[LRUG] Recurring Payments and subscriptions

[Paul Wilson]

On 28 Jan 2011, at 15:13, Jason Green wrote:

> Maybe I am missing the point here, but why not use paypal, or google checkout (if you don't need recurring)?


The plan up until this morning was to do recurring.  Circumstances have forced us to reconsider, and we're kicking off with PayPal.

> 
> Paypal does recurring: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/subscr-intro-outside and also micro-payments. 
> 


Yes, but that involves "rolling our own billing system".


> When you get to the stage that paypals' 5% is loosing you more than it would cost to implement a proper payment gateway, the company bank account would be showing a healthy enough balance and history to get verified / credit checked.
> 

The risky side of PayPal is that (in my experience of dealing with them every year for the Scottish Ruby Conference) they are a massive and faceless bureaucracy that frequently suspends accounts with little warning or explanation.  I think they are risky to rely on.  Google don't seem to be any better(*)

(*) http://slash7.com/2009/03/26/google-is-evil-worse-than-paypal-don-t-use-google-checkout-for-your-business/