Pro Bono offer to set up online credit card account

[snowboarder]

Did a website for a nonprofit and the client received a pro bono offer to have credit card access set up on the site so donations can be made online. I'm skeptical. Not only that it's free but as to the safety as well.

Any comments, thoughts, knowledge gained through personal experience that anyone is willing to share would be appreciated.

This is the site that made the offer pro bono offer: http://www.suntoria.com/

[stymiee]

I'd be very skeptical. There are costs to processing credit cards and I can't imagine they'd eat that cost out of the kindness of their hearts. I did find pricing on their website. Seems like they have a free setup and then charge you for the processing. Their rates are not very good. A true merchant account and gateway will serve you just as well and save you money, too.

[Chris]

I can see it happening if it is a real nonprofit and can provide the business forms so that they can write off the expense.

[masm50]

The site doesn't even load for me - not something I would expect from a company that would have control over my customers/donators credit card information.

Just my 2p,

Tim

[snowboarder]

This advice from a friend that I e-mailed that I'd like to share:

"I have a little experience working with outfits like this. Their offering their services for free but what they get out of it is the personal information that users enter to complete the online transaction. Most will sell the email, phone, and address that they collect. Their security is probably decent with SSH at a minimum.

So the big question is; Is Suntoria's privacy policy acceptable to the client. If the client already sells private information, then it's probably not a big deal. I would suspect that Suntoria sells-out every person that does a transaction with them."

Caveat Emptor, for sure.

[dab70]

Well, it doesn't look like they have that "pro bono" offer available any more. They have a setup fee of $150 for their Donate Online service and charge a monthly fee - http://www.suntoria.com/donateonline.jsp