Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition

Credit Cards

The object of business is to part customers from their money (in the nicest possible way), and the essential point of attack is the credit card. It is the tap through which wealth flows, but it may also serve to fill you a poisoned chalice as well. As soon as you deal in credit card numbers, you are apt to have trouble. Credit card fraud is vast, and the merchant ends up paying for most of it. See the sad advice at, for instance, http://antifraud.com/tips.htm. Conversely, there is little to stop any of your employees who have access to credit card numbers from noting a number and then doing some cheap shopping. Someone more organized than that can get you into trouble in an even bigger way.

Unless you are big and confident and have a big and competent security department, you probably will want to use an intermediary company to handle the credit card transaction and send you most of the money. An interesting overview of the whole complicated process is at http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/ElectronicProperty/klamond/credit_card.htm.

There are a number of North American intermediaries:

First Union - Merchant Sales and Services http://www.firstunion.com/2/business/merchant/

Nova Information Systems http://www.novainfo.com/

Vantage Services http://vanserv.com/

Since we have not dealt with any of them, we cannot comment. The interfaces to your site will vary from company to company, as will the costs and the percentage they will skim off each transaction. It is also very important ...