Re: Merchant account (VISA) software

Jim Roland (jim@roland.net)
Thu, 10 Sep 1998 14:33:42 -0500 (CDT)


Part of the reason this is so expensive is that VISA/MC/etc want extremely
tough $ requirements passed in order to allow transfers to and from their
systems. Most of the software and hardware that does this is made by
those with deep pockets (the amounts processed with minor fees per trans
add up to big revenues and ROI) and in some cases take 5-10 years to
certify.

I tried mentioning what you said about writing my own software to a couple
of merchant account places (computer and non-computer), and they all came
back with the same answer. It is easier and faster to get things done by
obtaining software.

-------------------------------------------------------
Jim Roland, President
Roland Internet Services, "The host with the most"
Offering premier web, email and CGI custom programming.
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http://www.roland.net/ info@roland.net
-------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 10 Sep 1998, Dave Cinege wrote:

> Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 10:34:25 +0000
> From: Dave Cinege <dcinege@psychosis.com>
> To: Jim Roland <jim@roland.net>
> Cc: linux-net <linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: Merchant account (VISA) software
>
> Jim Roland wrote:
>
> > I was looking at ecommerce sites (you run a small script on your side
> > that
> > contact's their server, and they do the auth on the card, and return the
> > result to you) where you keep the webpages and the interface, but run
> > their scripts to get the card auth.
>
> It's hard to find a place that doesn't nail you to a cross for this.
> This webcash place wants $500 just for setup, and $0.50 a transaction.
> ($25 monthly minimum) RAPE!
>
> I did find some straight unix software called CCVS for getting authentication
> through a modem. For the Linux version they wanted $1K.
> I told them they are crazy.
>
> All these transaction terminals are just little modems that feed the info
> and wait for replies. I'm guessing this is just send-expect ASCII strings.
> I'm going to look into this and see about writing my own.
>
> > I seem to remember that they (at least one) had linux software.
> > http://www.webcash.com and the other I can't find now. Search on
> > infoseek, and search for ecommerce and/or merchant processing.
>
> I spent 2 hours doing this yesterday, with poor results. It's hard to find
> MS Windouche software for less then $300. Sorry, I'm just to cheap to pay that
> for what I consider a glorified terminal program. : P
>
> --
> http://www.psychosis.com/emc/ Elite MicroComputers 732-541-4214
> http://www.linuxrouter.org/ Linux Router Project
>
> I am a regex s/retard/student/. Pray. There is hope.
>

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