[tylerrooney]

Perhaps someone who runs their own company can answer this question for me: If you don't use PayPal, how do you receive payment from customers who don't have credit cards?

Are your customers exclusively in North America? Or do you just write those customers off (which is a valid option if PayPal integration would be that painful)?

Adding PayPal as a payment option has been an enormous pain for us but a non-consequently amount of our revenue comes from customers either without credit cards or with cards which always fail on international transactions. I see no alternative to PayPal for these customers.

[michaelt]

  If you don't use PayPal, how do you receive payment from 
  customers who don't have credit cards?

If a customer doesn't have a credit card or a debit card that your payment gateway accepts, you deal with them the same way you deal with customers who don't have computers.

[asg]

In the western world, people without credit or debit cards are such a small portion of the population that this policy of ignoring such users is worthwhile. In developing countries however, there are many services that aim to bridge this gap. I dont know how good they are, or how successful they will be, but people are certainly trying to access this market.

Examples (no affiliations): http://gharpay.in/ - Home cash pickup; https://www.itzcash.com/ - Prepaid Cash card; Mobile Money services in Africa such as M-Pesa - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

[cb_cthulhu]

Actually, as a student in Germany, most of people I know don't have or want a credit card (which is a major annoyance with Google Checkout, since they accept _only_ credit card payment). That's - depending on your product of course - not that small a market. I would argue that this is the case in other countries, too.

[unreal37]

My girlfriend's online business accepts bank transfers if customers can't pay online. "Go to this bank and deposit $X to account Y".

Maybe it doesn't scale too well, but at her business scale it still works for the exception cases and money is money. If you're biggest problem is too many people depositing money to your bank account, that's not a bad problem.

[petitmiam]

http://www.polipayments.com/ seems pretty good for this.

When you go to make a payment, it logs into your bank account and does the transfer for you. So you get an instant receipt, without having to wait for the money to show up in the merchants bank account.

[sitharus]

Apart from the obvious problem of letting third party software have full access to your bank account.

It's a breach of my bank's terms of service, so I would be responsible for fraud if I used it. No thanks.

[tylerrooney]

We have a staggering number of customer who pay us through PayPal because they don't have a credit card or a debit card which clears through Mastercard/Visa (which is the standard in most countries).

[mratzloff]

Cell phone. You see it a lot in Africa, where few people have credit cards but many have cheap cell phones.

[jonknee]

That works in the US, but it does not work internationally.

[kintamanimatt]

Moneybookers is a fairly decent alternative. I assume you're talking about mainland Europe where credit card penetration is less prevalent.

Moneybookers interface is terrible, and they will expose your customers to this horrible interface. Their customer service seems to be confused but I've never heard horror stories.

There are payment solutions geared towards European customers so that you can accept bank transfers, etc.

[philhippus]

*Moneybookers has been rebranded, now called Skrill.

[kintamanimatt]

So they have! I knew they were transitioning, but it appears they're just about done with the change.

Skrill is such an awful name IMHO!

[gadders]

"Skrilla" is slang for money: www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=skrilla

See also the lyrics for "Cash in My Pocket" by Wiley:

> All I really want is money in my pocket

> Cash in my hand, oh, skrilla in my wallet

> All I really want is money in my pocket

> Cash in my hand and skrilla in my wallet, yeah

http://www.metrolyrics.com/cash-in-my-pocket-lyrics-wiley.ht...

NB: This doesn't stop it still being an awful name, but it might explain why they chose it.

[kintamanimatt]

That's absolutely hilarious! They should have just stuck with their original brand, which wasn't all that terrible either!

[WiseWeasel]

Can't we agree that both names are equally horrible?

[adrinavarro]

There are debit cards out there!

In fact, everyone I know has at least one debit card (either MasterCard or VISA), aside from the number of people who have an AMEX/VISA (credit type).

And debit cards work everywhere. I've used my VISA Electron (debit) pretty much everywhere in the developed world, both online and travelling abroad.

[brazzy]

"everyone I know" is not a useful sample to approximate the customers of an online business with international customers.

Where payment options are concerned, VISA/Mastercard branded debit cards are the exact same thing as credit cards. And in many countries, the average citizen has neither. They may have a debit card that's part of some national payment network, they may be used to buying stuff online via their mobile phone account, or in cash at their corner convenience store, or via wire transfer from their bank account.

Paypal allows payment via a MANY such schemes you have never heard about. That is their USP, and something no startup can easily "disrupt".

[crag]

I use Paypal for one reason (as the consumer); it adds an extra layer of protection for me. I don't want to give my CC details to every site I buy from. And then have to check my CC statement everyday to make sure nothing was hacked along the way.

For a consumer, Paypal makes it very easy to manage payments, receipts, and any other issues.

By the way, never ever use a debt card online. You're handing over access to your bank account.

[Splines]

> By the way, never ever use a debt card online. You're handing over access to your bank account.

Are you sure about that?

Visa will refund you money if your card is lost or stolen: http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/debit/visa_check_cards_fa...

My personal bank also has similar verbiage for my debit card. They also mention that internet purchases are considered non-PIN purchases and are offered the same protection.

Yes, there is more risk since money can be taken directly out of your account instead of going against your credit, but there are mitigations in place.

[h1srf]

I repeat this almost every time this topic comes up:

With a credit card, you can say that the charge was fraudulent and they will take the charge(s) off and you're not on the hook. With a debit card, you're out the money of the fraudulent charge while the bank investigates. From my personal experience, this can take a few days to 3 weeks before the bank puts the money back in your account. If the charge happens to put your account into overdraft, you may still have to pay the overdraft fee which may be hard to get overturned.

I pretty much only use my debit card as an ATM card. Very rarely do I actually use it as a debit card (there are rare instances where I may need to)

Conclusion: Don't use your debit card online if you have a credit card.

[jdbernard]

Used to work in the industry manufacturing and programming these cards. You are exactly correct, the credit network provides more protection for the cardholder than using your debit card.

[niggler]

With the bank account, they may not reverse fees or other issues that arise as a result. For example, I had a fraudulent charge on a debit card. They reversed it, which is fine, but i was still hit with an overdraft because of a scheduled ACH payment which, at that time, dragged me into negative balance. So there are differences between debit and credit cards.

[k-mcgrady]

The only problem with debit cards is that MasterCard and Visa don't cover everyone. For example MasterCard also runs Maestro [1] in the UK which lots of online payment systems seem to neglect (I had to setup another bank account with another bank to get my hands on a Visa Debit card for this very reason).

[1] http://www.maestrocard.com/uk/

[raverbashing]

Yes, because there are no security issues in giving out a debt card number that is directly linked to your bank account.

[onli]

As you can always get the money back with a simple order, it is a very minor issue.

[jellicle]

Huh? Debit transactions are not easy to reverse, at all, and in the U.S. at least are covered by much less generous consumer protection laws than are credit card transactions.

[onli]

I was of course only talking about developed countries ;)

Really, afaik in europe and for sure in germany this is totally easy. It is not equally easy to reverse a transaction you started yourself. But when another person has you account-number and the public data belonging to this, all he can do is a "lastschrift" (direct debit), which is easily reverseable.

No need to downvote me. The USA is different than europe, and in this regards way behind.

[raverbashing]

A bank account number is different than a debit card number

About the direct debt, sure, I can undo this, via internet banking.

But a fraudulent debt card purchase takes time to process and you don't have you money in the account anymore.

With a credit card I can check for fraud and my money is not gone if this happens (and yes, it has happened to me)

[aristidb]

No, not everyone has a MasterCard / VISA debit card.

[darklajid]

Whatever that is, a debit card by MasterCard or VISA..

Me? Got my first credit card with 30, when I moved to Israel. That thing's invalid by now. Here in Germany I have a direct debit card (likely ~everyone~ has one, it's the one you use for the ATM as well), issued by my bank.

Now, I can use Paypal. In Germany (and probably more places) they offer to connect a regular bank account. So - Paypal can withdraw from my bank account, I can pay with Paypal where people otherwise insist on a type of payment that I don't like (Paypal's not the nicest thing ever by itself, but 'it works').

In my circle, credit cards are still mistrusted, ~rare~ (as in at least 2 out of 3 won't have one) and really just for collecting debt or buying stuff on your company's name. People around me are waiting for Google Play (oh I HATE that name) gift cards, because they'd really like to buy apps some time..

[archangel_one]

While Mastercard/Visa debit cards are common in many countries (they certainly are in the UK, for example), there are places they're unheard of. New Zealand bank cards, for example, are typically not those kinds of debit cards and can't be easily used over the internet. They are almost universally accepted in NZ though, rather more so than debit cards in the UK where it's not that uncommon to find pubs or cafes that have a minimum charge or, in rare cases, don't take them.

[Sauce1971]

I have a Visa debitcard, but it is only good for use in ATM and stores. To overcome this I get a bunch of Visa gift cards from my bank that I can put money into and use online.

[njharman]

> everyone I know

News flash buddy, population of Earth > potential customers > "everyone you know".

[DanBC]

Depends on the business. Some people might buy gift tokens (with cash, using a friend who does have a valid payment method). This is useful on, for example, Amazon.

In the UK we have "prepaid credit cards"[1] which could be useful for some people who are otherwise unable to get credit.

[1] confusing name, because they never give you credit, and I don't think they have the same protections as normal credit cards.

[darkarmani]

They send cash like my grandma does.