I have a buyer that accidentally selected Interac, but they want to pay with Stripe. Is there a way he can change it without cancelling the order and starting again?
@momtomany If you can get the buyers details you can send a payment request trough Stripe, after payment you can change the status of the order to 'payment received'.
@Lawrence Yes, one can create a 'customer' from withing Stripe and send a payment request, but, such procedure is based on the buyers e-mail (another reason why sellers should be able to see a buyers original e-mail) and the buyers credit card number. The seller should then still ask for a CC number and expiration date to be able to charge it. As the seller wouldn't know the controlcode number the procedure is safe. It's intended for recurrent charges, but I don't see why one wouldn't be able to use the method for 1 shot payments, as the amount that is charged is selectable and one can create a single payment request as well. The customer can be deleted from Stripe afterwards. I haven't tested such, but it's worth exploring.
sidenote, Stripe has test options and test Credit cards, when switched to 'view test data' (button becomes orange) one can test such things witout being in live mode. https://stripe.com/docs/testing#cards
@Lawrence I made a live test with my wifes creditcard and email and it went instantly and flawless; I just created a customer on stripe, entered email and added the card. Need to correct myself on the controlcode, it is required when adding the CC to the customer. I then made a charge, that went instant (no confirmation required from buyer) , in my wifes e-mail box we received a mail from Stripe stating an amount had been charged, I went looking in our CC montly reports and the amount showed up as well. I then refunded (for obvious reasons) on Stripe, it generated another mail from Stripe telling us a refund was made. The refund itself doesn't show up in our CC overview, but that's normal, as refunds can take up to 10 days to show up. So the method works, the only incoveniance is that the buyer must provide his controlcode, which might cause a few 'trust' issues... The CC details can not be edited and remain hidden once entered, only the expiration date can be updated.
I made a second test by replacing my wifes email on Stripe by her BO's encrypted e-mail, made another charge and got another email in her inbox telling us a charge was made. It doesn't show up yet in our CC charges, but that might simply be a refreshing thing. At first sight it should therefor also work correctly with BO's encrypted emails, the amount was added to my Stripe Balance. I'll wait a couple of days before refunding it, that way I'll know how these charges/refunds show up on our monthly overview.
Second charge now shows up in CC overview. Went on with exploring and testing: A charge is even possible without using the buyers e-mail (so technicly no need to create a customer). An instant charge can be generated from the 'payments' page on Stripe, it has a '+New' button, a screen opens and one can enter all details in it: Amount, CC, expiration date and CVC(control code) description (= order number for example) and statement desc (=reference on CC monthly statement > Storename for example). Little difference with the 'customer' method: the page says 'create payment', while with the 'customers' method it says 'charge customer', so the wording is a little confusing on the 'direct' method, I prefer the 'charge customer' wording (I'll address it with Stripe, they are very communicative).
My personal observation over the 'direct' method: NOT DONE. As the buyers email isn't stored on Stripe, the buyer is NOT informed by mail a charge was made, neither on the amount. The only way for the buyer to find out is to check his/her Credit Card monthly statement, personally I can do that online, and I did so the past 2 hours to keep track of what I was doing and what was happening with every action I did, but it's not like I'm checking this daily, that's what monthly statements are for. If the buyer is not informed by mail, it also means he/she is in the blue over the amount of 'charges' and the 'value'. Offcourse there might be CC's sending this information themselves, dunno about that.
So if a sellers wants to 'operate' correctly and have their customer informed about the charge, using the 'customer' method is the most 'service minded' one, particulary as the customer needs to have a lot of trust in handing over his/her credit card details to the seller, not sure many will...
The safest method would be for Stripe to send a 'confirm this charge' email to the buyer, at least the buyer has control then to accept or decline the charge > If I have some time next week I'll address this with Stripes Service team.
Thank you for researching that, definitely interesting, but we wouldn't be recommending that stores use that, as stores should certainly not be asking customers for their credit card details directly.
@Lawrence I agree it's not something to be promoted/used on frequent bases (with the current Stripe options), but at least it does offer a way out on those rare situations where a buyer selected the wrong payment method. Personally I don't see anything wrong with it, as long the buyer is fully informed of the possible consequences . Buyers can then choose between 2 lesser goods: Cancel of the order and restart, or trust in the seller they are dealing with. Even if they choose the latter, they are still protected as they can claim unauthorised use of CC, a seller abusing it would simply be punishing him/herself, as every 'dispute' on Stripe leads to a minimum charged fee of $15/€15 on top of the full refund if seller looses the dispute. Stripe is IMHO also much safer in regards to the registration / confirmation of sellers, I doubt there are many 'scam sellers' using Stripe for that reason, Paypal is IMHO much lesser safe in those regards. Besides, if a service like Stripe 'offers' these options, it probably means they consider this quite save as well, otherwise they probably wouldn't even have the options to start with ;-)
Sidenote: Paypal can also be used to trigger a CC payment, the difference is that the buyer needs to select he/she is paying from creditcard and then needs to enter the CC details him/herself > seller needs to send a PP payment request to the buyers e-mail. So far this is a much better/safer option if buyers wants to pay straight from CC and doesn't want to hand over CC details to a seller.
@RobErNat if details were obtained over the phone, it wouldn't necessarily cause security issues. However obtaining credit card details through the messaging system or email would be highly irresponsible and violate PCI compliance as those details would be held and transmitted in plain text.
@lawrence Thanks for informing and insight, I forgot indeed emails can be hacked if either party has less security on the e-mailing system. I also had no idea it would be a PCI violation, but you clearly have a point there. It is something I'll address with Stripe when I contact them about the current options as clearly it should be improved, I'm curious to find out what their 'idea' behind those options are, as indeed 'how to provide' such details to begin with if there a possibly security issues when providing them, besides over the phone, then again, someone might be listening :-D
Comments
https://stripe.com/docs/testing#cards
I just created a customer on stripe, entered email and added the card. Need to correct myself on the controlcode, it is required when adding the CC to the customer. I then made a charge, that went instant (no confirmation required from buyer) , in my wifes e-mail box we received a mail from Stripe stating an amount had been charged, I went looking in our CC montly reports and the amount showed up as well. I then refunded (for obvious reasons) on Stripe, it generated another mail from Stripe telling us a refund was made. The refund itself doesn't show up in our CC overview, but that's normal, as refunds can take up to 10 days to show up. So the method works, the only incoveniance is that the buyer must provide his controlcode, which might cause a few 'trust' issues... The CC details can not be edited and remain hidden once entered, only the expiration date can be updated.
I'll wait a couple of days before refunding it, that way I'll know how these charges/refunds show up on our monthly overview.
Went on with exploring and testing: A charge is even possible without using the buyers e-mail (so technicly no need to create a customer). An instant charge can be generated from the 'payments' page on Stripe, it has a '+New' button, a screen opens and one can enter all details in it: Amount, CC, expiration date and CVC(control code) description (= order number for example) and statement desc (=reference on CC monthly statement > Storename for example).
Little difference with the 'customer' method: the page says 'create payment', while with the 'customers' method it says 'charge customer', so the wording is a little confusing on the 'direct' method, I prefer the 'charge customer' wording (I'll address it with Stripe, they are very communicative).
My personal observation over the 'direct' method: NOT DONE. As the buyers email isn't stored on Stripe, the buyer is NOT informed by mail a charge was made, neither on the amount. The only way for the buyer to find out is to check his/her Credit Card monthly statement, personally I can do that online, and I did so the past 2 hours to keep track of what I was doing and what was happening with every action I did, but it's not like I'm checking this daily, that's what monthly statements are for. If the buyer is not informed by mail, it also means he/she is in the blue over the amount of 'charges' and the 'value'. Offcourse there might be CC's sending this information themselves, dunno about that.
So if a sellers wants to 'operate' correctly and have their customer informed about the charge, using the 'customer' method is the most 'service minded' one, particulary as the customer needs to have a lot of trust in handing over his/her credit card details to the seller, not sure many will...
The safest method would be for Stripe to send a 'confirm this charge' email to the buyer, at least the buyer has control then to accept or decline the charge > If I have some time next week I'll address this with Stripes Service team.
cheers, Eric
Personally I don't see anything wrong with it, as long the buyer is fully informed of the possible consequences . Buyers can then choose between 2 lesser goods: Cancel of the order and restart, or trust in the seller they are dealing with.
Even if they choose the latter, they are still protected as they can claim unauthorised use of CC, a seller abusing it would simply be punishing him/herself, as every 'dispute' on Stripe leads to a minimum charged fee of $15/€15 on top of the full refund if seller looses the dispute. Stripe is IMHO also much safer in regards to the registration / confirmation of sellers, I doubt there are many 'scam sellers' using Stripe for that reason, Paypal is IMHO much lesser safe in those regards.
Besides, if a service like Stripe 'offers' these options, it probably means they consider this quite save as well, otherwise they probably wouldn't even have the options to start with ;-)
Sidenote: Paypal can also be used to trigger a CC payment, the difference is that the buyer needs to select he/she is paying from creditcard and then needs to enter the CC details him/herself > seller needs to send a PP payment request to the buyers e-mail. So far this is a much better/safer option if buyers wants to pay straight from CC and doesn't want to hand over CC details to a seller.