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Pre Approving A Payment

Hi, i currently have PayPal set up on my site for PreApproved payments.

I have an interesting stat built into my site that works out "the % of users who complete the sign up form and service form, select their membership payment amount and then click pay > which brings them to PayPal BUT THE USER DOES NOT PROCEED WITH PAYMENT" because i only offer PayPal. Unfortunately this % is too high for my liking and i am losing a lot of potential customers.

I have found out from a recent survey too that a lot of my users don't have or don't like using PayPal.

I need to use PreApproved payments (for reason i won't go into now) so is there any other service out there that will allow me to preappove a payment directly from a credit card.
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Andrew Angell
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If you sign up for PayPal Payments Pro that will allow you to process credit cards directly so buyers don't have any idea PayPal was involved.  You'd just add a form on your own site that they fill in directory to process the card.  When you do this you'll need to make sure you've got an SSL certificate on the site (https://) and that you're not storing any card data at all in your database or log files.

Once you have Pro enabled, you can run an Authorization or Sale for a credit card, and then in the future you can pass the transaction ID you get back from that along with a new amount into the DoReferenceTransaction API.  This will pull the billing info that PayPal has stored in their system and charge the new amount accordingly.

So you basically get the same thing (sort of) that preapproval profiles give you, but you do it with direct credit cards instead of redirecting through PayPal checkout pages.
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Scott Fell
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Let me know if you do decide to go with Pro.  It generally costs $30/mo but I can get that waived for you.  Also, depending on the volume you anticipate doing I may be able to get you setup at the 2.2% rate from day one.
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oo7ml

ASKER

Thanks guys... BUT I've another huge problem :-) PayPal Pro is not available in Ireland...

@Angeleye - do you have any way or contacts in PayPal that can sort that :-)

I will have processed over 100 transactions this month (and lost many others) with a total of €6,000

I know it's very small money to them but surely they should be interested in helping me rather than loosing me as a customer.
Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to get Pro for you in Ireland.  It's simply not available.  

If you find a standard merchant account in Ireland, though, they will most likely offer the same Reference Transactions feature.  They all do in my experience.  It's a common thing for merchant account providers to include.  

Then you could still leave PayPal with Preapproval for people who prefer to pay with PayPal and give the credit card option for the others.
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ASKER

Ok, it's available in the UK so I was thinking of changing the company address to an office over there... my server and majority of business is in the UK too

Would you see any problems with that approach
That should be fine.  As long as the PayPal account is based in the UK you can get Pro and use that account.  Unfortunately, I can't hook you up with the $0/mo and 2.2% rate for UK accounts, though.  :(
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ASKER

Ok no problem, thanks for the help... last question... what constitutes as a PayPal account based in the UK?
An account created with UK addresses and bank accounts, credit cards, etc.
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ASKER

Ok, that is not a problem, thanks, however does PayPal Pro work with Adaptive Payments to support PreApproved Payments? OR like you said in your first post Angelleye - you can authorise payments... how long can you authorise the payment for... i need to be able to authorise it for 90 days as most of our events are 3 months.
Payments Pro and Adaptive Payments are separate platforms on the PayPal system.  Pro can't be used with Preapprovals, but again, you can use reference transactions.

As long as the card isn't expired the reference transactions will work indefinitely.
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ASKER

Thanks, however i just read that you cannot use PayPal Pro for crowdfunding... so it looks like i am snookered... i don't seem to have any other payment provider that can use to pre approve or authorize a payment
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@Netminder, can you let me know specifically what about that was considered soliciting?  I was just providing details about how to resolve the situation the OP is in.
I disagree with that overall, but I respect your decision.  I'll keep it in mind with future answers.