Does anyone know the best way to deal with card transactions on websites? I would have no trouble creating a website with a CMS, where the owners can upload and edit their products, and where users can browse and select them / add them to their basket.

But the only thing Im not sure about is the actual 'paying' part of it. From what I know, it seems that the best method is to use a website that deals with all that sort of thing; such as world-pay.com

Is it best just to use something like this? Or are there better websites that will do the same thing?

https://developer.paypal.com/

Paypal is my favorite. Lots of options for a developer, and a name that people trust.

Thanks I'll have a look into it, I was thinking Paypal but I forgot to mention it.

One thing that I was concerned about though, was that a while ago I read a post somewhere on this forum about a user who was fined $1000 [or £1000, I cant remember which]. It was something to do with a customer using fake card details or something, and it meant him [the website owner] getting fined for it, I cant remember the exact details though, but it was enough for me to be a bit wary of Parpal!

"Chargebacks" can be a concern for a merchant. You will have trouble finding a way to insulate yourself from that. The Merchant is always the one who gets hurt when a credit card is used fraudulently.

Thanks for the advice

There are lots of payment processors

You already know of WorldPay (Royal Bank of Scotland BTW), PayPal (Owned by Ebay)

from personal experience I would also be happy using, Nochex or SecPay

But take a look the gateways used by Actinic http://www.ruralwebdesign.co.uk/acat...eways_psp.html or JShop http://www.jshop.co.uk/gateways.php

All of them can be integrated into any site.

One important point to consider is where you do business most and you might want to setup a couple of options. US customers will more often than hot, prefer to use a US based processor, so have a UK based one for UK payments and maybe a US based one for US payments.

One client I set a site and gateways up for was based in Thailand and sold worldwide so had several options (including eGold for some reason)

Always give customers a choice of how you part them from their money

I'm not sure how paypal handles chargebacks but most third party processors, like worldpay and 2checkout mentioned above have some sort of chargeback protection.

For example, when a chargeback occurs with an ecsuite client we eat the fee from our merchant bank, and on the clients end its just as if they had issued a refund. As long as the client keeps their chargeback rate under a certain percent, they're fine. Even if they were doing something malicious and consistently went over the acceptable percentage, we're much more likely just to drop them as a client then hit them with some sort of huge fine.

Most other third party processors should have similar policies.

We chose PayPal Pro for an integrated card payment gateway and it worked very well all things considered. We upgraded to Pro after originally starting out with only the free PayPal gateway. Sales increased overnight after choosing integrated. It was pretty easy to setup too, and it only cost £20 a month.

Unfortunately they also take a commission on your sales on top of the £20 so last month we were charged over £500. We also had one chargeback where PayPal returned the money despite our providing proof that the item was sent, received, signed for by customer at the address the card belongs too.

Oh yeh, they also phoned us and threatened to increase the commission rates because we broke their terms of service by not displaying a prominent alternative checkout option for our customers. They insist that we display an ugly "Checkout With PayPal" button on the website as if the name PayPal will inspire user confidence.

Lol. We had high hopes for Paypal but we've been looking elsewhere for a month or so now. Protx look promising though the prices seem a little too cheap. Worried they are taking on more customers than they can deal with

The search continues...

Paypal is great for new merchant because it cost almost nothing and with the standard version of Paypal there is no monthly fee.

As soon as the business starts to get some customers then you can upgade to paypal pro which cost $30 per month or directly get a merchant account.

With a large number of transactions, a merchant account will probably help save some money since they usually charge less than Paypal.

The only problem with Paypal and some other solutions alike, it's that the customer has to leave your site to make the payment and sometimes they just don't finish the transaction. With Paypal pro or a merchant account the transaction is done on the merchant site.