online counicling?

[Mr anderson]

hi all, my friend wants to set up online counicling for people who are unable to make long trips etc? what i am asking is


how can they make safe payments?
Is there any software that would offer it?

[Abbadon]

Do you mean counseling ?

The only options I can think of are:

1. Paypal (There are several negative things with this service though)

2. Wire Transfer to your friend's bank account
( it takes 3 days to get an electronic transfer, a real hassle)

3. Money order (Several days to get it)

4. Western Union money transfer **
( I have used this service and takes 1 or two days to get the money)

[rumplestiltskin]

I use PayPal and am very happy with it. Certainly there is a small fee for using the service (for you as the receiver of payments, not the sender) but you might want to build that cost into your fees.

You can even have a button on your website that directs people to the proper payment page. They don't even need to have a PayPal account if they have a credit card (assuming your PayPal account has been set up to accept credit card payments).

Frankly, I have nothing bad to say about the service. No I don't work for them.

[Mr anderson]

ok, youve beeen a great help. i will get back to my friend. many thanks again

[thecoalman]

Most hosts offer a merchant plan for credit card payments. Mosyt of which can be set up in the control panel... Personally I'd have someone do it that knows what they are doing as you will be dealing directly with peoples credit cards....

BTW this also requires a merchant account with a bank of your choice or you can go with one provided by the host... Not really hard to set up but it will not exactly be cheap either. Besides the hosting which is probably going to be around $20 plus for an account loike that you will also have the merchant charges. There's usually a monthly fee plus a charge for each transaction.

[rumplestiltskin]

Most hosts offer a merchant plan for credit card payments. Mosyt of which can be set up in the control panel... Personally I'd have someone do it that knows what they are doing as you will be dealing directly with peoples credit cards....

BTW this also requires a merchant account with a bank of your choice or you can go with one provided by the host... Not really hard to set up but it will not exactly be cheap either. Besides the hosting which is probably going to be around $20 plus for an account loike that you will also have the merchant charges. There's usually a monthly fee plus a charge for each transaction.

Very true. That's why I like PayPal. No monthly fees, no merchant account (except for the free sign-up). I use a separate bank account (separate from my main account) simply to avoid the possible exposure should PayPal really fubar the system somehow. However, PayPal is now owned by eBay and I can't think of any company that has more experience in in this sort of thing.