OT: Anyone know of a simple credit card billing option?

[R P Herrold]

On Sat, 31 Oct 2009, JD Austin wrote:

> I eventually went with Authorize.net with a real merchant account since it
> was too big of a risk selling some things on Paypal (they always side with
> the buyer).

hunh.  This has not been my experience, having qualified a 
merchant account for a couple of businesses under Pay Pal's 
clearing bank.  Actually, as I think about it, that merchant 
account have had not had a single disputed chargeback upheld 
in the last five years.

This does not mean that a 'hold' on funds is not placed during 
a dispute's resolution, but that is standard anywhere in the 
ISO (independent servicing organizations) part of the credit 
card industry [I worked as a consultant to a major national 
firm for many years in this space, on IT, PCI/CISP, and risk 
department automation matters].

An adequately capitalized and 'real' and non-adult content 
business addresses that 'risk' by having a 'throwaway' bank 
account (and at a financial instution not holding the business 
'normal' accounts to avoid a possible 'right of offset') 
behind the remittance account, and sucking funds out to taste. 
[Note that part of obtaining a merchant account usually 
includes signing a contract providing for guarantee by a 'deep 
pocket' behind an account, and an arbitration clause -- part 
of the cost of being a real business]

- Russ herrold