How do you receive payments for web design?

Not a 'how to' question, more of a 'How do YOU...'

Because I need to accept payments very soon, but have no way of doing so.

I have paypal, but I can't add my card at the moment, because of their TERRIBLE support. Contacted them three times with no reply.

Can someone also tell me how accepting payments though paypal works, do you need a merchant account, or does it work like some kind of credit?

You don't need to give them a card number, as far as I know. You can accept payment through either a personal or business account (both of which are free to setup, but charge something like 0.30 a transaction a 2.3% of the transaction). After that, it works kind of like a bank account. You can transfer the PayPal money into your own personal account.

CC is not required but you'd be far secured and better off as a verified user, so you better provide them one.

Without it you can still accept payments: personal account accepts payments freely but business account charges a small percentage of the payment.

thanks

small denomination notes in a McDonalds bag is always nice

But seriously you could create an account with just about any online payments processor and accept payments via that.

I tend to use bank transfers rather than a third party processor where you could end up with two lots of charges per transaction.

I have a merchant account that allows me to take credit cards. They do take a percentage of each transaction like Chris said, but I find it the best way for me. I also have PayPal set up if a client wants.

Under special circumstances I'll let someone mail me a check, but that's only under very special circumstances. I should probably set up something to accept online checks, but I haven't yet.

Taking a credit card is easiest for me, but I want to be able to offer clients as many different ways as possible for their convenience.

Hi,

I am using:
- PayPal
- 2CheckOut
- Bank cheque
- bank Transfer
- Western Union (Mainly for Africa customers)

Best regards

Has anybody tried using sites like escrow.com or rentacoder.com to handle larger sums where you don't specifically know the other person?

I have an account with CDGcommerce for my merchant activities. Good support and decent fees. I also have PP but I use my merchant account for CC transactions.

My Methods

Cash in hand
Paypal (best way)
Cheques in mail/hand
Internal Bank Transfer
Run a Tab with trusted ppl