Help me take payments from future customers by phone!

May 18, 2012 8:55 AM

I need suggestions on ways to be able to generate an invoice and then take payment details from a customer by phone. If the customer is uncomfortable with this I would like to offer the invoice with an online payment page for them to fill in themselves.

I will be having a website where people will send me their item to my address. I will then determine whether their item needs repairing, what it needs doing and then deciding on the price. I will then call up the customer and let them know the options available to them and if everything is ok, take payment.

I need the following!

1. To be able to take payment details from a customer by phone and enter them into a system (hopefully a website of some kind) to recieve payment from them.

OR

2. If the customer doesnt want to give details over the phone I would like them to be able to make a payment themselves using a link to a payment page.

For both I would like to be able to input an invoice, which they would then recieve by email later.

I want to avoid paypal if possible (i think!) since I always found sites that used their login system to be confusing. I want to avoid using any kind of login system for my site. (this thing will be basic but perfect for what I want it for)

Does anyone know of any sites that can do these things for me in the cheapest way possible?

posted by aqueousdan to computers & internet (2 answers total)

Wufoo is a lauded company in this space: Wufoo Payments -- is may be similar to what you're looking for.

Disclaimer: I have never used Wufoo myself for accepting payments.
posted by godisdad at 10:02 AM on May 18, 2012

I know you don't want to use paypal, but they do have an invoicing system set up and the customer just needs to use their cc to pay, they do not need to log in in any way. I use it for my business and there is a larger "pay with paypal" button and a smaller "pay with cc" button.

It might be an easy way to start, then change over as you find something that works best for you.
posted by Vaike at 11:05 AM on May 18, 2012