At last! A virtual credit card for South Africans with No monthly subscription nor other fees!

Wow, wow, wow, wow, EasyPay has come up with the payment solution that I have been waiting for for a very long time.  I’ve always been nervous about exposing my real credit card’s full credit to the “wild” of the Internet.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to create a virtual card that has a limited amount of money on it – then the card’s numbers become useless to fraudsters?
Well, that’s what EasyPay’s product called VCpay™ can do for you (seems like it was launched on 15 November 2011)– and what sweetens the deal even more is that there is no monthly subscription and no other charges.  In fact they even give you a cashback reward of 0.5% per transaction.  That’s not a whole lot of cash, but it’s better than nothing!


From the EasyPay web site:
“
VCpay™ is a mobile phone application (BlackBerry only for now), that allows you to create, on demand, a unique virtual credit card that is intrinsically linked to the transaction you are effecting or intending to effect.  This means that only you can create such a virtual card for an amount you specify in an off line manner using your mobile phone anywhere and anytime.
Update May 2013: Blackberry, Android and iPhone supported now :) :  List of phones


VCpay™ works off-line and it is therefore not reliant on mobile network coverage or its reliability, signal strength or availability.

As a result, VCpay™ provides you with 100% guaranteed service delivery and eliminates the frustration and embarrassment we have all experienced when our traditional card products fail to work due the failure of communication networks and/or the non-receipt of confirmation SMS messages from our issuing banks.

VCpay™ works off line and thus does not expose your account information or your identity, so it is impossible for your personal and financial information to be compromised, intercepted, phished or hacked – making VCpay™ the most secure, simplest and fastest way to pay.
”

 

It can be used in PrePaid or PostPaid mode, and funds can be transferred into your VCpay account in 3 ways: 1) EasyPay locations, 2) EasyPay kiosks, 3) EFTs. 
See here for more details:  https://www.vcpay.co.za/depositFUNDS.aspx
(HTT note: I notice that you can’t charge the VCpay amount to your real credit card… so, all those loyalty miles etc. from your real credit card will be lost - at the expense of peace of mind through more security – but you will get 0.5% cashback ;) )  Although their terms and conditions clause 6.3 hints that this might be possible for a fee – later?)
HTT note: When adding the VCpay beneficiary to my FNB account it picked it up as a pre-loaded “Public Recipient: Net1 Applied Technologies“

You can then create a virtual card on demand using the cell phone app and then use the Virtual cards on the Internet anywhere a MasterCard "card not present" transaction is accepted, such as the majority of websites, telephone orders or purchases and/or bookings for airline tickets, rental cars or concert tickets.

Both Prepaid and Postpaid Virtual Cards are accepted on the EasyPay website for any product.  This includes prepaid airtime, prepaid electricity and bill payments to over 400 institutions, such as municipalities (e.g. rates and taxes), traffic fines, SABC TV Licences, retailers, doctors, insurance companies, school fees, etc. 

See here for more information on how the system works and info on the 2 registration steps (download the app,then Link the VCpay™ app to an EasyPay Wallet): https://www.vcpay.co.za/Default.aspx
HTT Note: when the BB app asks you for your “EP Wallet PIN” then that’s where you enter your login password that you use for the easypay.co.za web site.
HTT Note: I tried to link my EasyPay wallet to the VCpay account but the app hung…. “linking to wallet”.  I then closed the app and when I restarted the app I logged in using my VCpay password and it seemed to be working :)

I transferred a small amount of Rands (just to try it out) from FNB to my EasyPay wallet and it arrived in about 10 minutes :)
and I could then start creating my virtual credit card on my cell phone!:I then had to enter my VCpay password but got an error creating the Virtual Credit Card :(
Update on Wed4Jan: I unlinked my wallet then linked it again and the Virtual Credit Card (with *very* low limit, valid until May 2015) was created.  I used it to pay one of my online bills and it worked perfectly. Well done EasyPay for an awesome product that I will most definitely use for my (now safe) online shopping.
You can also see a list of virtual cards that you have already created and the ones that are used up:


For more info on how to download the BB app [980KB]: https://www.vcpay.co.za/downloadAPP.aspx or just go to http://vcpay.mobi to download the app.

Here’s a list of currently supported BB devices:
Blackberry OS5 or greater 8900 | 8910 | 8980 | 9000 | 9350 | 9360 | 9370 | 9630 | 9650 | 9700 | 9780 | 9788 | 9790 | 8300 | 8310 | 8320 | 8330 | 8330m | 8350i | 8520 | 8530 | 8800 | 8820 | 8830 | 8830m | 9300 | 9330 | 9800 | 9900 | 9930 | 9981
Blackberry OS4
8900 | 8910 | 8980 | 9000 | 9350 | 9360 | 9370 | 9630 | 9650 | 9700 | 9780 | 9788 | 8300 | 8310 | 8320 | 8330 | 8330m | 8350i | 8520 | 8530 | 8800 | 8820 | 8830 | 8830m | 9300 | 9330

When 1st running the app you need to accept the terms and conditions… I have pasted them below for all you legal eagles to peruse… Interesting are clauses 5.1 (risks) and 6.3 (fees if linked to a credit card… but I didn’t see that option ):

”
VCPAY TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE   Last updated 09/11/2011
Please ensure that you have read, understood and are happy with the terms and conditions governing the use of the VCpay mobile application before acceptance as acceptance constitutes a legally binding agreement between yourself and EasyPay.

1. PARTIES AND DEFINITIONS
1.1. “Application” or “App” means “VCpay”.
1.2. “EasyPay” means EasyPay (Pty) Ltd registration number 1983/008/597/07 hereafter referred to as “we”, “us” or EasyPay.
1.3. “EP Wallet” refers to a virtual wallet into which prepaid value funds can be placed to facilitate web or mobi based transactions at some future date.
1.4 “I, “you” and “yourself” refer to the client.
1.5 “VCpay” is a virtual credit card application that allows to create once of virtual credit card number for one transaction for an exact value and is brought to you by EasyPay.

2. AUTHORITY
2.1. By downloading and using the VCpay application, I authorize EasyPay to transact on my behalf in accordance with instructions I have given to them.
2.2. The creation of a virtual credit card coupled with the use of such a card will be deemed to be an instruction by me to EasyPay to transact on my behalf.
2.3. I hereby confirm and accept that EasyPay will not be liable for any loss or damage of whatsoever nature that I may suffer as a result of creating a virtual card for an incorrect amount and/or for the selection of an incorrect beneficiary.

3. CHANGES AND UPDATES TO TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3.1. Any material changes to the terms and conditions of use will be communicated to you via e-mail, SMS or updates on the VCpay website, continued use of the application after such changes have been communicated will be deemed to be an unconditional acceptance of the updated terms and conditions.
3.2. You agree to ensure that your details will be kept up to date in order to be enable us to communicate any changes to you timeously.
3.3. As Easypay is required by law to communicate changes and updates to the terms and conditions of use to you, any communication in this regard will not be subject to any opt out clause you may have exercised either through EasyPay or through a third party database.
3.4. Further, you agree that EasyPay will not be held liable for any loss or damage of whatsoever nature, except to the extent permitted by law, which may arise due to your failure to update your information.

4. SECURITY
4.1. You agree that it remains your responsibility to ensure that the PIN you have selected will be kept safe and is not disclosed to anyone in order to minimise the risk of fraudulent transactions.

5. RISK AND LIABILITY
5.1. NOT WITHSTANDING ANY OTHER CLAUSE IN THIS AGREEMENT TO THE CONTRARY, EASYPAY MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND IN RELATION TO THE VCPAY APPLICATION AND CONSEQUENTLY WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF WHATSOEVER NATURE SUFFERED AS A RESULT OF USING THE APPLICATION EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS THE LOSS OR DAMAGE AROSE DUE TO EASYPAY’S GROSS NEGLIGENCE OR MISCONDUCT.
5.2. YOU ACCEPT THAT THE USE OF THE APPLICATION IS AT YOUR OWN RISK EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS THE EXEMPTION IN 5.1 APPLIES.
5.3. EASYPAY ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF WHATSOEVER NATURE THAT IS LINKED TO THE SERVICE PROVIDED TO YOU BY YOUR NETWORK OPERATOR.
5.4. EASYPAY ACCEPTS NO LIABILITY FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF WHATSOEVER NATURE SUFFERED DUE TO ANY MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE OF THIRD PARTY SYSTEMS OR COMMUNICATION DEVICES.
5.5. EASYPAY ACCEPTS NO LIABILITY FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF WHATSOEVER NATURE SUFFERED DUE TO THE SERVICE BEING UNAVAILABLE FOR USE.

6. PRICING,FEES AND CHARGES
6.1. EasyPay levies no charges for downloading of the VCpay mobile application; however such download may be subject to fees levied by your network operator.
6.2. No fees are charged for the generation of virtual credit cards through the application.
6.3. You may only link your EP Wallet or your Credit Card to the application; if the application has been linked to a Credit Card, processing of transactions will be subject to either a fee per transaction or a monthly fee with unlimited transactions, you can choose the option most suitable for you at signup. 6.4. The ‘per transaction” option ensures that fees are charged upon the completion of every VCpay transaction.
6.5. The “monthly fee” option means that you will be charged a fixed fee every month, regardless of how many VCpay transactions you complete in that month.
6.6. If the application has been linked to an EP wallet, no service charges will be levied. 6.7. In order to effect security checks, during signup EasyPay will deduct a small charge from your linked account, due to security reasons this fee cannot be disclosed upfront however it will not exceed R5.00 (Five South African Rands).
6.8. The amount mentioned in 6.7 above will be reserved for your first VCpay transaction.

7. TERMINATION OF THE SERVICE
7.1. EasyPay reserves the right to cancel your usage of the service at anytime, without prior written notification if you have violated any of the terms and conditions of this agreement or in the event that we reasonably suspect that you have used the service to commit fraud/have engaged in fraudulent conduct with the use of the service.
7.2. EasyPay may, at its sole discretion and without prior notice to any user, permanently terminate or withdraw the service, in whole or in part.
7.3. EasyPay may, at its sole discretion and without prior notice to any user, temporarily suspend, in whole or in part; the use of the application in order to perform any maintenance or repair work or for any other reason that requires the temporary suspension of the service.
7.4. Should you no longer wish to make use of the VCpay application, you can simply delete the application from your mobile device.
7.5. Notwithstanding the termination of the service, you will remain liable for any transactions requested and/or processed prior to such cancellation.
” 

Update on 27 May 2013: Here is some pricing info that the VCpay team sent me in response to a comment received from Guillaume:

EP Wallet: Free

You can deposit funds at the following participating EasyPay merchants, however, an EP bill number would be required for this option – VCpay application once downloaded onto your cellphone handset will supply the EP bill number linked to your EP wallet– the funds will only reflect into the your EP wallet once the below retailers settle their devices – this will depend on when these retailers settle +- 48 hours

• Pick 'n Pay supermarkets, hypermarkets, family stores and selected mini markets nationwide
• Shoprite, Checkers and Checkers Hyper stores nationwide
• Lewis Stores nationwide
• Lifestyle Living nationwide
• Best Electric nationwide
• Foodworld stores in the Western Cape
• Saveworld stores in the Western Cape
• Elite Cash 'n Carry in the Western Cape
• Selected Score Stores
• Selected Boxer supermarkets
• Selected Spar outlets

Virtual credit card:

Credit card usage:

            Monthly Fee:                R 7.95               [Charged Once per Month]

            Transaction Fee:           R 2.95               [Charged per transaction that the client performs]

Configuring ZenCart and PayPal: Error 10413 solved

Now that PayPal is coming to South Africa, I figured that I’d upgrade my ZenCart site to connect to PayPal’s express checkout. 
I enabled ZenCart’s “PayPal Express Checkout” payment module and started configuring the parameters.
Oops, I needed to enter some API credentials – so I followed the instructions on how to get those.
I upgraded my PayPal account to “Premier” level so that I could accept payments and get an ‘API username’ and ‘API Password’ and ‘Signature’, and pointed it to “Sandbox” mode.
Sandbox mode? – yup, mmm… that should have got me thinking – but it didn’t. 

I then (naively) tried to process a transaction from my ZenCart using my real PayPal logins and got the following error “10002 Security error - Security header is not valid”.  That gave me further clues that I couldn’t use my real PayPal logins and API settings and use the “Sandbox” mode.  I needed to create new dummy accounts and logins and APIs on the sandbox.PayPal server.

So, I registered as a developer on the https://developer.paypal.com/ site and downloaded the “PayPal_Sandbox_UserGuide” and a few clicks later I was creating the sandbox parameters and users that I could use to test my shopping cart.  I created a few users with different accounts, in different parts of the world, with lots of money so that they could purchase to their hearts’ content.



Then I got to the difficult part. I thought that it would be easy to go from the shopping cart to PayPal and process the payments – BUT, it wasn’t – sometimes the purchases went through fine – others it didn’t.  I didn’t realise that the small transactions worked fine – but not the ones over R1,000.  I kept on getting the error “10413 Transaction refused because of an invalid argument. See additional error messages for details. - The totals of the cart item amounts do not match order amounts.”  I Goggle’d a bit – but nothing really helped, until I found this posting by Levi Senft: “ZenCart and PayPal: 10413 Transaction refused because of an invalid argument. Solved!”.  The posting explains how the comma separator is the cause of the problems, as well as a fix.

I modified the paypalwpp.php file as directed and voila – it was solved.  No more error 10413 (that was really starting to haunt me!)

I’m looking forward to many transactions facilitated by PayPal in South Africa.

Update 07April2010:
I’m not sure why, but I started getting the 10413 error again.  Perhaps I didn’t test the above solution thoroughly enough.  I Google’d some more and found this solution by “gmail”: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpost.php?p=675592&postcount=62:
That seemed to work first time – but beware it’s not thoroughly tested.  You can download the modified paypalwpp.php file to save you some typing:  It INcludes both fixes described above  paypalwpp.php

If this still doesn’t help you – then look at the log files: /includes/modules/payment/paypal/logs (ensure that the folder is writable (ie: chmod 777))

I then had problems when shipping charges were included….
The same problem as “Zubey” had here.
Whenever tax was added to on either products or shipping. If tax is removed from both it all works fine.

[ITEMAMT] => 0.20
[AMT] => 0.20
[SHIPPINGAMT] => 0.00 **** when this = 0
[TAXAMT] => 0.00 & this = 0, all works fine ****
[L_NUMBER0] =>
[L_QTY0] => 1
[L_NAME0] => TEST Product No.2 $0.20
[L_AMT0] => 0.20

A bit more searching found me this article:
From http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpost.php?p=531979&postcount=7
and I changed these settings and it worked:
Config->My Store-> Basis of Product Tax=Shipping and Basis of Shipping Tax=Shipping
and in Module->Shipping (for each shipping module set): Tax Basis = Store

I hope this is the last time I say that “it’s working” and it isn’t!

Payment gateways for web sites in South Africa

This article is about the pains and difficulties that I’ve experienced in trying to integrate ZenCart with a (credit Card) payment gateway in South Africa.  There has been a lot of talk about which shopping cart software to use (ZenCart, VirtueMart, osCommerce, Comersus, CubeCart, WHMCS, WP eCommerce, UberCart).  I’ve decided to use ZenCart and VirtueMart – mainly because I’ve needed them integrated into a Content Management System (CMS) – but that’s another story.



The criteria for choosing a payment gateway were (in order of priority):
* Based in South Africa
* easy (or cheap, off-the-shelf) integration with ZenCart
* low or zero monthly charges
* no charges until the site went into production
* competitive commissions on credit card transactions
* competitive per transaction fees

Our e-commerce site was going to be a low volume site to start with – so the monthly costs were the scary part and I was on the lookout for a zero monthly fee gateway…

When designing my e-Commerce site, I Google’d around and saw that there seemed to be a working, off-the-shelf integration module for ZenCart-and-NetCash and some reviews saying that it was a relatively easy integration.

The MacGeek site had a discussion “Payment gateways for websites in South Africa – a crowdsourcing experiment” that brought together some frustrated developers trying to find the best services. 
There was also a ZenCart plugin to NetCash for R100 and others – but that site and software is no longer available (or didn’t work?).  Various people complained that although the plugin processed the payment, it did not record the payment or the order in the order page in the ZenCart admin page, it did not send an email detailing the order to the administrator or the client, so a payment is made without knowledge of the administrator. VERY frustrating.

PayPal is an option – especially with FNB’s announcement that it would be representing PayPal in South Africa – but when?  For now – I looked around and here’s what I found:

 
The http://ecommerce-guide.co.za/ has very useful information and this is where I think I started smiling :)
The article “New developments on the super merchant front and announcement of PayPal launch in SA” lists a few options: PayFast: offering credit card payment facility and a PayFast voucher system to their existing instant EFT and Ukash payment options and also offer free payment modules – see below for links to download them for free!  

Setcom have separated and rebranded their services and their super merchant service is now called MonsterPay. Setcom is now solely the credit card payment gateway service for online retailers with bank merchant accounts, and SID (or Secure Instant Deposit) is their web-based instant EFT service.


 


PayFast have free payment modules (click to download them) for ZenCart 1.3.8a, VirtueMart 1.1.3, VirtueMart 1.0.15,  osCommerce 2.2, CubeCart 4.3.0, CubeCart 3.0.18, WHMCS 4.1.2, WP eCommerce 3.7.5.
I must say, PayFast have HTT’s endorsement for a very well thought out web site – very informative and I had my ZenCart integrated with PayFast’s payment gateway in less than 2 hours!  Free driver, well written “Integration Guide” with test logins and passwords available on the web site – wonderful!  (Hat-tip to the technical team @ PayFast).  Oh, and their driver worked flawlessly – with a gr8 ZenCart install package.  This is the only driver that HTT actually installed and tested – no need to look any further – unless one of the other vendors would like me to do that for them?
Rates are very good too – with no monthly fee, no setup fee.  Just a transaction fee (R2) and competitive commission (4.9%). Excl. VAT.


Mygate have free payment modules (click to download them) for OsCommerce, Joomla with VirtueMart Version 1.0.12, Joomla with VirtueMart Version 1.5.3, Cube Cart, Cube Cart version 4, ZenCart, Comersus



Setcom have free payment modules for OsCommerce module and ZenCart module.
BUT, fees: there’s a monthly fee (R250), setup fee (R250).



PayGate have free payment modules: OSCommerce,  ZenCart, VirtueMart, Drupal Ubercart, CS-Cart
Pricing is provided on request (after filling out a form – WTF!)

NetCash: As mentioned above, this is where I started my journey – thinking that there was a cheap (R100) plugin for NetCash and ZenCart – but, when I tried it, I was horribly disappointed.  I landed up wasting a few long frustrating nights doubting my ZenCart (and php) skills.  The plugin processed the payment, BUT it did not record the payment nor the order in the order page in the ZenCart admin page, and it did not send an email detailing the order to the administrator or the client, so a payment is made without knowledge of the administrator. VERY frustrating.  It was then that I started looking for another driver and came across these other free payment modules.  The other vendors have woken up to the need to make integration to their gateways a painless (and seamless) exercise. 
NetCash – here’s some constructive advice: best you wake up and provide drivers similar to the quality of PayFast - else I doubt whether you’ll get very many eCommerce sites connecting up.
Fees: R160 monthly fee (only kicks in after your first real transaction); R1.00 per transaction; Commission on Credit Card transactions 5.0%


 
Moneybookers: Also has free integration modules.  See here for the list
Fees are very low too: 2.9%: Merchant fees  and other rates
No monthly fees, no setup charges.