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Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

I've seen a couple of threads that come close to what I'm looking for, but not quite.

Does anyone who has experience with doing this care to share?

If I have customers give me their card info over the phone, say, can I just send a PP invoice to an e-mail address I can access, and just pay as guest with my customer's card info?

The obvious paranoid assumption on my part is that PP will see the same IP/computer/e-mail address making orders with several different card numbers, but do they really?

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Of course they do. They'll see your IP each time you complete a payment.

This plan is convoluted and doesn't make sense, IMO. Instead of taking all these crazy steps, just email the PP invoice directly to your customer and let THEM pay with their card. A person doesn't have to have a Paypal account to pay a Paypal invoice. They can pay the invoice directly from their email with a card.

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Yeah, I should have clarified: Of course they'll "see" your ip, but how much of a problem is it, really? That's why I specifically asked for anyone who actually had experience doing this. Like, "Yeah, I did it and they limit your account if you do it more than X times in a month," or something.

And yes, of course I can just send invoices to the customer, I do/have done plenty of that. For whatever reason, I'm lucky if 50% of them actually pay them, even if I send them numerous reminders. So, silly me, I'm trying to recapture 50% of my lost business.


Yes, I'm a silly and stupid person for thinking outside the box, I'll work on that.

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

@byronius, I have cashed out gift credit cards in this similar manner but making sure to follow all stealth steps

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

If you can activate the Paypal Virtual Terminal, that is your best bet in the long-term for phoned in credit card orders. Outside of going with a standalone merchant account that is.

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Is that the PP merchant account? I assume anyone who has been banned from PP in the past (with their real name) will find it difficult to get a PP merchant account, but I haven't tried......I'm just operating under the assumption that stealth merchant accounts aren't doable, due to the extra scrutiny merch accts get, but I'll look into it more............

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

For virtual terminal you need a premier or business Paypal account and then you have to apply, just like you would have to do with a regular merchant account. You wouldn't be able to complete the application if you've been banned.

Why not apply for a real merchant account since your customers are willing to give you their details over the phone? You would get better processing rates and a lot more control.

I don't have specific experience with what you asked but neither does anybody else here. I was just considering the scenario you proposed and applying logic to predict an outcome. I wasn't trying to offend you and I'm sorry that I did. Your plan genuinely seemed overly complicated to me. I think, but I can't state as a fact, you would run into problems after the first few orders because you'd be using different cards and addresses every time.

It's not very hard to get a merchant account. It would be illegal to apply for one with "stealth" info since you would be dealing directly with a financial institution, but there would be no need to use false info.

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Depends on what you're selling. :P

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Why invoice yourself to process other people CC's? Just send those invocies to your customer(s) and have them pay directly. That's not rocket science. Taking other people payment info over the phone or other insecure channel is likely to be problematic.

Get a merchant account unless as BaggaDonuts mentioned above, you are selling something they don't like.

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Also be aware that PP doesn't offer Seller Protection if you use Virtual Terminal.

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Paypal detecting other IPs with guest checkout raises flags.

Our group had an issue when we tried this. Account went down

:rip:

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Thank you. I knew someone would have to have tried it....

For some reason, either my customers don't like PP or something, but, as mentioned earlier, if I'm lucky I get 50% of my PP invoices paid.....Better than nothing but maybe it's rocket science to get the other half to pay up.

And merchant accounts, sure, kind of harder to get them when you are on the MATCH/TMF list, maybe that's rocket science, too.

Anyway, whatever..........

Re: Invoice yourself to process cards?
 

Guest PayPal checkout can have problems.

I totally concede some may have tried and been OK.

We have tried over numerous accounts.

Our success rate was not high enough to consider playing with it as a method.

Like you, bryonius maximums (fantastic name btw), we want quick and easy methods to get our funds. No need for dramas from Queen PayPal.
:typing: