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Head of Programming at INTRO
12 June 2001 14:29pm
Hi all,
Does anyone know what the precedent is for providing a service where customers can subscribe to a service online and get charged periodically (eg. monthly)?
It sounds simple, but I'm concerned that to do this the company would have to retain the credit card/transaction details in order to retreive the appropriate funds every month.
Surely there are some data protection issues involved, let alone technical ones regarding securely holding this information.
I've enquired about setting up Direct Debits via an online form, but Barclays don't offer this so I assume no-one else does.
Any thoughts?
cheers,
----------->W
Head of Programming at INTRO
14 June 2001 15:33pm
To (partly) answer my own question:
It turns out that WorldPay have a service called "Futurepay"
that allows psuedo Direct Debits to be set up and ammended through
their site.
On 14:29:34 12 June 2001 rheostate wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Does anyone know what the precedent is for providing a
>service where customers can subscribe to a service online
>and get charged periodically (eg. monthly)?
>
>It sounds simple, but I'm concerned that to do this the
>company would have to retain the credit card/transaction
>details in order to retreive the appropriate funds every
>month.
>
>Surely there are some data protection issues involved, let
>alone technical ones regarding securely holding this
>information.
>
>I've enquired about setting up Direct Debits via an online
>form, but Barclays don't offer this so I assume no-one
>else does.
>
>Any thoughts?
>
> cheers,
> ----------->W
>
Group Manager at Infosys
18 June 2001 10:02am
I would try the telecoms like NTL or BT. It just appears on your phone bill. I know a few people you are doing this.
On 14:29:34 12 June 2001 rheostate wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Does anyone know what the precedent is for providing a
>service where customers can subscribe to a service online
>and get charged periodically (eg. monthly)?
>
>It sounds simple, but I'm concerned that to do this the
>company would have to retain the credit card/transaction
>details in order to retreive the appropriate funds every
>month.
>
>Surely there are some data protection issues involved, let
>alone technical ones regarding securely holding this
>information.
>
>I've enquired about setting up Direct Debits via an online
>form, but Barclays don't offer this so I assume no-one
>else does.
>
>Any thoughts?
>
> cheers,
> ----------->W
>
Founder / Director / Co-founder at easyBacklog / Aqueduct / Econsultancy
19 June 2001 11:38am
WorldPay do offer a service, but as I remember you have to transfer your user to their site to enter their credit card details etc. I personally like to retain customers within the site's domain.
Retaining credit card details does however introduce an entirely new set of problems:
1. You have to create a customer service channel online and offline to deal effectively with customer's enquiring about their monthly direct debits. Customers generally do not appreciate being debited mistakenly, and will expect an immediate response, thus an offline customer service channel is probably required.
2. Retaining credit card details is a relatively high risk responsibility. If hackers do manage to hack the credit card details, you will be liable to some degree. Although encryption helps, no encryption is 100% safe, especially considering you will have to have a decryption algorithm to carry out the direct debits. You should definately consider insurance against this kind of data leak. Lastly, a lot of the banks will insist that you do not retain credit card details on your server. I have experienced this problem with Barclays.
3. Development of a scheduled billing system can be costly and time consuming.
With all this in mind though, there are obvious benefits to creating an automated billing system which will certainly help to generate consisten revenue.
I am very interested if anyone else has solutions like this that they have implemented, avoiding the problems listed above.
Matt
CEO at Econsultancy
07 September 2001 10:33am
Hi Wilf
Seems as though things have moved on since you posted this and paperless online direct debits are indeed possible and a very good way of collecting regular payments without having to hold sensitive credit card data. Online direct debits would seem a good way to do subscriptions and the like online.
Somewhat surprisingly it seems that no (digital) signature is required online as it is offline when you fill out the Direct Debit mandate. The bank will pay out the money until, and only if, challenged. This seems quite lax - I guess one has to rely on the Direct Debit guarantee to refund any money that might fraudulently be leaving your bank account. Keep checking those monthly bank statements...
Barclays have produced a reasonable guide to the subject which can be found at http://www.corporate.barclays.com/go/cms.nsf/lookup/0DEFA8C8CB67D3A080256957002FCDB6
There are also companies who provide software solutions which bundle online direct debit capabilities e.g. http://www.bottomline.co.uk/BT_web/products/directdebit.htm
On 14:29:34 12 June 2001 rheostate wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Does anyone know what the precedent is for providing a
>service where customers can subscribe to a service online
>and get charged periodically (eg. monthly)?
>
>It sounds simple, but I'm concerned that to do this the
>company would have to retain the credit card/transaction
>details in order to retreive the appropriate funds every
>month.
>
>Surely there are some data protection issues involved, let
>alone technical ones regarding securely holding this
>information.
>
>I've enquired about setting up Direct Debits via an online
>form, but Barclays don't offer this so I assume no-one
>else does.