A Guide to the Maze of Online Payments

ONLINE METHODS OF PAYMENT: SAFE OR RISKY?

For all those people who want to purchase through an online shop, there are lots of methods of payment  available especially for them. However, how many of them can we really trust completely? Which method of payment should we prefer and which should we totally avoid? Why do some shops accept a method of payment that others don’t use?

Having owned and managed online shops for a long time, you can be sure that we have gained great experience on how, when and in which way to pay for your goods purchased in an online shop. Actually, two main factors have given us especial insight into this area and they are the following:

– unfortunately (or fortunately 🙂 ) more than once we have been in the position of changing the methods of payment that we accept here at Gleni; with some of them we have felt at confident while with others we have had some very bad experiences. We are still looking for the perfect method of payment that is both user-friendly and secure for our customers and, at the same time, able to protect us, the sellers.
– very often we also make our own purchases online, too, and this has given us the opportunity of evaluating the convenience or difficulty of the very same methods of payment that we too use in our shops.

In this article we will list only the 10 most commonly used methods of payment, while, in future articles, we will give you more detailed information about each of them, discussing with you  the positive and negative aspects of them all. We will point out the SECURITY issues related to these methods of payment, the issue of  their EXECUTION SPEED, TRACEABILITY and CONVENIENCE, both on the side of the buyer and of the seller. We will tell you which methods, in our opinion, are not recommended because they are unsafe or belong to unreliable shops (the “fly-by-night” retailers which can immediately disappear without leaving any trace).

So, follow our next articles and we will look together, in more detail, at which methods of payment are to be considered more secure and which are absolutely not recommended. It’s well known that on the internet you can find anything you need in a very short time, but then you’re always afraid of paying for the goods and receiving nothing in exchange, or of bumping into unscrupulous people who, with fake methods of payment, take possession of your personal data or that of your credit card for absolutely illegal purposes.

Should you find an interesting item you really want to buy while surfing the net, how could you pay for it? Which are the most accepted methods of payment by online shops?

1. Payment with CREDIT CARD

1.1   Payment with credit card directly on the online shop server.

1.2   Payment with credit card on the secure bank server, where payment will be remitted once the order is confirmed.

1.3   Payment with credit card remitted on “third party” systems, which offer the payment service to the shop, serving as a liaison between the store and the bank.

1.4   The credit card’s data are given to the seller who will later enter the customer’s data onto the   payment platform. Customer’s personal data and credit card data can be given to the seller: a) by phone; b) by e-mail; c) via the seller’s website.

2.      Using electronic money

2.1   Without needing to buy electronic money. The buyer can directly proceed with the payment using his own credit card.

2.2   It’s necessary to open an online account and purchase electronic money required for the payment, and then proceed with the payment using the electronic money (virtual money).

3.      Wire Transfer.

4.      Payment by CASH, when it’s possible to.

5.      COD – Collect/Cash on Delivery (it might seem the safest method of payment of all, even though, as we will see in the next articles, it is not).

6.      Payment by recharging the seller’s credit card.

7.      Money Transfer of the Western Union kind.

8.      Payment by CHEQUE.

9.      Riba banking – meaning payment through bank receipt.

10.   Payment with periodic Installments.

Here above, we have listed only few of the most commonly used methods of payment that, as we have already said, we are going to discuss more accurately in our next articles. However, we can tell you in advance that not all these methods are safe, in fact, some of them should be completely avoided.

In our following articles from time to time, we are going to study in depth and analyze with you each of the above mentioned methods of payment, reflecting together on their subtlest implications, on their positive and negative aspects, to give you more opportunities to understand how they all work, allowing you to choose the payment method you consider the safest and most appropriate.