[pmwiki-users] Using PmWiki for eCommerce

[kirpi at kirpi.it]

>  6. Credit Card Authorization

Do not fancy of handling credit card yourself: this is not possible.
Even storing credit cards data into your server would be a bad idea.[1]

As far as my own experience goes, the best way to handle credit cards
is relying on banks or big organizations servers: you simply gather
your variables (name, amount, whatever) and pass them through
specialized https servers which handle the whole thing for you.
At the end they pass you back an ok/ko variable and make your customer
land back to your own site.
All transactions are tracked, with no effort.
Virtually any big bank offers such services for the web. Plus a lot of
others, starting from Paypal.
Most often their pages can be easily customized to resemble (or at
least recall) your own pages.

I used a bank for several years, and have no complains: things went
smooth, you just had to collect money.
You just pay a small flat fee for the service plus a tiny amount each
transaction.
No other hassle.

As far as the tecnical things are concerned, this may change from
service to service: you'd better enquiry some banks in your area.
Nothing difficult, anyway.


Luigi

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[1]http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/09/02/the-large-small-definitely-happened-breach-at-best-western/