Sentinel

I am the web master of a web site for a home owners association and they want me to do the whole thing for them and they will give me all the info I need to get it done. The problem is that the treasurer has no credit card for the association as they don't need one for anything. All they do is pay taxes etc... which is all done by checks.

They asked me to use my credit card and they will reimburse me and I know they will but I don't want to have my CC associated with their account forever. So is there a way to set up a hosting account and pay by digital check or something like that? You know ... where you use the account numbers and routing numbers of the check and pay using the checking account?

Also they do not want to have any recurring automated billing thing. Is it possible to pay manually every year? Either by digital check or paper bill and check?

cowboy

As we do here...have the association set up a paypal account. They can pay bills from it and we have a better on time dues collection from the homeowners as well, because they can pay online.

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Rai

You can have Paypal attached to a checking account, and pay using that. Surpass does not have their own billing system, you must either use Paypal or 2checkout. Automated subscriptions are necessary though. Surpass has thousands of customers, and it is how they ensure that the payment is made, and made on time. If the association does not wish to continue with their hosting, they just need to submit a cancellation request a few days prior to the next billing date. Having automated billing is a much better system then manual invoicing and payments, especially in the web hosting business.

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Sentinel

I do not like PayPal and I would never recommend it to any of my clients. I have heard and experienced to many horror stories with them to ever give them any of my business or send any business their way.

2checkout I have used and I have been pleased with them so far. They do offer manual billing so I will see if they will offer it with Surpass.

As far as automated billing being superior to manual invoicing I beg to differ. I have had very hard times getting companies to stop billing me and I will never again ever allow any company such access to any bank account that I have. As such I could never in good conscience advise a customer to do the same. My current web hosting company will allow me to pay manually if i pay for a years hosting at a time which I do. They send me an email bill or invoice a month before the bill is due and I go online to 2checkout and pay it with a credit card. No problems.

I have had incredible problems with canceling service for something that I have had automated billing on and you just can't get them to stop debiting your account. The only alternative I had was to close the account and open a new one at the same bank. This led to overdraft fees and a whole bunch of crap that eventually got sorted out 6 months later when the billing department finally got word that they should stop billing me. I got my money back but the damage to my credit score was already done. I will never never ever allow any company to auto debit my account for anything ever again.

I see no reason why Surpass can't let a customer pay for a year at a time (or more) and pay with an email invoice (no paper) and pay with a credit card or digital check. Debit cards and digital checks are the future.

Rai

Surpass offers you the ability to cancel all of your subscriptions yourself, independant of cancelling your hosting account. It's not recommended, at all, but if for some reason your account is not cancelled in a timely manner, then you can prevent your card from being debited again. However, the only time of Surpass ever continuing to charge for an account that I have heard of is because the individual does not cancel the account properly. If the cancellation occured after you've been billed again, (within a reasonable period) you will get a full refund. This happened to me when I upgraded my account to a reseller, and my shared account got cancelled.

I personally have had many positive experiences with automated billing. I have had more problems with manual billing, and heard more problems with manual billing, mainly because people are unreliable. Me almost forgetting to pay my credit card bill on time is no one's problem but my own, but my roommate forgotting to pay the hydro bill creates a massive inconvience. Now, maybe it's my fault for not picking a better roommate, but humans are not infallible. They forget, and in the system of web hosting, if you forget to pay, your website will get shut down. That makes one cranky customer, who, while at fault, wishes to blame the company for having the audacity to shut their site down. I've seen this many times at other hosting companies, and even here in a recent dedicated server situation, where someone did cancel their subscription.

Surpass has thousands, or even tens of thousands of individual customers. They do not have the billing system in place to handle manual billing. They can't do it because they do not have the infrastructure in place. That may change in the future, but the system they currently have works for them (and all their current customers and the new ones that come every day).

As far as not liking Paypal, that's your choice. You are severly limiting your choices, because a lot of the internet uses Paypal. My own personal dislike of them is they like to try to force you to attach a credit card and a bank account to your account. Frustrated me before I had a credit card of my own. Otherwise, I think the "horror stories" get so much attention because, as Kayla made the point earlier, people like unsavory stories. They're drawn to criticism. No one cares about the millions of transactions that occur every day without a hitch. They want to know all about the one (or few) error that Paypal made that day. I'm not claiming that Paypal is perfect, but I do not believe you should refuse any of your clients the option to use Paypal to complete what they want done. And if you paint a completely biased, negative picture of Paypal, you are not being honest about what benefits they may find with using it. As cowboy stated, his association has had a positive experience with the system.

I believe debit cards and digital checks are not the future, they are the current reality. Almost any tech savvy individual will pay their bills online, and as my generation grows up and starts having more bills, this becomes more common. The issue is, not many small corporations have the infrastructure to handle their own banking entirely. There are many security risks of providing your own credit card and debit card processing, particularly when your system has problems (such as the one you encountered). Which is why companies such as Surpass has to rely on outside processors (2co and Paypal) to function. I have heard a rumor of Surpass developing a new billing system, but that was one comment in thousands of posts I've read here. Whether that is the near future, I can't tell you. Their first priority is always to keep the current system running smoothly.

Yes, you may have had bad experiences in the past. The reality of Surpass hosting is that your fears will not be realized. Surpass billing support, though less prompt at responding to tickets then general technical support due to working regular weekday hours, is the most reliable and helpful support system I have encountered. I can't convince you of this, but I believe Surpass is the best choice for people who wish to get a lot for their dollar, and not have to lose out on good support and security, which is why I'm here, and why I have recommended dozens of people who are in need of hosting to come here. Take that as you will, and I hope you will at least consider Surpass to be the best alternative for your client.

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David

Good post Rai.

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Sentinel

Some people are unreliable . I never have any problems with paying my bills on time. Auto billing presupposes that I can not pay my bills on time. I do not use auto billing for anything and my credit report is flawless. I just don't like companies having their hands in my pocket thats all. I have seen people get real messed up with so many auto bills coming out of their accounts that it is hard to keep track and they don't even know how much money they have in there at any given time.
I am in the IT industry and how do you know that I am not in your generation ? I am tech savvy and still I dread the thought of a company having unfettered access to my funds with an agreement between them and my bank that I have to ask them to stop. I prefer maintaining control of my funds and I do it well.
I don't understand your comment about paying bills online. I pay all my bills online and I don't have a PayPal account and I don't have auto billing. Are you implying that auto billing is a prerequisite to paying bills online? I use my credit card to pay all my bills online and I have no problems.

Surpass comes highly recommended for its web hosting and I will probably try it for myself and other clients of mine as I have a credit card and it appears as though you can use a credit card to sign up. But the HOA I originally posted abut won't be able to use Surpass as they have no credit card for the association. All they have is a bank account and it would seem that at least at this point in time Surpass is not willing to accommodate those kinds of customers.

As for the number of customers that Surpass has as an excuse for them to not handle such transactions ... again I miss the point. 2checkout does offer this service and Surpass does use them so..... I don't get it. It would seem that it should be easy enough to set up. I mean Surpass knows when a customers account is running out right? I mean they won't leave your web site up forever if you don't pay your bill right? Then there must be some way that they become aware that you have not paid your bill. So if they have a way of knowing that your account has expired then they must have a way of knowing that it is about to expire. I don't see why they can't have that same system generate an email to you telling you so you can pay for another year of service.

I agree this could be a hassle if monthly customers did this. But if you pay for a year in advance? The month before your year is up it sends you an email telling you to pay for another year? Seems easy to me. 2checkout has this ability. They do it for me at my current web host.

Thanks for your taking the time to answer my questions by the way. It is much appreciated. I am just trying to help out this small company that does not have a credit card due to the nature of their business.

Rai

I tend to avoid any type of presumption of what generation an individual is in. But I am, pretty much, part of the first generation that has grown up immersed in technology. I got my first home computer when I was about 6, my schools have always had computers in the classrooms, and we were always expected to be able to use them, they weren't just for playing DOS games on break. My cousins, who are roughly 8 years older then I am, only had computers integrated into their education during high school. My school posted a short article on digital natives and digital immigrants that I read earlier today. My cousins were probably on the cusp of the digital natives, whereas my parents are clear digital immigrants (my father is now completely comfortable with online banking and purchasing). My whole point is that even 5 years ago, the actual use of online bill payment was much less then it is now, and is used more as the digital generations get older.

I think I've accepted automated billing because I haven't had a choice. The first bill I ever had to pay on my own was on an automated debit system. My alternative was not to be able to call long-distance, or have to buy calling cards if I wanted to. Since I made it through that without an issue, my fear disapates a little. I do continue to pay my credit card bill manually, but that's because I've been to lazy to set up my internet account for said credit card (since its through a different bank), and without that automatic billing is impossible. But I also always do set up my bank account to pay that bill automatically a few days before its due, so I don't forgot about it.

No, that is not my implication. Most of the people I correspond with use a bank account (therefore, digital checks) to pay bills online, and many have automated billing set up to do so. The point, I suppose, is that digital checks are common for payments online already. Paypal is just the easiest way in which to use digital checks with most commercial websites. Otherwise, as you've stated, you can use a credit card. But not everyone has a credit card.

Surpass does accomodate these customers, through the intermediary of PayPal. Many people have used PayPal to very successfully pay for Surpass Hosting, myself included, using my bank account before I got a credit card. I still continue to pay using digital check, through PayPal, when I can as opposed to my credit card.

If you have 100 customers, and 1 of them doesn't pay on time, it's a simple enough process to cancel that one account.
If you have a 1,000 customers, and 10 of them don't pay on time, then it's still probably easy enough to cancel those accounts.
But when you have 10,000 customers, and 100 don't pay (keeping with the proportion I've set up), it can quickly become as hassle if every day you're recieving messages that someone hasn't paid. This takes time away from dealing with other issues.
And then, as I mentioned, you factor in the irrate customer that forgot to pay on time, but wants their website to remain functional, you now have to dedicate more time to not only cancel that account, but deal with often accusatory and sometimes flat-out rude tickets, and then having to reinstate the account. Not every customer is like that, but each one that is takes the time and effort of 10 polite customers.

That is just a theoretical example of how the number of customers affects the ability of a company to offer certain types of services. An unrelated, but similar example is how Surpass does not offer telephone support except for dedicated server customers. The ticket system is a much more accurate way of providing quick and proficent assistance for such a huge customer bank. I've wrote long dissertations on this, so I won't bore you with a reiteration.

I know you mentioned you do not like PayPal, but another benefit of using PayPal for automated billing as opposed to allowing a company to directly attached itself to your bank account is that if you do cancel whatever bill it is and they try to continue to charge you, you can remove the association of your bank account from the PayPal account. You still might have a hassle, but it wouldn't adversly effect your personal credit. Just some additional thoughts on that matter, because I do agree with the thought that you shouldn't directly give a company open access to your bank account without some measure to be able to protect yourself.

Otherwise, perhaps as Surpass' infrastructure grows, they will incorporate the system as you have mentioned it. I've seen many changes within Surpass since I've been here, and I expect to see many more good changes come in the future.


As an idea, for the HOA you wish to build the site for, you could always follow the route that many Surpass customers have done when dealing with a variety of clients... they get a reseller account, and then sell off portions of that account to their clients. Resellers allow your clients to have a completely independant site from yours with complete access to everything within it, and would allow them to pay you via check for the services. It gives you the ability to manage their sites easily. I don't know if you've considered this and already decided no, but just to throw the idea out there. I have a reseller myself that I use for a variety of individuals who I manage websites for, and it also allows me better organization of my personal websites.


Edit: Wow, I write a lot. ::blush::

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David

Rai, you're going to need a new keyboard by tomorrow.

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