one more reason not to use Google checkout or PayPal<\/p>\n
A Google Checkout Glitch Raises Doubts About Alternative Payments<\/p>\n
(September 15, 2009) Google Inc. has apparently fixed a weeks-old problem with its Google Checkout online-payments system that prevented merchants from processing recurring transactions, such as subscription fees. While Google says the little-publicized glitch affected only a small number of merchants, other observers say this and outages experienced by other alternative payment services\u2014such as PayPal Inc.\u2014raise questions about their reliability in comparison to traditional card processors.<\/p>\n
The fix for Google Checkout apparently went live Tuesday morning, according to an online forum hosted by the payment service. The forum displays posts from merchants reporting the issue dating back to Aug. 17. In response to questions from Digital Transactions News, a Google spokesperson would not disclose how many merchants were affected by the outage. \u201cI can say it\u2019s a small number,\u201d she says in an e-mail message.<\/p>\n
The problem affected what the spokesperson calls \u201cGoogle-handled\u201d recurring payments, or those that have been set up by the merchant to be processed automatically, for example, on a monthly basis. So-called merchant-handled payments, or those the merchant manually enters each time they recur, were not affected, the spokesperson says. She did not address questions regarding the cause of the glitch or why it took so long for Google engineers to fix it. Nor, apparently, can affected merchants get answers from Google\u2019s automated service feature. \u201cI\u2019ve heard nothing from Google,\u201d Katie Braband, sales director at Datto Inc., a Wilton, Conn.-based company that markets data-backup services through resellers, tells Digital Transactions News. Her travails, along with the first account of the problem with Google Checkout\u2019s recurring-payments service, came to light last week in a story posted by Cnet, a high-tech information service.<\/p>\n
This is the second time in as many months that a service outage has caused problems for merchants using online payments services offered by so-called alternative players. Early in August, the failure of an unidentified piece of network hardware at PayPal interfered for several hours with the ability to send or receive payments worldwide (Digital Transactions News, Aug. 4). The glitch at Google Checkout also comes as the payments service is looking to extend itself into promising new markets, such as micropayments (Digital Transactions News, Sept. 10).<\/p>\n
\u201cThis obviously hurts Google\u2019s credibility as a payment provider, and strengthens the claim of established companies like CyberSource, RBS WorldPay, Chase Paymentech, First Data, and others that small merchants should pay the extra money to go with them, because part of what you are buying with that money is reliability and customer service,\u201d says Aaron McPherson, practice director for financial services at IDC Financial Insights, a Framingham, Mass.-based consulting firm, in an e-mail message. Google Checkout\u2019s rates for payment processing were notably lower than for services like PayPal\u2019s until this spring, when the service increased its pricing and did away with a long-standing policy of offering free processing to users of Google\u2019s Adwords service.<\/p>\n
Braband, who says Datto first noticed on Sept. 2 that its subscription fees weren\u2019t processing, would not say how much these amounts come to on average. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about substantial payments each month,\u201d she says. She says a reserve requirement Google Checkout had imposed on the company had already spurred it to develop an in-house payments gateway, which it plans to begin using by the end of the month. The recurring-payments glitch, she says, was \u201cicing on the cake\u201d for Datto in making up its mind to move away from Google Checkout.<\/p>\n
Recurring payments are a relatively new service for 3-year-old Checkout, which introduced the feature only in March as a \u201cbeta\u201d product, says the Google spokesperson. But the service may not have received the same engineering resources as other Google products. \u201cPayments is not a core business for Google, and does not appear to get the same level of attention as some of the other services,\u201d McPherson notes.<\/p>\n
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\nBill Hoidas
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\nProduct Development Manager
\nMatrix Payment Systems
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\nSon, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.<\/p>\n
These days we are facing an economic crisis and need to prepare ourselves more effectively for the recovery – to discover opportunities, identify potential partners looking for opportunities, looking for a reason to hope. Now it’s a good idea to ask: how could my product\/service provide opportunities in today’s economic climate? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
one more reason not to use Google checkout or PayPal A Google Checkout Glitch Raises Doubts About Alternative Payments (September 15, 2009) Google Inc. has apparently fixed a weeks-old problem with its Google Checkout online-payments system that prevented merchants from processing recurring transactions, such as subscription fees. While Google says the little-publicized glitch affected only … Continue reading A Google Checkout Glitch Raises Doubts About Alternative Payments<\/span>