Hi all. I was asked to create a Web site for an orphanage project. They would like to be able to accept donations/contributions for the project, via credit card or snail mail. The last one is easy, but how do I go about adding the credit card feature? What are the steps into setting this up? Where do I start? Thanks in advance!
I was in a similar place and decided that ultimately we would not (yet) take credit card numbers over the web. We direct people to phone our office with their number, or fax it in.
Accepting credit card information is not trivial, and is fraught with liability and security issues -- you do not want the banks or credit card companies breathing down your neck because someone found a security breach in your website. Your options are:
1. Use PayPal or some other third party service (e.g. Google Checkout)
2. Get an online merchant account (monthly charges will apply) and use well-established "shopping cart" applications that hook up with it
3. Direct users to send CC# info by mail, phone, or fax
4. Set up your website to use SSL for secure transmission of the data to your server. Then encrypt the data using something like GPG before saving or sending the data to your registrar/secretary, who will un-encrypt the data before accessing it.
DO NOT use a simple "mailto" script.
I am looking at option #4 seriously, but will need to experiment before we go live with such a system.
