Paying company by direct bank transfer in advance

westy22

Olinda99 said:

Tumtitums said:

They are now saying i can pay by card via stripe. Is that better in terms of getting money back ?

It is certainly better than paying by bank transfer - at least you stand a chance if things go wrong.

Anyway, it is my understanding that you are covered if the merchant uses a payment aggregator eg Stripe, Paypal, Worldpay etc to just process your payment. In fact I think all merchants use some form of payment aggregator. Where you are not covered is if you eg log on to your Paypal account and pay - that is definitely breaking the link. If, however, you just give the merchant your card number and they use Paypal, Stripe or whoever in the background then you are covered.

But I think it is not 100% tested.

Its certainly a potential minefield.  If I telephone a company to provide CC details for an order I generally have no idea which processing firm will be taking the payment; it could be WorldPay, SagePay, Stripe, Sum-up, or one of many other similar outfits. As far as I am concerned I have paid the company for my order on CC and expect to qualify for S75 protection.

If paying online on a website I will often be able to see whose system they are using - but not always, as some use their own branded interface with Stripe, WorldPay or similar API running in the background.

Surely this should not be a lottery for consumers; it is such a vital aspect of consumer protection that some regulator must issue a definitive answer that a consumer can rely on in the case of a dispute.

Aylesbury_Duck

Tumtitums said:

Jonboy_1984 said:

At work we offer Stripe as our basic card processing merchant service, as a replacement for Barclaycard merchant service that we used previously, and are subject to all the usual chargeback and S-75 rules.

We can also offer to process PayPal to customers (and could offer Klarna pay in three via the same service if we chose), customers doing so would break the card service protections in favour of these services own dispute resolution if we failed to resolve an issue.

so its best to pay by the stripe weblink ?

No, it's best to pay directly by card, preferably credit card.  However, if you're happy with stripe, accepting its potential limitations, it's probably better than bank transfer.

Why don't you just find a supplier who'll accept a proper card payment?  Have you told this supplier you'll take your business elsewhere if they won't accept a card payment directly?

westy22

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Why don't you just find a supplier who'll accept a proper card payment?  Have you told this supplier you'll take your business elsewhere if they won't accept a card payment directly?

How would you define 'a proper card payment'?  All merchants (even the biggest ones) use some sort of card processing service.

Aylesbury_Duck

westy22 said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Why don't you just find a supplier who'll accept a proper card payment?  Have you told this supplier you'll take your business elsewhere if they won't accept a card payment directly?

How would you define 'a proper card payment'?  All merchants (even the biggest ones) use some sort of card processing service.

Agreed, but the suggestion is that this Stripe service might not be a normal card processing service and might be more like Paypal.  OP came on wanting to ensure they best protected their consumer rights, and if there's ambiguity over precisely what the Stripe service is, then it must be better to look elsewhere.

bris

Personally payment method wouldn't bother me either way, it's the companies reputation I would rather go by.

Doing a bit homework on that would be where I would start. regardless of how they get paid.

Ectophile

bris said:

Personally payment method wouldn't bother me either way, it's the companies reputation I would rather go by.

Doing a bit homework on that would be where I would start. regardless of how they get paid.

A lot of companies have a very good reputation.  Then they go bust after you've placed the order.  That leaves you on the unsecured creditors list, and you may get a few pence in the pound back, if you're lucky.