get into this business. I guess there's not really any profit in it for them. Maybe laws need to be changed so that banks can start offering this service. (I can't believe I just suggested deregulating banks.)

100 transactions a month

You should also be able to go into any branch of the deposit account's bank and make a deposit to that account, by cash, without incurring any fees. This isn't a "wire" or "TT" which is the type of transfer that would incur the $20+ fee Bitt mentioned.

I say just keep it simple and have people send a check made payable to whomever is collecting the money. The biggest danger here is that some cheque may be made out to the incorrect name, making them impossible/difficult to cash/deposit.

True, but then you have no record of who sent the payment.


I have a hard time disagreeing with this. It'd be worth it to point out in the communication that people should be able to use their bank's billpay service to accomplish this. (I, for one, don't keep any physical checks anymore.)

And since people are paying to show up to a physical event, dealing with a handful of incorrect checks is easily solvable by just having them fork over cash when they show up. I also think it would probably be legal to deposit a check made out to an organization's name by using the name as a d/b/a.

That's true, but I suspect the number of people with Paypal accounts is the minority.

All in all, I've worked out that it'll cost us about $260 to collect using Paypal. I think it might just be the easiest way and we'll have to deal with the fees.


The question I have is: why is this an option? Shouldn't it be an option for the recipient? So now the sender say "hmm, you know what? I'd like to pay more." That seems odd to me. We could have a little text saying "you have to select the option to pay the fees," but only half the people are going to see that.

Is there something about this mechanism that I'm not understanding? Paypal probably has the worst help section of any service I've used. It took me about 10 minutes to actually find out what their damn fees are! It seems practically illegal to hide that kind of information like that.

Oh, you want to be able to accept credit card payments and not have people sign up for anything? Yeah, good luck with that. If you have that many people you're contacting and any significant number pay via PayPal via a credit card, your account is going to be pushed into the next tier, I'm pretty sure.

Your best bet is probably TextPayMe. Call it Amazon WebPay; that includes their web-based payment system, and adds an air of authenticity.

If I were you, I think I would provide people multiple ways to pay. Tell them something like, "You can pay via Amazon WebPay, credit card, or by sending a check. If you want to pay by using a credit card, I'm afraid we'll have to charge you a $x.xx fee beyond the cost of the reunion in order to cover the processing fees, but you can use a credit card to fund the Amazon WebPay payment for free."

Okay, Amazon Payments looks like it might be a winner. If you already have an Amazon account, most of your payment information is copied over, including verifications. All I had to do was verify my mobile phone number, which took like a minute. And, I guess, if you just want to pay from the web site, you don't even need to do that.

If you want to accept credit cards via PayPal you're going to lose 30 cents per transaction plus 2.9% of the transaction amount. The "customer" doesn't need a PayPal account.

Plus you need to have a PayPal premier or business account. You absolutely cannot do this with a "Personal" account. In fact, a personal account isn't actually good for anything anymore. Just forget they even exist.

Actually, I'm also pretty sure you'll have to set up some encrypted buttons for the txn amount which your "customers" will have to click on. Otherwise I don't think there is any way to just go to PayPal.com and send someone money from a credit card without a PayPal account.

I do this for a living. Trust me, take checks and forget about PayPal for this.

Amazon fees:



The first two payment scenarios, and credit card transactions under $10 are at better price rates than PayPal.

That's for business accounts, no? I believe personal accounts have no fees at all. I could be wrong, though.

Yeah, they have a very convenient button creation tool with a decent amount of options. I'll be using that if I go with Paypal. I'll take a look at Amazon too. I'll need to create a new Amazon account, though, to link to the bank account we opened for this purpose (forgot to mention that).

You're wrong.

My personal account was charged the 2.9% + 0.30 for money from someone earlier this week, and they didn't even use a CC.

Cheers

Amazon WebPay FAQ:

Amazon Payments Fees & Account Limits:

The only fees I see are for using Amazon Simple Pay or Checkout by Amazon. It seems that both Personal and Business accounts can use those services. But if you just use WebPay or TextPayMe, it still appears that there is no fee. Again, I could be wrong. Can you confirm that you didn't use ASP or CbA?

I haven't been in this thread until today and at first I was thinking you were in a slightly different situation- having to make similar payments to multiple accounts at once.

heh

I meant paypal.. didn't know you meant Amazon.

Cheers

Personal PayPal accounts didn't used to be able to receive credit card payments. If they now can, it's limited to something like up to 5 per month or similar. Seriously, look at the information for a Personal account, which is the most confusing content on their site, and you'll quickly find out that Personal accounts are useless. They also have a receiving limit which includes all forms of payment, including from other people's accounts directly.

The rates for Amazon I posted were directly from their site, but from a different page than the one you linked. It didn't say anything about the rates being for any specific type of account.

The page you linked lists personal limits, but doesn't say that personal accounts don't ALSO pay the receiving fees.

BTW, that whole Amazon payments site looks like it was lifted directly from PayPal. And the level of confusion and obscurity for "Personal" WebPay is at least as bad as PayPal's.

Agreed.

Agreed. I also don't know how the system in the US work, but here in Europe you can simply open up a bank account (or use an existing one), then provide the bank account number to the persons that need to send you money and they can wire it to that said bank account. Very easy, no hassle and safe, because that account number can only be used to put money onto the account, not retrieving any money from it (without owning other necessary codes).

In the last couple of years this system has expanded all over Europe, meaning I can now directly wire money to any account number in Europe I know the IBAN (bank account number) and BIC/SWIFT code (specific code needed to determine the specific bank) of, all without additional cost.

Doesn't this or a comparable system exist in the US?

In the UK at least handing out your account number to too many people can get you into trouble. With your account number and sort code people can setup direct debit instructions in your name.

The direct debit guarantee should ensure that you can reverse any such unauthorized direct debits, but it won't stop it being a huge pain in the arse if it happened.

As Jeremy Clarkson found out:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574781/Jeremy-Clarkson-eats-his-words-over-ID-theft.html

Those direct debits don't exist in Belgium. Maybe that's why giving out a bank account number doesn't feel 'unsafe' to me.

It seems to me those direct debits are more trouble than they are worth though. Why would you need those in the first place? Anyone who wants to make a legitimate deposit can surely be bothered to ok the transfer?

Direct debits are the mechanism in the UK that is used for paying monthly bills automatically. You set up a direct debit instruction with a company and they use it to collect the money needed to pay your credit card bill, phone bill, magazine subscription etc

What it needed is a separate number that can be used to pay money into your account, but can't be used to setup direct debits.

Ah, I see. That system exists here as well, but new direct deposits are never set up without:
- the owner of the bank account requesting this in person (or his plenipotentiary)
- a document is sent to the bank with the original signature of the bank account owner. And even then, in case of doubt, most banks will check with their customer (by phone or otherwise) to make sure the direct deposit request is above board.

I believe that's pretty safe.

I believe I am right in saying that a company running a direct debit scheme in the UK does not need to forward anything to the bank when it is setup. They simple hold the copy of the direct debit application on file.

Also, in the UK was have paper less direct debits that can be setup online or over the phone, so your signature isn't needed.

They are however required to give you prior warning of a direct debit being made, but given that this can be via email (which in the case if a fraudulently setup direct debit probably won't be your email address), then the first thing you might know about a fraudulent direct debit is the money leaving your account.