Merchant account with Fasthosts

LittleVoice

Has anyone any experience of using the credit card merchant account facility offered by Fasthosts?

Acerfan

Hi,
I would be cautious of fasthosts. Do you have any experience of dealing with them? From my own experience and that of others I've talked to, they are extremely difficult to pin down. If you have a problem, they're impossible to get hold of & have never responded to a single one of my letters (8 or 9 in total). If the facility involves any fees, subscription, or them holding any of the money though, I'd check it out before you proceed. My experience is they're more than happy to take your money 'in error' and impossible to contact to ask for it back.

Others on here though may have better experiences. Mine involved a subscription for web space and as I said, the credit card merchant account facility may be different. Although as this is a less well known company, that may in itself deter people from using it if you want them to buy from you.

Just my humble opinion
I hope it helps

LittleVoice

Thanks, Acerfan.

It's really useful to get a view of how they operate as an organisation.

I was particularly interested in your comment regarding holding money. They retain 5% of purchases for, I think, 8 months before paying it over!

Thanks again

LV

MarkyMarkD

PayPal provides merchant account services at a very discounted price for charities, if that's relevant to your circumstances.

orangetdavis

Or Google Checkout - no fees to 2008! I use them and they're really good so far...

robert_harper_2000

Fasthosts also charge you penalties £40 for my web hosting £3.99 was delayed. But they don't turn up when you take them to court! HAHA

LittleVoice

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

PayPal provides merchant account services at a very discounted price for charities, if that's relevant to your circumstances.

Thank you for that tip.

The enquiry was on behalf of a charity and the person investigating the options was deciding between Fasthosts and Paypal. He was not, however, aware of any discounts that PayPal would offer charities. He didn't notice it on the site. I will ask him to look at it more closely.

MarkyMarkD

It's not very obvious but the discount is very significant.

It took me one second to find with a google search for "paypal charity discount" - your friend doesn't have very good googling instincts!

https://www.paypal.com/uk/charity/

59% off the variable element of the fees.

Has to be a registered charity and you have to provide proper evidence that the person setting up the account is authorised by the charity to do so.

Took us about 10 days from start to finish.

Isn't retrospective!

LittleVoice

Thanks very much MMD.