Google Checkout charges fees to the merchants like PayPal; the clients are not charged fees. Google Checkout will automatically deposit funds to your bank account - usually takes 3 days - sometimes it's quicker sometimes it's slower. Depends on what day of the week you have received the funds.

I have used Pay Pal for my beauty consultant business in the past and had no problems with it, however I had small transaction and not that many of them. So I have no experience. But reading the post it makes me concerned just a bit. I know everyone does not have the same experience, but with that said I will look into my bank to see if they offer this service as you stated.

Originally Posted by virtualguy

I've used PayPal before and I have a couple of clients that insist on using it but overall I don't like it. It doesn't take much to get caught up with them. They side with the customer almost all the time even when the customer is at fault or dead wrong. The vendor always gets punished with very little proof if any that they did anything wrong. I've been there before and it wasn't pretty either. Now I use a feature offered by my bank to send invoices to people and they can pay them. I pay $10 a month for the service but I don't have any transaction fees or headaches either.

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Jessica Nix
www.virtuallylinkedva.com

Originally Posted by jnix612

I have used Pay Pal for my beauty consultant business in the past and had no problems with it, however I had small transaction and not that many of them. So I have no experience. But reading the post it makes me concerned just a bit. I know everyone does not have the same experience, but with that said I will look into my bank to see if they offer this service as you stated.

It's definitely worth looking at if they have it available. To me PayPal would be better if they were not so arbitrary in dealing with businesses when customers have a beef about something IMO. Here is a piece of the email they sent me when I had an issue with a customer who decided that he wanted to dispute the bill even though he signed an acknowledgment noting there was an increased fee:

"Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologize for the delay in responding to your service request. After review, the decision has been made to keep your account locked. This decision cannot be appealed.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email."

What do you mean can't be appealed?? My money is sitting in your holding pen and I've provided you with everything that you asked me for proving that the client was pulling your chain yet you wont release my funds to me? It was a shame that it took the act of my high priced suits and a judge to force them to release my money.

There are some really good payment systems that have been mentioned that may suit your needs as well. PayPal has been good to many but unfortunately not to me. That one experience put a nasty taste in my mouth and I took the business of my business elsewhere.

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Melvin D. Gooden
The Essence of Time Business Services

Melvin,

Thanks for sharing your experiences with Paypal.

You have me thinking about checking out the financial institution's rules for arbitration before signing up. If my bank had an invoice to payment service, how would they have handled a similar situation?

I wonder how google checkout would have handled this as well?

I ask because everything seems to go smoothly until there is a problem. Imagine locking your entire account for one client payment? My blood boils just thinking of that

I use Paypal right now and pay the charges. As I am taking on more work, the charges are 'getting to me'. I was thinking of google checkout but don't know the arbitration rules. I'm not sure about my banking options, but again, not sure who will side with whom if a client questions my invoices and complains.

You've got my brain cells in overdrive...I don't want to wait until 'something happens' to find out how an institution will handle a problem.

Jan

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One thing that I found with my bank is that they don't play the games that PayPal does. My sister clued me in on this. When someone decided to pull a fast one and reverse the charge, the bank was all over that. They took all of her supporting documentation and presented it to that persons financial institution/credit card company and their credit card company told them "You agreed to it, so you owe it." And the entire process took less than 5 business days to go from start to finish. In her case it seemed like the bank valued their customer and went the extra mile to ensure that right was right and they took care of her.

She had a dedicated fraud prevention specialist that worked with her every step of the way until it was resolved. It sold me on using their services and I haven't been disappointed yet.

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Melvin D. Gooden
The Essence of Time Business Services

Melvin, What kind of service is this called through a bank? I'm with a big, national bank (one that hasn't tanked, yet!) so I plan to ask them. I assume you'd need a business account for such a service.

In the meantime, I'll do the google checkout research on arbitration.

It seems that handling payments oneself, via deposits upfront and/or wire transfers appears to be the only way to have any real financial control.

Thanks,
Jan

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This is all so very helpful. Jan you are right we better ask questions because I can't imagine the experience Melvin had with PayPal. I'd rather be proactive and reactive. I'm less stress when I work in this way.

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Jessica Nix
www.virtuallylinkedva.com

I have had an account with PayPal for years, since the beginning, I recently had my account locked. I used to be a PayPal supporter; but not after this. I have had some chargebacks and disputes and usually always resolved in my favor.

But this time, they locked my account without cause. The only thing I can see is that I received a rather large payment from a client and immediately transferred my money to my bank account - 2 days later my account was locked!

I have received large payments in the past - over $2000 - and never had my account locked -

Good thing I only had $40 in there when the locked it!

So for now I have 1 client set up with wiretransfer; and everyone else can mail me a check or pay me through SWREG (digital river) or AlertPay - until I set up a merchant account.

Nancy

Oh Nancy that's terrible. Yea you can't run your business like this. You depend on your money to run the business and if they are locking the accounts for whatever reason is not good.

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Jessica Nix
www.virtuallylinkedva.com

Has anyone heard of CalliPay? I've been talking with them and am very impressed with their services. Their fees seem to be in-line with PayPal, but they are much more professional. They even do a Payment Page at no charge that is seamless to your website. Plus, the person I spoke with said they are working with IVAA to become a Premier Partner and will be offering VAs discounts. I haven't signed with them yet, there is a lot of paperwork involved. Just curious if anyone has heard of them or is using them.

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Deborah Reynolds
DediKated Resource