How to Avoid Getting Double Charged Using PayPal

By Andreas Sandin

This is a common problem that seem to occur often. Many people ask me this question and until recently I had no good answer. Why does web hosting accounts get charged twice?

When an order is made, or a recurring service is being billed, an invoice is sent to the client with payment details. An invoice could be a simple e-mail instructing the client to pay funds to the hosts PayPal account via the PayPal interface, or a payment button on an invoice which links directly to the PayPal page.

When the client makes the payment, the host automatically (or manually, depending on whether or not a billing system is used) register the payment and the service is extended to the new due date.



So this seems clear, what can go wrong with this? Well, there are three parties involved.

1: The host, which sends the invoice, waits for and register payment, thus extending the service.

2: The client, which receives the invoice and makes the payment.

3: PayPal, who transfers the payed amount from the payer (the client) to the receiver (the host), and then, if the host has this set up, send payment notification to the host.

Note that the host cannot charge or bill the client. The PayPal system doesn't work this way. It is always the client who initiates payment.

In the above scenerio, it is quite possible that the host simply does not check its PayPal balance, thus never knowing that the payment is received. But this does not result in double charge. Remember the host cannot in any way draw funds from the clients PayPal account. The host may very well send invoice reminders, and suspend accounts in worst case.

So when does the problems start?

The big problem is the PayPal subscription feature. The subscription feature was created for people that makes regular PayPal payments to other people or companies. Perfectly suited for recurring amounts, such as web hosting. The PayPal subscription is also initiated by the client, not the host, and it can only be canceled by the client. With some billing systems, the host can not even see that a PayPal subscription is in place, nor see the date on which the next payment will be received.

Whenever a payment is made with PayPal, the payer is given a subscription choice. If a subscription is created, PayPal will transfer the amount every month on the date that the initial payment was made. Some hosts provide two PayPal buttons on the invoice or e-mail, one for the normal PayPal payment, and one for the PayPal subscription option.

In the PayPal subscription scenario, it is PayPal who transfers the funds according to the payers wishes. The host is only receiving the funds.

So now we have two parties responsible for transferring payments. The client making PayPal payments manually, or PayPal making the payments regurlarly according to the clients wishes.

With PayPal subscriptions, the invoice gets obsolete. The sum is always the same every time, and PayPal transfers it to the host without interaction from the client. But again, the host may not know that the client uses a PayPal subscription to pay the invoice. Some hosts suspend sites pretty quickly on non-payment, and reminds the client a few days prior to the due date that it is time to pay the bill.

The client receives the invoice reminders, thinking that its overdue, or forgetting about the PayPal subscription, and pays it. A few days later, PayPal makes the transfer according the the subscription, and thus the host is payed twice.

This has been the case in 4 out of 5 times when someone has approached me with this problem. It's not the host who charges the client twice, its the client who pays the host twice.

There is another feature that complicates things even more. Remember that the PayPal subscription payments are made automatically every month on the same date that the initial payment was done? Then consider what happens if the initial payment was made overdue.


Source: Ezine Articles

5 Proven Tips to Reach a Niche Business Audience

market 1 (Photo credit: tim caynes)

Marketing to consumers with one broad brushstroke may still make sense for major brands, but for a niche business, the best way to a customer’s heart is through a more targeted approach. “The key to marketing to niche audiences is getting to know them and building relationships with them,” says Bill Corbett Jr., president of Corbett Public Relations in Floral Park, N.Y. Here are five niche marketing tips for reaching a select market segment affordably:

Time to Make Money on eBay Again

GREAT news from eBay!

It looks like they’re finally clearing the way for small-to-medium-sized sellers to make money again. FYI, here’s a quick rundown of the changes they’ve just announced.
Starting in September you’ll get better exposure in eBay’s search results AND get a 20% reduction in fees if:

• you’re selling $3000.00 a year with 100+ sales
• you don’t get 1 and 2 ratings on the Detailed Seller Ratings
• you maintain a 4.6 or higher DSR average

You’ll also be rewarded if your listings have a high conversion rate — in other words your listings may not get a lot of views, but they consistently sell your items. Good news for sellers who take time to write a good title and item description; bad news for the giant Diamond sellers that don’t bother because they’ve got so much inventory!

Our eBay Mentoring Team are really excited about these changes. They say the just-introduced Top-Rated Seller designation is “realistic and achievable” for people who follow our system and use our strategies.

Coincidentally, we’ve just released the brand-new, online version of our Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay course. It’ll cover all these changes (the big advantage of being online instead of in a book) and any new ones eBay comes up with.

So if you’ve been frustrated with eBay lately, NOW IT’S A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME!

After a couple of years of making it harder and harder to make money, it looks like eBay is rewarding the sellers who made it such a powerhouse in the first place.

What do you think? Is this what you’ve been waiting to see on eBay?

Source: InternetMarketing

Email Marketing for Dummies - 5 Tips for Getting Started

by Lyndi Lawson

In some ways, Email Marketing can be considered the founding father of eMarketing (that’s why I have now written two sets of tips on getting it right). In the good old days, before spam was illegal, before people started caring about piffling things like privacy and permission based marketing, it was easy. There were three steps: buy a database, throw together a directly self promotional message and email it to 100 000 people and then wait for a response.

Oh, how things have changed. These days, successful eMarketers do things differently, and in an ideal world, evil spammers like the notorious Reginald Tsktsk are thrown into an eternal hell of internetlessness.

Email workers

You must carefully consider any communication you send to someone's inbox.

Fortunately, there’s more to email marketing than spam and if you’re just starting out, here are some guidelines to keep in mind.

1. Plan Strategically

Like most things in life, you need to know what you’re trying to achieve before you actually achieve it. The more impulsive among us might be tempted to jump right in and send that first mail, but without clearly defined goals, you’re unlikely to benefit from it in any way at all. In fact, it may actually do more damage to your future endeavours than good.

Start by deciding on some broad goals. Are you trying to ensure that your customers are in regular contact with your brand? Or are you trying to promote a specific campaign? Generally, knowing what you hope to achieve with your mails is a good starting point. Are you hoping to encourage your readers to buy something, download something or simply get in touch with you for further information? Making these decisions will narrow down the scope of your campaign and should guide the process going forward.

2. Test, Test, Test

Planning your campaign around your goals isn’t really enough. You need to test your emails before you send them. The reasons for this are twofold. In part, testing is important because you need to ensure that your mails will bypass the spam filters. Filters like this are in place to ensure that I don’t have to read about buying generic Viagra on a Monday morning. They can however be tricky to navigate for any email sent to a large database. The other crucial reason to test your emails is compatibility. Consider the large number of browsers and email clients that are used – theoretically it’s possible that while your mail may look fantabulous when sent to gmail, it might resemble something that my dog threw up when viewed in Outlook. You need to check this in advance to prevent looking like a tool.

3. Get Your Emails White Listed and Improve Your Reputation Score

According to eMarketing: the essential guide to online marketing (the source of all reliable eMarketing information :) ) an email white list is “the list of contacts that a user deems are acceptable to receive email from and should not be sent to the trash folder.” There are a number of ways to do this, one of which is to give specific instructions in your newsletter that explains to your users how to white list your emails. This benefits the user, because they won’t miss important mails. It also benefits you, for obvious reasons.

Reputation score determines whether or not your email is regarded as spam. Reputation score is generally determined by the ISPs, so in order to arrive in a user’s inbox, your message needs to meet their standards. Tips for doing this include allowing for users to unsubscribe, maintaining your database and removing addresses that result in hard bounces. Also make use of sender authentication standards like sender ID.

4. Integrate Your Campaign With Other eMarketing Channels

I know it's something that I (and indeed all of us, quirky QuirkStars) say a lot but; a holistic approach to eMarketing is crucial to your success. Using a whole lot of tactics, without a unifying strategy and integrated goals is fruitless. Whenever you’re starting something new, decide where it fits into your overall strategy and ensure that your marketing and overall business goals are aligned. This will ultimately ensure your success.

5. Learn From Your Experiences

I know that I have rabbitted on about planning and goal setting bla bla bla - and while this is super duper important – often the only way to learn is by doing. While I am in no way advocating a rash approach to your campaign, it is beneficial to sit back and reflect after each send, particularly the early ones. To quote my favourite textbook once again, “tracking, analysing and optimising is key to growth.” After your send, look at the stats and analyse the results. This information will ensure that you reach your audience effectively, achieve the goals you set for yourself and don’t get yourself labelled an evil spammer like our good friend Reginald Tsktsk.

Source: gottAquirk