This Forum is going to be the death of me.

Honestly, I set out a whole hour ago to ask a teeny question, and got totally waylaid by fascinating threads!

Anyway, here I am ... at last. So here's my question: How do you guys get your clients to pay:

• * By cheque?
  
  * Straight into your bank?
  
  * Via the Internet?

Do you use PayPal or anything like that? Those Merchant Account thingys?

I've always done the traditional thing: invoiced, got cheque (eventually) and banked it. Just wondered if there was an easier way that works.

Jane

PayPal is definately the way to go for freelancers.

Paypal for small amount or installments
Wires for anything above 2k

You get the cash any way you can.


Bottom line is "Money is Money".

It doesn't matter in what form it comes as long as
it's legit.

Paypal,
Neteller,
Cash,
Check,
Western Union,

Whatever method they are comfortable sending it in.

I'd accept just about anything besides a barrel of pennies.

Of course, make sure the check is good before you do any
work. It's not too hard to make fake checks nowadays.

I'll agree with Jason except for one thing...

Send Me Pennies -- lots of them -- I Love Pennies!

... or yang... or pesos... or pounds -- I don't care!

Jane,

I like my clients to pay by electronic bank transfer because:

1) I don't pay commission or fees
2) Once it's cleared, they can't do a chargeback
3) It's less hassle than banking cheques
4) It can't bounce

For overseas transactions I might use Paypal, but what worries me is the risk of chargebacks months down the line, and it would seem that Paypal has got quite a bad reputation in this area.

HTH,
Jane

Thank you all for that!


I'd thought about PayPal, but I keep hearing iffy things about it. Easy for the person paying, of course. And I do like the sound of electronic bank transfer.

But I take the point of 'anyway that's legal'!


Are merchant accounts worth the effort? Or too expensive?


Jane

I would absolutely not use a merchant account for any transaction where you cannot get an in-person signature on the credit card slip. The customer can initiate a chargeback and if there's no sig, the cc company will pretty much automatically side with the customer.

I've never had the slightest problem with PayPal -- I wasn't aware that you could even do chargebacks with them. At least I've never had one.

Ken S.

Be aware that chargebacks are initiated from the credit card company, not the payment processor or merchant account.

For example, if a customer pays via Paypal, but elects to use a credit card, he can later go to his credit card company and request a chargeback. This happened to me once with Paypal (it was the only time) because the customer expected to see my name on his statement. He did not recognize my company name, even though I told him the charge will appear as such.

It really doesn't matter whether you use Clickbank, Stormpay, Paypal, or whatever. If you give the option to pay by credit card, chargebacks are, unfortunately, a possibility.

John

Ken Strong wrote:

And then jdrits wrote:


Mmmm ...

Gone right off the idea of letting people pay by credit card or through a merchant acount.


Those barrels of pennies get to sound more and more attractive


Jane