How to prevent a PayPal horror story

August 26, 2009 5:23 PM

What's the best alternative to PayPal?

There are too many options! Which one is right for my local bicycle collective?

We're starting a website, and we'd like to be able to get the occasional donation through this website. When we get Internet at the collective, it would also be nice to accept donations through our website then and there (that is to say, we might start using it a bit more).

I'm also wary of using Google Checkout. Are there any other cheap/good alternatives? How much do they cost?

posted by aniola to work & money (13 comments total)

Google Checkout fees are the same as Paypal.
posted by smackfu at 5:25 PM on August 26

Amazon has a system that might be for you.
posted by wackybrit at 5:30 PM on August 26

Do you have a credit card machine at the shop?
posted by box at 5:34 PM on August 26

We don't have a credit card machine at the shop, but we do have a computer.
posted by aniola at 5:54 PM on August 26

Would something like Fundable work for you?
posted by jacquilinala at 7:05 PM on August 26

wackybrit's suggestion for Amazon Payments is an excellent one. Lots of people have Amazon accounts (and the associated credit card) and that makes it extremely easy to donate.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 7:10 PM on August 26

Do you have a way of accepting CC payments at the shop, or do you plan to get one? Because, if so, it might be easiest to just have website donors enter their information into a form, then have somebody at the shop enter the info manually. If you had hundreds of donations, this wouldn't be much of a plan, but if donations are rare and sporadic, it would probably work fine.
posted by box at 7:10 PM on August 26

Fundable looks pretty awesome, but we're looking for something where folks can donate whatever they like at their convenience.

It is my understanding that we are planning to use our Internet connection, PayPal equivalent, and computer to accept credit card donations at the collective. I can't imagine we'd have more than a dozen credit card donations a week, all told (we're currently open 14 hours a week, but that could go up to ~20 hours/week in a few months).
posted by aniola at 7:18 PM on August 26

justgive.org
posted by zentrification at 8:17 PM on August 26

This comparison table may help you decide.

But if I were you, I'd go with Amazon Payments; I've read less than savory things about Google Checkout.
posted by gchucky at 8:17 PM on August 26

It is my understanding that we are planning to use our Internet connection, PayPal equivalent, and computer to accept credit card donations at the collective.

You're expecting people to type in their credentials on your computer?
posted by effbot at 2:13 AM on August 27

You're planning to ask people to give you money by entering sensitive personal financial information into a computer. If they haven't heard of the service / website you're using to process payments then they'll be less likely to trust it, and you'll get fewer donations. I wouldn't get too creative with this particular decision.
posted by jon1270 at 4:59 AM on August 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

I hadn't thought of that, that some folks might not want to type their credentials into a public computer. Maybe we'll end up doing it differently. On the other hand, our shop doesn't even have a telephone.

I think that in my particularly liberal college town, using a site like justgive over paypal would do okay. I'll be sure to bring up both of your qualms, effbot and jon1270, when I suggest that we use justgive over paypal.
posted by aniola at 8:20 AM on August 27