Payment Method Decision Matrix

[RAIST]

lol.. "nerdrage"

There is an extra little gotcha' I don't think a lot of people have thought about with using C&B. It's injecting an extra point of failure/manipulation in the process to continue automatic billing on the credit card. If all goes well, no problem..but when something breaks down there may be considerably more finger-pointing:

for issues in the POL system, you looked at SE/POL, their CC processor, your financial institution as the processor was regionally based.

now with C&B, it's SE, C&B and their screwy policies, their CC processor, your financial institution and (possibly) their international transfer policies.

Just saying...there is more to be considered then the question of letting SE passing off my CC info to THEIR firm in CA to pay my bill through a US CC processor or using someone else to do the same thing. It's a question of passing my CC info off to another company in London that is going to pass it off to a CC processor in Europe to process my payment and then how will my bank respond to this foreign entity asking for money to pay a bill. For some, that endpoint response has been |Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.|

Edit:
The more I think about it, if SE does extend direct pay to the rest of us, they may in fact opt to do it thorugh JCB if they can. This would still allow them to still script a lof of stuff locally and keep their transactions isolated locally.

Otherwise, they would need to setup the VPN's to the regional CC processors (hardware for stability), or otherwise do a tiered process where they slingshot their regional offices through their existing secure links and let them run the charges and sling it back to JP. The latter might inject a bit of a delay in the process they may not like.

If it all boils down to them making arrangements with JCB, we might wind up with some of the typical fees involved with international commerce (transaction fee or currency exchange rates/fees, etc.). But even so, it may be the lesser of the evils for some--especially those that cannot play at all because of what's happening.