Belen Echandia has a new payments system. This is because new regulations came into force to protect both customers from personal credit card fraud on October 1st. The Financial Services Authority now requires additional checks before certain payments can be made.

We can all blame the fraudsters!

We were told that the new payment system would be easy and seamless, unfortunately it is proving to be neither for customers in the United States. At present it is likely that for the first transaction you make with a credit card, it will be caught in the fraud trap, just by virtue of being in the USA. All transactions carried out since October 1st have been subject to this problem and we are not singling you out.

What is very frustrating is that we can no longer manually release this, it has to be done by our payment provider and can take up to 24 hours.

This is not our policy but the policy of the established banks and we are fighting as hard as we can against it.

For now I just wanted to let you know about this, to apologise in advance and to say that I will be back with further instructions for minimising any problems as soon as I have a solution.

The good news is that once a transaction has been made, no further problems are expected, you can store your credit card details for future use to save time and, hopefully, your cards will be safer from fraud than they have ever been before.

I hope you're all having a lovely day.

Jackie XOX

jackie would it not be better to set up paypal payments?

Paying via Paypal would be fabulous!

there are probably more fees involved for BE using paypal , but yes I agree it would be easiest..

Thanks for letting us know. We have the same problem here in Germany, too.

I know paypal would be easier for me.

Paypal would be easier, I agree. I have had headaches from my bank when trying to buy from BE direct.

I agree paypal would be much easier. While they charge fees, it is the cost of doing business, imo. We all pay the fees anytime we take payments for ebay/bonanzle sales.

I get a headache everytime I have to deal with my bank on these foreign transactions and the transaction fees add up.

I had suggested this on Jackie's facebook page and she said it wouldn't help. I don't know why. I too, would love to use Paypal.

We might be able to add Paypal *as well* in the future. It's on our list of things to do.

It's not so much about the cost as about the integration - Paypal is a huge machine, they are not easy to work with. We used Paypal in the past, but there are so many things that cannot be done with Paypal from our developer's POV. It is owned by Ebay, hence it is easy for Ebay to implement.

That said, we might be able to add it as well as our current provider but it would cost more money for the customer.

But it does seem that Paypal is commonly used in the US market.

Thanks for all the suggestions ladies!

XXO

As an aside, in the meanwhile anyone who wants to pay with Paypal may do so. We have always offered this as a payment option, although we have to do it manually so we don't publicise the fact.

We need to add 2% to the transaction and it's more fiddly but just email us and we'll adjust the stock manually for you.

For now the purchase will not show up in your account on our website and the tracking will also have to be sent manually but it can be done.

BE XX

Good to know Jackie. You're so easy to work with.

That is good to know. I think in the past I was charged around a 3-4% transaction fee from my regular bank account.