Managing a WorldPay account

[Business Brian]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pretty close to regretting ever signing up for WorldPay.
   
   The reason I signed up with them was two-fold:
   
   1. At the time, it was the only sure method of taking UK debit card payments online for general users
   2. It has a reliable reputation
   
 Of course, just after I signed up, PayPal started offering payment options with UK debit cards, but I doubt I would feel safe with a Paypal only payment method, as I've seen too many issues with the service recorded on various forums.
   
 However, although WorldPay were very eager to sell me a package when I phoned them up, the person I spoke to made absolutely no attempt to explain what *I* would need to do to ensure I had an active account.
   
 In fact, as a very general - and I would consider this a major complaint - I was given absolutely no idea of how the account would run and work.
   
 For starters, no one told me that WorldPay was *only* a credit card gateway - and that this was *not* in the least bit going to be integrated into my website without my coding for it.
   
 The trouble is, I had no experience with coding forms, as was required, so I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Luckily, I was able to speak to a rather helpful woman in the technical support dept who modified the code on an example for me. I was then able to use this as a template for my different products.
   
 However, the next problem is that of not having any idea of how the account will function. For example, how do I know when I have received an order?
   
 WorldPay explain precious little on their website - their "knowledge base" is desperately bureaucratic, explains little, and is badly organised (their staff sent me a link to get card logos from -> I had to actually click through 3 pages that simply told me I required card logos, before I was actually presented with a page that had copies of the card logos to copy for my site!).
   
 Overall, what I absolutely required was a simple and easy to understand brochure of some sort explaining in simple terms how to set up, and what to expect when I set up.
   
   I'm told by one of their support that they used to offer these, but stopped doing so - no doubt for profit saving purposes.
   
 Anyway, after deciding I needed to completely redesign and restructure my britecorp site to sell services, rather than provide information, I finally applied for activation last week.
   
   Just before 4pm on Thursday I received an e-mail telling me my website was fine and that I could now remove test mode.
   
 At 10:30am the following day I received an e-mail telling me that there were multiple problems - the first being that I had an incorrect card logo (no one ever told me what I could use). The second problem was that I hadn't removed test mode, and that if I didn't do this within 5 days then my account would be suspended!
   
 Maybe I seem a bit thick to some people - maybe I'm missing something obvious - but for an account with a £400+ setup fee I was sort of expecting a little more for my money. An easy user-guide, for starters, and maybe a little more friendly and supportive help - not threats to cut my account off because I spent the vening watching England play in Euro 2004, rather than rushing to complete my WorldPay account.
   
 Anyway, the account should be completely cleared beginning next week for manual review of orders, and then I should *finally* be able to start taking orders (and hopefully figure out how to actually administrate the account in the meantime.)
   
 Overall, though, I'm not finding the service friendly or helpful, but it remains to be seen over the longer-term as to whether I've actually burned my money or not. For the moment I'm not at all comfortable, but I;ll reserve my judgement for the moment.

[revsorg]

We implemented Worldpay for a major client.  I was never exactly blown away by the whole experience, and once we had put the system in place we never really got to the point where we weren't handholding the client, even though it is ostensibly a pretty straightforward process.  Despite the fact that it looks amateurish you have to admit that Paypal has some advantages in terms of ease of use.

[Owen]

We used to use Worldpay.  Quite a solid system but with real drawbacks:
 
1- The setup costs and annual fees are very overpriced by todays standards.
2- We had to wait 4 weeks after an on-line payment to actually get it (This does depend on circumstances but is the case for the majority)
3- We had an account suspended for being 12 pence in the red after Worldpay overpaid our remittance.  They didn't even notify us it was suspended or why. They did rectify the problem immediately once we complained.
 
Personally, I can't understand why anybody would want to use Worldpay when their are much cheaper alternatives out there.  OK, not everybody likes to use Paypal but there are also 31 million people who do have Paypal accounts! There are other options such as Nochex (a UK Paypal type equivalent) and various other US gateways such as Paysystems. I actually believe Paypal have got there act together now (You do not need to sign up to become a Paypal member to make a purchase and they also take UK debit cards).

[JamesSmith]

Ah WorldPay, such fun we have had with them.
 
 I shall begin ..
 
 Been with them for 17 months.  After having to pay one heck of a large setup fee, we also purchased the FuturePay option to make it easier for us to manage monthly / quarterly payments.  As Brian says very little useful information on how to actually integrate the system.  Eventually found a friend who had experience with it all.
 
 The actual payment page cannot be integrated into your own web site, has to go to a WorldPay URL, not much ability to modify this template to look like your own web site.  You can set it up so your order form passes information such as address, name etc to the WorldPay page.
 
 Anyway .. After being with WorldPay for 6 months, we asked them to reduce our remittance, they did so by one week to 3 weeks.  A further 6 months past, we asked again, they reduced it to 2 weeks.  At the same time we were considering becoming a Limited Company and VAT registered.  This we did.  Our bank then insisted as we had changed legal identity we needed to open a new account.  We then told WorldPay of the changes, along with the fact we are now a Limited Company and VAT registered.  WorldPay then insisted we opened a new account with them (Same reasons as the bank), we would also need to pay the setup fees again, with a 50% discount on one of the setup fee's.  This came to about £375, 1 week after we had just renewed the WorldPay account for another year (This has never been refunded, doubt it will be, even though the first account was closed 2 weeks after the new one opened).
 
 So the new account is created, I ask them to transfer our FuturePay agreements, at this particular time there were almost 600 active agreements.  They refused.  Almost cried at this point - Can you imagine having to contact every customer with a FuturePay agreement asking them to re-signup!?!?  Several e-mails later, and a phone call, they eventually said yes we can do it, fill out this form to confirm it.  Why couldn’t they of said this in the first place?
 
 After all that I thought phew, it’s now over.  Not quite .. I asked them to set the account remittance back to 2 weeks on the new account.  They refuse, stating their T&C said they cannot do this unless you have been trading for x amount of time, or with WorldPay for 6 months.  Yes it is a new account, and yes in theory at the time of signing up for the new WorldPay account (Insisted upon by them) the Limited company had only been trading for 2 months.  But we had been "Trading As" since our beginning, some 18 months with an excellent trading history before using WorldPay and when using WorldPay.  I was astonished by this decision.  But they did compromise, they will review the situation after 3 months, rather than the usual 6, to reduce it by a week.  It is now at 3 weeks, in another month we will be able to have it back to 2 weeks.
 
 On top of all this their transaction charges are insanely high, the setup fees are also very high for what you get.  You are not told when the account is setup what cards you accept.  For weeks I was trying to find out whether or not we can accept VISA Electron, one support guy said we could, but had no answer when I said 14 separate people with Electron cards have tried to order, but all have been unable to.  He then passed it onto someone else who said we cannot accept VISA Electron.
 
 About a month ago they did a test order, looking for the WorldPay and Card logos on our site, which they say has to be displayed.  Received an e-mail stating they couldn’t find the logos.  Replied back pointing out the logos, oh they said.  Are their staff monkies?  I think so.
 
 If you e-mail their support, you will receive one reply per day, only once have I had 2 replies in the same day to my queries.  Phone them whenever possible.
 
 Their Customer Management Portal is often offline and inaccessible, rarely do you get a reason why.  They only introduced a status page during the large DDoS attacks a few months ago.
 
 There are alternatives .. EPDQ, which is Barclays system.  Protx.com are also supposed to be good, and also cheap.  But there are questions over their previous business, which went bust offering a merchant service.
 
 In short, don’t use WorldPay, they are a nightmare.  Only reason why we don’t change is due to the FuturePay agreements, just to many to make a change worthwhile.

[peterjhale]

I echo all of this.
 
 I also have an 8 week pay date :mad:
 
 I have futurepay - but it doesnt integrate with 1shoppingcart so I had to write all the integration myself.
 
 Then I went to the integration module to change the payment email receipt details (OK, all online) did a test purchase and the changes were not in the email.
 
 Emailed suppport ............ (waiting 2 days)............ oh sorry, no that function doesnt work yet :rolleyes:
 
 I wish it were easier and cheaper
 
 Typical UK bank I suppose (money, money money)

[Business Brian]

Crikey - that's some experience, James!  It's pretty incredible that a company with WorldPay's charges should offer you such poor support.
 
 If I didn't say so originally, the reason I went with WorldPay is because I wanted to be able to take Debit Cards online - WorldPay was the only accessible option for donig that.
 
 Of course, just after I stumped up the original £400+ I found out that PayPal now took Debit Cards such as Switch...
 
 PayPal also have a much lower transaction fee than WorldPay - the 4.5% on the Junior Select is more than a little high.
 
 Still, I finally have the WorldPay account up and running, and run some orders through - seems fine. Only problem now is that I am not allowed to refund a test order I ran through the live account until the remittance comes through ni a few weeks.
 
 Overall, I'll WorldPay a chance - but I'm very tempted to believe that PayPal may have been the better option from the off. Registered for my PayPal account last night, by the way, and now just need to verify it.

[escort]

Hello all,

Just browsing around and came across ths forum and thread, felt I had to answer so registered.
 
Anyway, we set up a small e shop in november last year and started off with paypal (no set up costs- why else).  Business just trickiling in (which it was expected to do as this was only really a hobby site). Then we added nochex, business inceased a little.
 
We had lots of people who wouldn't buy from the site because they wouldn't sign up with a paypal account ( I know its OK, but others don't and it can be a hassle)
 
Decided to bite the bullet and invest in worldpay (£100 set up and £160 annual fee)
 
Sales trebled instantly. No hassles weith people saying they can't remember paypal password, don't want to sey up an account etc.
 
Best thing we ever did. OK so you have to wait 4 weeks for payment that's quicker than sending out invoices and chasing late payments.  as to the high 4.5% charges etc.  At least half the customers use switch/debit cards which is aflat rate of 56pence.  Not a bad rat of .5% on £100 purchase.   Overall the processing fees have worked out lower than paypals.
 
 
(By the way I don't work for them:) )
 
Just my thoughts.
 
Regards
 
K

[Business Brian]

Hi escort, and welcome to business-talk.
 
 It's certainly a very valid point you make on offering different payment gateways - I certainly would never pay via PayPal before, firstly because of a perception of having to mess about creating a user account first, rather than simply paying - but also because they never used to process UK debit cards - as with 2Checkout and others - which was a real pain when buying from the net. When chasing up shared hosting I used to have to stipulate the host needed a WorldPay account - then I knew I could pay by Switch. Nowadays, though, paying via PayPal is very simple, and debit cards are accepted. Which reminds myself, just got to verify my PayPal account, then set it up with a couple of new projects in the making.