Payment Links / Pay By Link

[Dorset]

Hi all - relatively new to this forum, although have been looking-in for a while. Does anyone have any experience with taking remote payments?

We're a medium-sized business in Dorset. We've just changed our card processing company. They're quite insistent that we use something called 'Pay By Link' when collecting payments from our customers. We take a lot of business over the phone. Historically, we've taken all payments on our PDQ, matching the usual data (house number, postcode etc.). Recently, we acquired some new PDQs. Our sales rep suggested that it's not something businesses do any more to take payment over the phone. He suggested we send email/sms links to customers, where they can pay over the phone.

Our business relies on getting the money at the time of the booking/transaction. So having to send links to customers who can sometimes barely read their card number, let alone comprehend email / sms links to make a payment is going to cause issues.

Anyway - here's the question....

Does anyone else have experience (good or bad) with payment links?

Guidance / feedback from others would be much appreciated.

Many thanks.

 

[Ozzy]

The rep, I'm afraid, is pretty much telling the truth.
You're no longer allowed to record card payment details in such a way; this is why many firms now use services where the merchant can direct the caller to a service to type in their card details, or payment links are sent out.

That said, Payment links work fine and are useful - but I agree with your concerns that they do give time for pause and 'buyer regret'. So maybe look at solutions that enable you to put the person through to a telephone payment service perhaps?

 

[Dorset]

The rep, I'm afraid, is pretty much telling the truth.
You're no longer allowed to record card payment details in such a way; this is why many firms now use services where the merchant can direct the caller to a service to type in their card details, or payment links are sent out.

That said, Payment links work fine and are useful - but I agree with your concerns that they do give time for pause and 'buyer regret'. So maybe look at solutions that enable you to put the person through to a telephone payment service perhaps?

Thanks Ozzy,

Perhaps I didn't paint a clear picture.

We take payments over the phone, by entering card details directly onto the PDQ itself. This is allowed as we've been given this as an option to work with. But appreciate is not 100% secure, on the basis that it doesn't check the identity of the person using the card. We also understand it's not a legal requirement to use a payment link. We don't store the card details if that's what you thought I meant. But we are allowed to take payments over the phone.

I think really, we wanted to know if anyone had issues with having to use payment links.

 

[Cabin Fever]

Thanks Ozzy,

Perhaps I didn't paint a clear picture.

We take payments over the phone, by entering card details directly onto the PDQ itself. This is allowed as we've been given this as an option to work with. But appreciate is not 100% secure, on the basis that it doesn't check the identity of the person using the card. We also understand it's not a legal requirement to use a payment link. We don't store the card details if that's what you thought I meant. But we are allowed to take payments over the phone.

I think really, we wanted to know if anyone had issues with having to use payment links.

For some time we used Barclaycard Merchant Services for telephone orders, entering them directly into ePDQ. As you know, it can be a stressful process for both sides - definately not ideal! In the end, we moved away from ePDQ and now use a different merchant provider.

We now use payment links for all of our customers and it's worked out very well. Our sales take place on our website, and we ask our customers to email a request for a payment link, once they have reached the checkout page.

It takes a minute or so to set up the payment link which then has to be emailed. But I've had no negative responses from customers, nor lost sales.

This is a temporary solution for us, as our website payment system will soon be fully implemented and customers will then click directly to the secure merchant payment page where they will be able to enter their details.

 

[David Griffiths]

We've recently switched to using payment links, and they work well, and seem popular with the people paying. It saves a load of time at our end typing the information in to the PDQ terminal, bearing in mind that we don't usually take a steady stream of such payments and usually have to log in to the processer's system each time. The people paying like that they don't have to give out the card details.

We can create ready to use payment links for common items, so just copy and paste those without needing to set them up first. "Odd" amounts and multiples take a little longer but not much.

Main issue is for people who don't have an email account. Most know someone who does, but even if they don't we have a work round. It's probable that if they don't have email they don't have online banking, but a direct bank transfer is a possibility. Otherwise, because of the nature of our business, they can present the card when they collect their purchase..

It works well for us so far.

 

[Dorset]

Thanks all, much appreciated.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

How do customers know how much they have to pay, before calling you?

I have been using payment links for years, however, mine are built into my accounts system which then processes the payment through the merchant account (the merchant account depends on the accounts system).

 

[Dorset]

Hi Paul, we're a hotel, so people call in advance to make a booking. Then they are told how much is due, and we'd 'key in' the card details using our PDQ. But we've recently been offered an opportunity to use Pay By Link instead, or both. Our problem is that some guests either don't pay when asked, or they find something cheaper in the time they're asked to pay, and decide they no longer want the booking any more, thus losing us the business.

I guess our industry differs greatly when it comes to taking non-refundable payments at the time of enquiry. But the principle of taking money directly and securely remains the same.

 

[Karimbo]

I use it with stripe and in the past have used it with cardsave, which was acquire by streamline and then was acquired by worldpay.

I am a one person business so I would much prefer to do paybylink and I do not want to drop everythingto take a card information over the telephone which inevitably goes wrong.

I dont need to hold any deposits, rebill customers for additional things they may buy afterwards so YMMV