Accepting Credit Cards

[robindean]

What I need to do is simple.

Finding a free service that takes a per-payment percentage is seemingly impossible.

Basically, I have a monthly subscription site. What I'm trying to do is ...

1) have a user click a subscription link that passes their username (from my site) along with it.

2) if (and ONLY if) they are successfully billed, whether it's a new subscription or a recurrance, send a callback to my server WITH THE USERNAME attached so that I may place a timestamp next to their username in the MySQL database.

3) That's pretty much it ... payment made, another month added. Easy.

I've been dabbling with Google Checkout but, honestly, it seems as if NOTHING they list in their documentation actually remains applicable. None of it seems to work as stated, especially in regards to detecting a successful payment which, in regards to storing usernames in conjunction with a subscription is "experimental" at best.

Paypal, on the other hand, I'm willing to use so long as I can know for sure that the username info will be kept. If not, I need to know how to use a unique identifier in conjunction with their active username (mind you, they might sign up for more than one account on my service).

What do you all suggest? I'm at a total loss here with a new business ready to rock.

[tracknut]

I would think with Paypal you could include the username as part of the item name (ie, it's just text), like "Monthly service for robindean". Then when that purchase comes through, you could parse off the "Monthly service for" part and grab the username back out to index into your database.

Not that I've done this, but I put my own transaction numbers in Paypal item names for a similar purpose.

Dave

[robindean]

Do the transaction numbers stay the same for each recurring charge in a subscription? If so, I'd be more than happy to use those. I have an extra slot in the database for this very purpose.

If they DON'T, is there anything that remains static for subscriptions that I could rely on?

Thanks for helping me with this.

[tracknut]

I don't have the same scenario you do with recurring charges. I invent a transaction number (that's used thoughout my html forms) then I send that number as a part of the product name, to paypal. So I can see the completed paypal transaction, and my transaction number is in there for my reference. Paypal doesn't know anything about that number, it just carries it along for me.

So I don't know how "recurring charge" works in paypal. If you are creating this charge once a month, then yes I'd say just stick the username in there every month and voila, but I may be missing a key piece of your functionalilty.

Dave

[robindean]

I like your concept. I'm trying to figure out a way to do it from my end.

The most important thing for me is the automation, I suppose.

For starters, I'm hoping to avoid using a clunky paypal button graphic and go with a link.

So, my million-dollar question is ... how do I generate a custom form for a product that is recurring and makes use of a link based on a username on my server?

[sonyaseo.1987]

I like your concept. I'm trying to figure out a way to do it from my end.

The most important thing for me is the automation, I suppose.

For starters, I'm hoping to avoid using a clunky paypal button graphic and go with a link.

So, my million-dollar question is ... how do I generate a custom form for a product that is recurring and makes use of a link based on a username on my server?

Its a great!!!