

Gateway and Merchant account - j1477

We need a payment system for our website where we'll be able to reserve an amount against a buyer's account and settle it after wards. During the settlement we would transfer part of the buyer's deposit to a seller. We cannot go with Amazon FPS, PayPal or Google Checkout. What gateway and merchant account would you suggest?
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jacquesm
Most IPSPs support this kind of functionality, it's called a pre-auth.

You can place a hold on it for a 3-5 business day period, depending on the
issuer and gateway details.

It's hard to suggest a company to deal with without knowing more about your
location and other details but more IPSPs will do this. Also, please make sure
you have your own merchant account, do not get sucked in to have a third party
arrangement.

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j1477
Our customers are largely going to be located in the US. Right now we are
thinking of going with Authorize.net or Braintree for the credit card
processing.

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hga
I looked into both of these companies last year and made the following
observations back then:

Braintree looks _great_ , but you need a rather large minimum monthly to sign
with them (6 figures, can't remember the cutoff then). But they seemed to be
the class act at the time.

Authorize.net just does not inspire trust, from their business practices to
their flaky infrastructure (plus they've been a major target for attacks).
They _do_ have some pretty neat public APIs you can use.

Good luck! This is not an easy area.

~~~
bryanjohnson
Thanks @hga for the nice comment, we certainly try. Regarding the volume
minimum, we did away with that about a year ago.

@j1477 - here are a few resources that may help you in your search for a
solution:

1\. You mentioned reserving an amount on a credit card. You can do this one of
two ways. First, you can authorize a credit/debit card and then settle it at a
later date. Authorizations do go stale after a few days (the general rule is 7
days, but it varies bank to bank) so if the time between authorization and
settlement is greater than ~7 days, you'll need to reauthorize to complete the
transaction. Also, authorizations cannot be settled more than once. For
example, you can't authorize a card for $100 and then settle it twice, each
for $50.

The second option is to do an Account Verification request. Here is more
information on that: <http://bit.ly/NlKuG>

2\. The second thing you mentioned was "transfer part of the buyer's deposit
to a seller". I may not understand this correctly, but this sounds like you're
collecting payment on behalf of a third party, which is known as aggregation
and is one of the highest forms of risk in payment processing. Here is more
information on that: <http://bit.ly/775RkJ>

If you're looking to transfer funds to payout out another provider, you could
also move the funds via electronic funds transfer (EFT) from your bank to
theirs.

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j1477
Thanks bryanjohnson. I was wondering if you work for Braintree and if you
could please tell me who at Braintree I could contact as a new merchant? I
would like to discuss our business model and see if we could achieve the same
effect without putting ourselves in the higher risk category.

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bryanjohnson
Yes, sorry, forgot to mention that I am with Braintree. You can contact Eric
at ej at getbraintree.com and he will be able to provide some guidance.

