Fast, nice, but a raw deal for credit card processing
Written: Feb 10 '01
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Pros: integrated with Ebay
Cons: fees, fees, and more fees
The Bottom Line: Good ecommerce payment site, Paypal is cheaper and bigger, but Billpoint is easier to use. Credit card processing is EXPENSIVE.
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| slc39's Full Review: BillPoint |
Billpoint has one main advantage that gives it an edge over EVERYONE: its alliance with Ebay. If you're a serious seller on Ebay, and you want payment fast, this is definitely a good service. The PayMe logo (if you selected Instant Payment at the start of the auction) is really prominent, and bidders can just click on it to pay.
Free check processing
Another thing it does that no one else does: it accepts checks. There are a lot of people out there who can buy big, but choose not to have a credit card. All Billpoint does is take the numbers on the banks of the customer's check, generates a "virtual" check in the amount that they entered, and takes it right out of their checking account. The service is free. You pay nothing to have them process or deposit it into your bank account.
A major con is that it takes them a while to process the money and put it into your bank account.
The payor doesn't have to sign up
A lot of the P2P services (like Paypal) requires the bidder to register with them. A lot of people don't like that. Billpoint doesn't make the bidder sign up, just the seller. That can be an advantage, especially for people not comfortable with sharing their information. It's psychological. They figure, if they don't provide info like age, gender, occupation, and all that stuff, it's just like a transaction at Amazon; they don't really think they're giving up their privacy.
CONS
On the other hand, here are all the cons:
Expensive credit card processing
Billpoint takes Visa, Mastercard, and Discover. When it processes a credit card payment, it charges you a handling fee based on how much the person paid. For a standard account (regular people), here's the fee structure:
-Sales under $15: fee of 35 cents
-Sales over $15: fee of 35 cents PLUS 2.5% of the amount
(imagine someone pays you $25; you end up with $24.03 after processing fees)
Then there's the deposit fee. That's right, they charge you a fee of 0.5% of the sales amount to pay you the money. They only charge you this fee if the sale was $15 or more.
But, you can choose to accept only electronic checks, and avoid paying fees at all (because e-checks are fee).
You have to generate invoices
People can't just pay you. YOU have to send them an invoice, and then they click on the link to pay you. This can be a big hassle, as you can probably imagine.
Privacy! You have to give them your bank account number
Billpoint will only pay you one way -- by electronically depositing the money into your bank account. They won't send you a check. So you have to trust them with your bank account number.
It's not as bad as it sounds, though. They have a secure server to hold all the bank account information, and to my knowledge, the info hasn't leaked out.
Summary
This is definitely not a service for friends paying you back for stuff. It's more geared towards auction sellers and other small fry who can't afford a real merchant account. Their fees are pretty bad. On the other hand, the entire experience is rather smooth; they are pretty responsive with customer service, and they automatically deposit the funds into your bank account -- you don't have to go in and tell them to give you your money.
If you want a cheaper, friendlier site, I would suggest Paypal (but only for small transactions).
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
slc39
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Location: New Haven, CT
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Democrat. Anime & Manga lover.
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