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Payment gateways & Breakuphelpline !

This is Ankit Anubhav here. I founded a website called www.breakuphelpline.com. It is a website that helps people get over their exes by speaking to to an unkown person who is ready to listen to your problem and give you an honest opinion on it. 

How did i stumble upon this idea ? Well unless we have a problem, we dont have a solution.Had a heart break and took it too seriously and happy to run a forum where people with an heart ache can be helped. 

We have had a dream run in the past with getting covered all across on the media but sadly there is huge disconnect between the people who appreciate the idea and the ones who help you implement it and make it a business. 

After launching www.breakuphelpline.com , a year later after consolidating we thought of revamping the site and adding a payment gateway so that it is easier for customers to transact. Beacuse our’s is a online counselling service and selling an intangible product people do take time to transact. Till now we have been operating by asking people to transfer money to our account via NEFT. So we thought lets speak to a few and get it sorted. But its been nine months and we are still struggling to get a payment gateway. Below is our story on what a roller-coaster ride we have been going through. 

My first meeting was with Times Money whose executives had no clue as what they were talking about. They kept on reassuring me that we are on board and after 4 months of mail exchanges they stopped taking our calls. 

Learning a lesson from this episode i kept all the documents and queries ready generally asked by payment gateways. 

Next i meet someone from PayU, absolutely enthusiastic and says in the first meeting that you are on board as you have submitted all documents as required. Two days later i get a call from him and he says he is sorry but we can’t be on board as the compliances team has rejected our claim. I call up the compliance team, a stern sounding lady picks up and says “Your business is not profitable and you cannot be on board”. I tried telling her how the business runs and she said we cannot give an answer to it. 

One of my friends suggested CC avenue, India’s largest payment gateway. Once you drop in a mail to them they call you and verify the details asking every nook and bit about your company. And then ask you to mail the same to them. I mailed them the same information 7 times as every time a new customer executive would ask me about the information. Then they finally say that online counselling is not a tangible product so we cannot have you on board.

This was an experience of a lifetime so i decided to approach the banks directly for the details. HDFC bank, India’s largest payment gateway provider loved the idea but says thay you have to meet three requirements ” 1) Company to be operational for more than 2 yrs. 2) Annual Turnover of more than 50 lakhs 3) Else pay a deposit of 4 lakhs and get the payment gateway”

Its kinda bizarre when India Inc talks so big about letting people start their own businesses but unless you support them how would we progress to the 50 lakh barrier for instance.

For all those who might think that we are pushing an arrow into the dark. We have been covered on almost every notable newspaper and magazine. Non of our customers have ever put up a complaint online and 100% customer satisfaction. But ya that doesn’t matter, there are rules and till the banks don’t create a window for allowing a service like this we are stuck in a black hole. 

So do intangible products like ours gets a thumbsup from the Indian banks in future or not is a big question as in the west this is a booming business model. 

To give you a background about the company – 

A heartbreak is always hard, no matter how many times you have one, or how careful you are and stay aloof.  You can pretend to the world that you are ok but inside, you know, you are terrible. And in such terrible times, would you go offline and do something to take your mind off? Breakuphelpline will hear you out, not once, not twice but as long as you need them to. “Our experts will listen to you and advice you on how to move on without being bitter!” – yourstory.in

It would be great if we can be helped on this and paypal doesnt make sense for indian sellers. 

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33 Comments

  1. ankit,

    pls check this post out and share your link or comment on that thread. cc revenues is on that thread and everyone else who can give you some sound advice is there as well…

    https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/need-help-regarding-payment-gateway-that-accepts-marketplace

  2. Ankit, Drop me a note on nameet.potnis@sellmojo.com.

    Will introduce you to a couple of gateways and can “try” and get you a gateway 🙂

  3. thank you 🙂

    Would try and share our post on the thread too. 

  4. Sure and thank you for being supportive. 

  5. Hey Ankit,

    We use many of these many of the payment gateways, I can tell you most of them are too fussy initially about the documentation, nature of business etc., but once you are on board they are pretty ok. I see you missed out EBS, you can try your luck there, you’ve also missed out Bill Desk (from what I know they ask for more documentation than anybody else)

    My suggestion is don’t let these become a barrier, start with paypal (a lot of people do pay) and then look for these INR merchants. 

    Good Luck!

  6. Hey Ankit,

    Did you try ICICI? Its better I guess.

  7. You can try Flipkart’s payment gateway

    https://www.payzippy.com/merchants

  8. Try http://www.payzippy.com – They are the new kid on the block from Flipkart and since they come from an online pedigree instead of a banking one, they might be more likely to get it 

  9. Hi Ankit

    1. Intangibles raise the spectre of chargebacks, hence these are usually not accepted by banks especially in India. examples for the same could be vastu consulting and astro-prediction services. A user could always chargeback the transaction claiming that your advice did not work for him.

    2. Ideal method is to start off with accepting payments through netbanking. In this case, most private banks and some public sector banks wash their hands off after the transaction and make it clear to the customer to deal with merchant directly.

    Message me your contact details and I can refer you to some gateways willing to take a risk.

  10. Hi Suraj, 

    Thank you for replying. Well havnt listed on this list as they outrightly rejected our claims so not much of an hasle with them. 

    We initially did embed paypal but an indian account cannot pay an indian merchant and lot of money lost on the conversions. So still trying our luck with other providers. 

    Thx

  11. Hi Anoop,

    Its all the same, the ICICI executive hasnt even responded to our mails or calls after the first initial call. 

  12. Hi Swateek, 

    Well i got to tell you this. As all major banks hold out the gateways and flipkar’s pay zippy is associated with HDFC and HDFC wdnt allow us. So a big dud for us. 

  13. Hi Ankit,

    You can try non bank entity ‘ItzCash’ prepaid card payment method. Their cards serve the young and non banked people who do not have financial statements but heartbreaks.

    Thanks

  14. Hi Amit, 

    Would mail Sampad the details. Thank you so much for your help. 

  15. Hi Ankit,

    Try “Tech Process Payment Gateway” (Techprocess.co.in). They only have Net Banking System, I have used it for one of my client. It might help you.

  16. Ankit,

    You may talk to Mukesh Mehta @ SecurePayhub on +91 9870209250 . 

  17. Expanding on my answer on Twitter. We found our idea of crowdfunding for design at a Startup Weekend. We got 3 designers excited enough to be part of us from Day 0. We worked non-stop for 4 months to get our MVP done (we are a 2 person team and have day jobs), having done that I started approaching payment gateways. I had worked with multiple international payment gateways in the past because of my work and freelancing gigs and to was smooth. I went through almost all payment gateways in India. Major ones atleast. All of them rejected us as crowdfunding is “risky” and the banks have negatively rated by acquiring banks. I thought crowdfunding is a new phenomena for India but our banks are already aware of it, so much aware that they have even rated it, negatively! We didn’t apply to bank’s payment gateways because we are bootstrapping, and plan to keep it that way ;), and the upfront capital demanded was a no go. We also believe in the “lean startup” and such costs doesn’t work with our ideology. Finally one fine day, one EBS sales guy, pushed to get his monthly targets, accepted us. That was the luckiest I have ever got :D. Later he said he wouldn’t be able to take us because we were crowdfunding. I wrote to the founder of EBS. He was very helpful and everything was fixed. 🙂 Though I don’t like their product’s UX, they were the only people who were helpful, especially the founder. He got everyone working in one day. Now we are in the process of integrating and will launch soon. PayTM also offered their services but they couldn’t provide a international option hence we couldn’t go with them. They wanted to have us but the solution didn’t work for us. Only these 2 were startup friendly in my experience.

    Hope this helps.

  18. Hi Ankit,
    Is he a direct executive?
    That is pathetic! Please send a mail to that executive keeping chanda.kochhar@icicibank.com and write your concern

    Your work will be done within two days of time. She earned my respect! Once ICICI took their own sweet time to process my credit card. I wrote mail, following which there was a person undersigned for my grievance and I had a executive in my office with a boquet of flowers.

  19. Pls try flipkart’s new payment gateway payzippy. I think they have launched.

  20. HI Ankur

    Please try.. http://www.zipcash.in it might help you.

  21. Ankit,

    I read your post and the comments and all that people have done is suggested one payment gateway or the other!! But no one really understands the point!

    Let me clear this for you: Indian Payment Gateways are ‘hand-tied’ because the ultimate approval lies with the bank’s risk approval team. In most ocassions (99%), they WILL reject it because this does not involve physical delivery. This is a FLAW which has not been corrected till date with our pathetic Indian banks whose sole risk taking ability ends with just physical deliveries becase they will earn only 1-2% margins from the entire transactions and dont want to take any risks for chargebacks!

    Believe me, we have been there, done that for our start-up! Everyone will ask you to send the documents, no one will revert back.

    If there is anything which will work for you and you will get an instant approval – talk to Mobikwik Wallet (Zaakpay). They can bail you out since they have a wallet system and the dont need bank approvals for this. You pay to Mobikwik and they have all CC / DC / Net Banking options. Their TDRs are also competitive.

    Else, opt for 2checkout which is only for CC and can accept Indian credit cards.

    Hope this helps!

    Regards,

    Ravi Mittal

  22. Ravi,

    IMO, its the payment gateway’s responsibility to convince the banks. Why else do they take the charge, esp. the setup costs? I don’t think they can justify the costs as tech costs. A new server is not allotted to a new customer. 😉

    An online business is a business first solving provides real world problems through technology viz. Internet. By saying that the Bank is not willing, they are letting the customer down. There is no way that we can go directly and convince the banks. So, being our representatives they have to champion us.

    Work with an international gateway, notice the difference and delight. :). Watch founders fight for you and reply to your support tickets.

    As for wallet options, they don’t give good conversions because of the “wallet” process. Online, we just wanna pay and dash! 🙂

    Its time we started sticking up for our rights!

  23. Hi try emvantage.com….Start up itself and probably understand the start up concerns better then the established players…If you cant get thru message me ..I will give you its CEO’s number….

  24. Hi Ankur, 

    I hope your problems were sorted out. I have been using HDFC and just found out about a lot of other options that others have recommended. However, that isn’t why I am writing. I saw your website, and want to honestly share: IT IS AWESOME 🙂 …. Good job Man ! 

    Break up quotient? Not even sure what that means….

    And I read the “Common First Date Mistakes” : I think some of them are very VERY Extreme Man….but I liked the overall presentation….Good Work !

    Thanks, Jatin

  25. Hello Ppl, 

    Thx a ton for all your support and suggestions. After we posted our problem on the forum there were a lot of payment gatways running to have us on board. 

    Once again on behalf of Breakuphelpline a big thank you to all. 

    Cheers !

  26. Ankit,

    Please let me know here on this page if anyone approves your business as merchant. Would be glad to know.

  27. CC Avenue 🙂

  28. Already approved or just submitted?

  29. Already approved my friend !

  30. Told You that!!!

    Congratulations!! 🙂 Cheers!

  31. Hello Ankit,

    If you can share how were to able to get CC Avenue(the one of the toughest to get one for selling other than products. ) confirm it would be of great help. 

    We are facing a similar issue, We are buiding a Marketplace where Services are sold and due to chargeback concern’s  its hard to get one.

    Thanks

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