Payment solution

views:

answers:

+2 Q:

I have a restaurant reservations site, which helps customers book an event at a restaurant. When a customer makes a reservation, we take a refundable security deposit from the customer. After the event is held, we reimburse the amount. We get a booking fees from the restaurant, as a percentage of the total tab.

I am in the process of implementing a payment system, like Paypal or a merchant account. Paypal says that they will drop us if the number of refunds are above 5% they will drop us.

I am just trying to figure out the most logical way to get this implemented.

Thanks!

+1 A:

Personally I think this is going to be hard for you to find a merchant that will be willing to allow you to essentially refund all transactions.

I would start out talking to each of the big ones out there and see if they will allow you to do what you are looking for. I personally find that Authorize.NET is very easy to work with and I've been impressed with them.

Mitchel Sellers 2009-10-08 21:35:57

+2 A:

Why not physically charge the card when the patron actually does not turn up for the booking?

Dieter G 2009-10-08 21:38:23

That's a simple solution.Thanks!

sharadov 2009-10-08 21:47:27

Can we run verification on the card without actually billing the customer.Any thoughts?

sharadov 2009-10-08 22:21:26

I don't see why that would be a problem. Perhaps take a look at the following: http://www.experian.com/products/credit_card_verification.html - might not be exactly what you are after but should provide a starting point.

Dieter G 2009-10-09 01:37:38

just elaborating on the comment above - it also depends on what API your merchant supplies. The merchants I have used did have the ability to do an Auth check on a card before physically processing a payment.

Dieter G 2009-10-09 01:43:04

http://www.paymentexpress.com/knowledge_base/merchants/payments_explained.html - see Authorization part on this page as an example.

Dieter G 2009-10-09 01:48:48

Thanks for the extensive information. Do you think Paypal would have the capability to do the verification, without actually needing to charge the card.

sharadov 2009-10-09 18:24:42

Dieter G 2009-10-11 22:01:41

+2 A:

This is well beyond my area of experience, but perhaps you could do something similar to a hotel reservation...

Rather than actually charging an amount when the reservation is made, you could simply take the credentials required to make a charge, and do one of two things:

Schedule a future payment (perhaps the day after the reservation date), and then if the deposit is going to be refunded, simply cancel the scheduled payment.
If the first option is not possible, just wait until after the event date, and if the deposit is not to be "refunded", then schedule the necessary payment.

ph0enix 2009-10-08 21:45:27

I think you'll find a similar policy for most online payment systems, as they are built for payments rather than deposits.

As far as I can tell, Google Checkout will allow refunds, but will take a flat fee of $0.30 from each refund, meaning that you lose out every time you hold a deposit.

A quick search for online deposit service doesn't turn up much, No sites I've heard anything about anyway.

As Dieter G Says, I think your best option would be to hold the customer's card details, but don't take a payment unless they don't turn up.

Rowan 2009-10-08 21:49:06

ansaurus

tags:

views:

answers:

Payment solution

related questions