Paypal chip and pin machine

deniser

Free Member
Jun 3, 2008
8,081
1,697
London
Is anyone using the new Paypal chip and pin reader and if so, what are the pros and cons?

I've been using the izettle for occasional mobile use but the downsides are that it doesn't take visa easily and you can't process refunds.

Just wondering what the Paypal ones does. Can't find much info about it anywhere.
 

monaghan

Free Member
Nov 5, 2013
100
23
Stevenage
I looked at the PayPal one, but it seems a bit tacky as the others have a screen which seems more like the traditional chip & pin machine the customer would be used to in a supermarket or other retail outlet.

I have a Payleven device sitting on my desk waiting for integration with my systems. (feel free to PM for an introduction code to get a reduced priced device!)

I went for the Payleven as you can integrate your apps with the payleven app on your phone.
 
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cazza

Free Member
Mar 23, 2013
27
8
Hi
We have been using one for approx 3 weeks and all is going well, not had to process a refund yet but you can either do it through your paypal account or on the card reader if the customer wants the refund to go back onto the card the money was taken from.

One thing to be wary of is that if you take a payment with customer/card not present then the money is held in your paypal account for about a month and you cannot access it until it clears. We did not see that in the original advertisements of it, having said that we do not take phone orders and only now use it when the card is being used.

Also you get no seller protection from Paypal either when using the card reader.

There is plenty of info on Paypals website about the cardreader. We have never taken card payments in our shop until now and must admit it has been really easy to use.
Hope this helps
 
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cazza

Free Member
Mar 23, 2013
27
8
To be honest with never having a card machine before we have no experience with where liability lies, i will defo check into this tho. My husband runs the shop and i've been "moaning" for years we need a card machine, paypal was his answer. We have are registered with FSB and were tempted with using there suggested cardreader, but with using paypal for our online webshop, my hubby preffered to keep it altogether for now. You've given me some homework for tonight tho :)
 
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L

LMDServicesUK

As PayPal are not a member of the Card Schemes it is highly likely that the Fraud Liability is not reverting back to the Card issuing organisation.

The guidance is if you are accepting payments using a card reader that uses the customers PIN number you should see the liability revert away from you to the card issuer.

When you consider the other issues with PayPal re their Customer services and habit of freezing funds/accounts with out warning or explanation, I would recommend you avoid this service. It is also far more expensive than some of the others out there..

Check out WorldPay Zinc, cheaper and better card reader, no issues re where the liability goes, you can take telephone payments with no retention issues and best of all WorldPay are a direct member of the card schemes..

Hope this helps

Mark
 
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cazza

Free Member
Mar 23, 2013
27
8
I think you are right Mark as i've spent ages looking at all Paypals terms and conditions and it looks like we would not be covered, not good to here really. We will be looking for an alternative that will offer us some protection, as it is our first time taking card payments there is that much choice out there that i think my husband presumed Paypal would offer protection!
 
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If you get the worldpay zinc machine, which I love by the way, you can get a reduced price if you use my name as a reference. You pay £30 instead of £ 59 I think. I get a £15 Amazon voucher too.
If you do go that way put Belinda's Jewellery Box into the referred by box.

We would lose many sales if we didn't have a chip and pin device; no negativity from either, which I was concerned about initially.
 
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Last time I looked, it wasn't set up to take them unless the customer downloaded something or other onto their phone first - far too complicated.

The way I read it on their site is you only have to do that with chip and signature payments. I *think* the chip and pin is different. But I am going to get in touch just to confirm. Because I really like the izettle one.
 
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L

LMDServicesUK

Last time I looked, it wasn't set up to take them unless the customer downloaded something or other onto their phone first - far too complicated.

The WPZ solution does not have any of the issues that iZettle had and still has, and it uses a conventional card reader ( which attaches to YOUR smart phone via Bluetooth).

The customer does not need to download anything..

Go onto the WPZ website and check it out a excellent and very elegant solution, of which I wish I could sell !

Rgds

Mark
 
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deniser

Free Member
Jun 3, 2008
8,081
1,697
London
The way I read it on their site is you only have to do that with chip and signature payments. I *think* the chip and pin is different. But I am going to get in touch just to confirm. Because I really like the izettle one.

We got it a while ago; there wasn't the chip and pin option then, only the signature one. I didn't even know they had a chip and pin.
 
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deniser

Free Member
Jun 3, 2008
8,081
1,697
London
If you get the worldpay zinc machine, which I love by the way, you can get a reduced price if you use my name as a reference. You pay £30 instead of £ 59 I think. I get a £15 Amazon voucher too.
If you do go that way put Belinda's Jewellery Box into the referred by box.

We would lose many sales if we didn't have a chip and pin device; no negativity from either, which I was concerned about initially.

Thanks Belinda, reading up on it now and will put your details in if we go this way.
 
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Dogsbody

Free Member
Jan 17, 2010
161
42
Can anyone advise - With regard to the WorldPay Zinc mentioned earlier, would I still need a merchant account with this, or is their account literally all that is needed?

It strikes me that the merchant account is the expensive bit of the equation. Although we are not quite yet requiring a machine, I hope it won't be too long.

Many thanks for any advice.
 
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M

Merchant UK

Can anyone advise - With regard to the WorldPay Zinc mentioned earlier, would I still need a merchant account with this, or is their account literally all that is needed?

It strikes me that the merchant account is the expensive bit of the equation. Although we are not quite yet requiring a machine, I hope it won't be too long.

Many thanks for any advice.

Its all inclusive, a merchant account account is set up automatically for you you don't even need to pay a monthly fee for this all you pay for is a percentage of your sales, nothing more :D
 
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cazza

Free Member
Mar 23, 2013
27
8
My husband looked at the Izettle and was put off by the visa complication, that's why he opted for the Paypal, think i will show him this thread and the recommendations as we are quite worried as some of our products are quite expensive and not to be covered is really daunting.
 
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M

Merchant UK

My husband looked at the Izettle and was put off by the visa complication, that's why he opted for the Paypal, think i will show him this thread and the recommendations as we are quite worried as some of our products are quite expensive and not to be covered is really daunting.

The worldpay Zinc system is far superior and cheaper than Paypals version plus you get far more protection for your money than you would do with a paypal version, remember paypal can and will freeze your account or refund customers without your authority.

With Worlpay Zinc its more professionally run and has strict guidelines to what or How it handles your transactions, you get the full payment in your account within 3 days and once a month you get the charges taken out via direct debit.
 
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I have just used the WPzinc system for the first time at a 3 day event and despite a few teething problems and the odd slow connection (due to there being 15k people and 500 merchants in a small space!) it works superbly. Also almost every customer commented on how neat the system was and how much they liked using it.
 
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From our advice stay way clear of this device, as this can drastically affect business cash flow.

We have been using PayPal for our online transactions for over a year, and have been happy with them, until we order and activated the PayPal Here device on our account. Activating this device on our account to offer our customers more ways to pay while in store, was the worst recommendation I made to my boss, as this device simple put our cash flow back in to the dark ages! It was quicker to process cheques than it was with a debit/credit card, unfortunately our account automatically activated a Rolling Reserve on account which in turn held 100% of any transaction, for a minimum of 14 days before make them available to be withdrawn.

However this Rolling Reserve in our case was taken 2 days after any transaction to then reserve any transaction taken (should this not be instant?). This had a major effect in the way we traded, as all our orders are processed by our suppliers, as each order is tailored to our customers own dimensions. Which in turn could not be done until funds where fully cleared, as in to today’s economy we prefer to pay for goods on delivery or in advance, rather than to rely on credit.

Here is an example:

Receive order for £200.00 on 1st of the month, PayPal show funds available and cleared, and available to be withdrawn, 3rd of the month £200.00 is then moved to the Rolling Reserve funds no longer available, which now shows us in negative balance in PayPal (if we have withdrawn funds between 1st-3rd), until the Rolling Reserve clears in 14 days time (from when it enters the Rolling Reserve), so funds do not actually clear 17th of the month.

Something so straight forward, and easy, has now become, extremely time consuming and frustrating due to the delay in accessing funds, normal PDQ processing is usually complete and cleared in to your account within 24-72hrs, not 14 days +.

This clearly defeats the 14 days cooling off period that has been put in place by the EU, as we are no longer able to despatch our goods within 14days.

STAY AWAY from the PayPal Here device, unless happy to bank roll your business during the Rolling Reserve period (0-90 days).

We had no warning that restrictions where being applied to our account, which PayPal support insist should be done via email, also we have been told by some support at PayPal that this should only affect transactions by PayPal Here, and by others support staff that it will affect every transactions on the web and via card reader.

We have very little or no response from PayPal Support Emails, although they state they try to responded to emails within 24hrs I’m still waiting for response from emails I sent on the 25th Nov, and 29th Nov.

Be warned that this ROLLING RESERVE will affect any business cash flow, as there are some people that are effect for up to 0-90 days.

PayPal Here is a great idea; however in reality it’s been poorly implemented. If you have this product I strongly recommend returning to PayPal for a return kit, and ask them for a full refund, as this product is not fit for purpose.

You are probably better of trading in livestock, as it’s quicker than using the PayPal Here device.

We are now looking for other devices to perform the same role, such as the iZettle for in store transactions as funds are cleared within 72hrs.
 
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cazza

Free Member
Mar 23, 2013
27
8
Are you using the chip and pin machine as this is not happening with our account, the only time paypal has put the money in reserve is when we did not have the machine and the customer did not use his pin number. We have not had any transactions held in reserve since for for customer present transactions.
 
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Yes we where using the machine, with the card and card holder present, and all transactions where hit with rolling reserve, upto 3days after a transaction taken.

This not only affect our PayPal Here Device, but also our Online Transaction through our shopping cart, using a PayPal gateway. Any transaction on our account from anywhere was automatically taken as rolling reserve.

PayPal Support and Support Manager confind this.

Account has now returned to normal, after having the PayPal Here Device removed from our account, this device is not usable in my opinon, STAY WELL Clear, as there are better options out there.

As we sell carpets and delivery carpets, which can run hundereds or evan thousands of pounds, and to have transactions held on this rolling reserve, caused major issues with our cash flow, as we paid our suppliers up front for deliveries (or cash on delivery), however with money being held, we where unable to process these orders until payments where fully cleared.

We have been a satisfied PayPal user for years, no complaints, no charge backs, and install and activating this device has wrecked my opinon of paypal.

Great Idea, just poorly implented. We are now returning this device for a complete refund.
 
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S-Park, the reason you have a 14 day reserve (although this is particularly long - and 100% of the transaction is just crazy) is because your transaction are being treated as distance-selling-card-not-present transactions, which do legally require a cooling off period. It sounds like this is completely the wrong set up for you.

Having said that, I am amazed that Paypal are still in business, they are so actively hostile to merchants. The horror stories of frozen accounts and returned funds, even when goods/services have been delivered are enough to put most people off, but add to that the sky high pricing and I just don't get why anyone uses them.

We use Netbanx (formerly Optimal Payments), pay 1.99% plus 20p transaction fee, which I think isn't too bad. 15% of the transaction value does go into a reserve account, which is held for six months, which was difficult to deal with when we first opened for business, but now makes no real difference (it would if we were highly seasonal I suppose), as every month we get roughly the same 15% coming back out of the reserve account. Payments are made into our bank account weekly.

Most importantly, Netbanx won't freeze our account or hand cash back to a customer without consulting us first.
 
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M

Merchant UK

If you go with the Worldpay Zinc the keypad is cheaper plus you get your funds in your account within 3 or 4 days in full. They then take their percentage via DD at the end of the month, no rolling reserves or with holding funds
 
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C

Colin Barrett

I need to take card payments from customer in my workplace and also on the move. I looked at a range of these devices/services as they became available and as I already use Intuit QuickBooks Online (QBO) I decided that Intuit Pay would be a good means of integration. A key consideration for us was that it enabled us to take "Cardholder Not Present" payments over the phone using a web interface. Initially, I thought that the CNP would be the lesser-used payment method, but it's turned out to be the most popular in the four months that we've been signed up. We use the device with iPhones and iPads and it works well, after a simple installation of the app on those devices.I should also add that Intuit is very quick to credit our business bank account with monies owed to us - the average is 5 days, but it has occurred in as little as 3 days. It also pushes transactions direct to our QBO account, which is very useful for reconciliation, etc.
All in all, I'm quite happy with it. The downside to taking mobile payments is that the UK's 3G data coverage is abysmal in rural areas, to that creates problems that the card processors don't want you to know.
 
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This thread caught my eye, as its linked to card processors. There are some interesting answers here as well. I agree with the poster who said about paypal and their restrictions on accounts.

From a personal point of view, with my property consultants head on and having reviewed the market place, my preference would be to use Worldpay/Streamline.

They have 45%+ market share, and excellent customer service as well, plus good processing times, both for applications and settlement times. The other good thing is that they win awards as well, which to me is an indication of how good a company is.
 
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Jun 12, 2013
170
11
If you go with the Worldpay Zinc the keypad is cheaper plus you get your funds in your account within 3 or 4 days in full. They then take their percentage via DD at the end of the month, no rolling reserves or with holding funds

Hi Merchant, can you please elaborate on the process for Visa payments? Is it as straight forward as the Mastercard option?
They do say they accept it, but they don't allay any fears that it might be the awkward roundabout method which is not appropriate for me.
thanks

Just so everyone knows, from my research, all companies charge 2.75% except iZettle who reduce their percentage after £2000 in a month. May make a difference for some people - not for me as I won't be doing that much business by plastic.
 
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We got it a while ago; there wasn't the chip and pin option then, only the signature one. I didn't even know they had a chip and pin.
The chip and pin is very different, we've been using it for about 3 weeks. A very tidy little package takes all cards, also has an onscreen signing option for some non uk cards, can carry a stock inventory with images with lots of back up data including your cash sales too. It doesn't issue receipts without an additional costly printer but you can send an email receipt. Initial cost was £99 but we are avoiding the monthly fee for a normal credit card machine. We run it through an ipad or a nexus 7.
 
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Not a fan of Paypal for many reasons. The device is £99.99 - £40 more expensive than a lot of their competitors.

I'm in the market for a device like this. The first reliable one to take Visa (with no problems) will get my business.
The izettle does this with the chip and pin reader not the older card reader
 
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L

LMDServicesUK

Hi Gallows

Just for the benefit of other members are you now saying that iZettle has been approved for use by Visa, as this was always the problem with them as they could not process Visa cards directly, rather there was a painful process the customer had to go through, if this has been resolved then this is great news and probably worth publishing. Otherwise based on my own and other members experience the WPZ solution is the best one by far out there due to its ease of use, in built VTG (allows you to process MOTO payments as well).

Is also far more reasonable at about £ 55 retail than the PayPal offering..

I wish I could offer it !!
 
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Just a note regarding the Streamline/Worldpay recommendation noted above. They do have a substantial amount of the business sector primarily due to being run alongside RBS who offer this merchant service upon the creation of any new business account with them. Also since Worldpay bought over Streamline, they have added a section which allows them to change the initial quoted rates at anytime during the agreement so that Worldpay is able to recoup some of the money they forked out to save Streamline.
 
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L

LMDServicesUK

Yet another great reason to speak to us as we CAP our rates for the duration of the agreement that the Merchant enters into with us.. However the original post was referring to their WPZ solution which is charged on a fixed rate currently with no on going fees..
 
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