I heard about WePay through general articles on the internet and decided to give them a shot. Although I have standard credit card processing and PayPal they looked like they had a unique product in that I could send my clients an invoice which could be paid immediately.
I've run my business for over five years and have not run into any issues with billing my clients or accepting credit card payments.
Not so with WePay. This is another company where everyone is guilty before being proven innocent. I emailed an invoice to a new client for $500.00. Per their terms of service, it should have cleared within 1 to 3 business days. Right off the bat this puts them at less risk than PayPal which makes the funds available instantly. It puts them more on keel with a standard processing service.
After five days with the transaction pending I logged into my account only to find a simple "pending" status. No further information was given. They did at least provide their number if I wanted to discuss the pending transaction.
Their customer service rep informed me that my payment was being held due to verification. They needed to get in contact, by phone, with my client so he could verify the transaction. This was not mentioned on the pending status. If it was, I at least would have dealt with the issue earlier.
Now, I don't even know where to start. First of all, this puts my business is a very poor light. My clients might think something is wrong with my company. As everyone knows, you never have to call up a payment processor after you purchase a product or service. It's highly odd. If your client doesn't respond, your money is held.
So, now it's up to you as the merchant to get in direct contact with your client, demean yourself and say; "Listen, you need to call WePay to verify that you wanted to pay me." But what if I can't a hold of my client? What if they're on vacation? What if it's a large company and they don't get back to WePay for weeks? Your money is held. This also means it's held while your client may be expecting your product or service.
Their customer service rep said this happens for only when I send a bill to a new client; Meaning that, once this particular client verified the transaction, they would not have to verify again. This model doesn't work, however, for any person or business that's sending requests for money to new clients all the time. Everything would end up needing to be verified.
If you choose to use WePay, fine. My money was eventually released after my client called to verify. However, please realize that as you use their service to bill people or request money, the person or company paying will need to call WePay to confirm. Very poor experience. Again, everyone is guilty before until proven innocent.
Likely, WePay's side of it is the old tired excuse that they have to protect themselves from fraud. But you cannot do what will giving new users a poor experience. It's a bit like a restaurant putting the bill on your table before you get the food with this excuse; "We need to protect ourselves from people who eat and leave without paying."
Although that's not a good WePay analogy, this one is: Its like an owner of a small restaurant choosing to use WePay to invoice vendors, but all of their money is held while WePay has to get in phone contact with every vendor.
0 comments