TOPIC: PayPal rip off

That's how our system works as well. Check out www.daytonthermalinspection.com/payment.html . It integrated much better than paypal, and you can send an email that will auto fill out the price.

But right now inspectors have the option to collect the credit card information on site and enter it into their cell phones and process on site, or make a carbon swipe of it and process it when they get home, which some guys do. They have the same option with paypal as well. The problem is several large companies in the past year have had computers that were hacked and stole hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers. Now Visa & Master Card want to protect consumers by making sure all merchants are PCI Compliant. This entails having your computer scanned and you going through a process where you verify your methods of collecting info if you do so.

Currently I'm trying to work out a deal with our bank so that people have the option of only allowing users to collect info on their websites so that only I have to pay that charge (as it's actually our site embedded within our inspectors sites).

Looks like we inspectors using PayPal are good to go....

www.paypal.com/pcicompliance

Not quite. Look at the bottom of the page:

PayPal helps
PayPal has partnered with ScanAlert, a Visa and MasterCard-certified PCI vendor, to help our customers comply at no cost for the first year. Enroll online with ScanAlert at: www.scanalert.com/SignUp.sa?oc=9673 .

If you follow the ScanAlert link you'll end up at McAfee's site and find out after the first year it'll cost you over $300 a year. Like I said this is a BIG problem right now with all the banks, including Paypal. They're all fighting it, but we'll see what happens. Many have already accepted it and started the compliance stages.

Am I reading this wrong?  I don't process the clients card information.  My computer has nothing to do with the clients account, card, processing, etc...

"PayPal adheres to international PCI (payment card industry) compliance standards for data security.† With Website Payments Standard, Email Payments, and Payflow Link*, PayPal handles the payment card information for you. So you don’t have to worry about your buyers’ payment card security or about compliance with PCI DSS for your business.††"

Yes, as long as you NEVER accept credit card payments on your website, over the phone, write down a card number, etc, you're okay for now (even this is in debate). But right now our guys have the option of processing it through their site, or collecting the number on the phone or on site. I've gotten our bank to do the compliance for $10 a month (better than the $30 a month paypal wants) but I'm trying to get it to none by putting the burden entirely on our system. If an inspector wants to collect a credit card number in any way (phone or in person) though they have to fufill the compliance requirements.

Paypal offers mobile payments as well and I still don't collect the credit card information.  I just send them a payment request to their cell phone, they type in their preset pin number and bingo, I've got my money....

No need for a virtual or physical terminal with Paypal.  I did a job over the weekend where the client wanted to pay by credit card.  I gave them (3) options.  Pay by Paypal mobile, pay me later that night by Paypal email invoice or I'll get my laptop from my car and you can go online and Paypal me while we're standing here.  They opted for option #3.  I fired up the lap top, directed them to:

www.progressiveinspection.com/?D=44

Bingo! We're done, and I still didn't collect, gather or see the clients credit card information.