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Yeah, no kidding. I ended up with a merchant account with fusty old FirstData out of the ordeal. I look at FirstData and their portal, www.mymerchantoffice.com,

by whit537 14y ago

Yeah, no kidding. I ended up with a merchant account with fusty old FirstData out of the ordeal. I look at FirstData and their portal, www.mymerchantoffice.com, in a whole new light now. It may suck, but I can expect it to suck consistently for years to come. It also feels now like I should be vaulting cards with multiple vendors to avoid a single point of failure. As mentioned I went with Stripe, who are similarly green. I'm in the process of moving my merchant account over to Braintree. Also looking at WePay and Dwolla. Who else?

polyfractal 14y ago
Braintree is pretty great, I like working with their API and customer service (always ready and willing to talk on the phone, which is great). Avoid Authorize.Net like the plague. Horrifically bad XML API that will make you want to claw your eyes out.
- jmathai 14y ago
  But it'll be a horrifically bad XML API for years and years :)
  - chrismckee 14y ago
    You should try WorldPay if your looking for shit but consistent. WorldPay will be around for ever, as will their dog-rough "web service" written by someone who hates the web and where verification tokens are optional. Checkout this FAB API http://www.worldpay.com/support/kb/bg/recurringpayments/rpfp.html#rpfp8009.html http://www.worldpay.com/support/kb/bg/recurringpayments/rpfp...
    - jmathai 14y ago
      That's not really much worse than Authorize.net. Don't get me wrong. I hate Authorize.net and don't plan on using them for anything in the future. I'd rather refactor code than write comma separated string code once knowing it will work forever.
- tzs 14y ago
  Where is there XML in Authorize.Net's API? Here's how you charge a card using the AIM (Advanced Integration Method) interface (Perl sample code): my $post_values = { "x_login" => "API_LOGIN_ID", "x_tran_key" => "TRANSACTION_KEY", "x_version" => "3.1", "x_delim_data" => "TRUE", "x_delim_char" => "|", "x_relay_response" => "FALSE", "x_type" => "AUTH_CAPTURE", "x_method" => "CC", "x_card_num" => "4111111111111111", "x_exp_date" => "0115", "x_amount" => "19.99", "x_description" => "Sample Transaction", "x_first_name" => "John", "x_last_name" => "Doe", "x_address" => "1234 Street", "x_state" => "WA", "x_zip" => "98004" }; my $useragent = LWP::UserAgent->new( protocols_allowed => ["https"] ); my $request = POST( $post_url, $post_values ); my $response = $useragent->request( $request ); That's just a straightforward form post to a CGI. Result is a line of CSV data. No XML in sight. Does the non-AIM option (I forget what it is called) use XML?
  - polyfractal 14y ago
    I don't have the code handy (was client work for a third party), but we definitely used XML through Auth.net's AIM. Here are the API docs for it: http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide_XML.pdf http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide_XML.pdf We also used XML through their CIM to manage customer profiles. To be fair, this was all in PHP, and the code was inherited so I'm not sure if there was a better way to deal with Auth.net's API. I do know that their dashboards were thoroughly unpleasant to deal with and I felt the API was obtuse in many different locations.
    - tzs 14y ago
      Interesting. Here's the non-XML AIM guide: http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide.pdf http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide.pdf That's the one we use. I didn't even know they had an XML option--and now I'm going to try to forget it! :-)
      - polyfractal 14y ago
        Interesting! I had no idea they had a non-XML option. If I was still working on the project, I'd totally push for that. Good to know for future projects =)
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  I used Authorize.net at a previous employer, and don't remember the API being too terrible. We wrote a wrapper for it, and forgot all about it until we needed to add features.
jusben1369 14y ago
Shameless plug for Spreedlycore.com where you can vault your cards separately and work with all the gateways listed here. This is an extreme example (gone into limbo in this case) but one of the motivations for our offering. You could have migrated to Stripe/Braintree etc via a config change.
- michaeledwards 14y ago
  This looks really cool.
BallinBige 14y ago
So true! First Data is the grandpa in the room. Their site doesnt render properly on Chrome even :(

by whit537 14y ago

polyfractal 14y ago

Braintree is pretty great, I like working with their API and customer service (always ready and willing to talk on the phone, which is great). Avoid Authorize.Net like the plague. Horrifically bad XML API that will make you want to claw your eyes out.

jmathai 14y ago
But it'll be a horrifically bad XML API for years and years :)
- chrismckee 14y ago
  You should try WorldPay if your looking for shit but consistent. WorldPay will be around for ever, as will their dog-rough "web service" written by someone who hates the web and where verification tokens are optional. Checkout this FAB API http://www.worldpay.com/support/kb/bg/recurringpayments/rpfp.html#rpfp8009.html http://www.worldpay.com/support/kb/bg/recurringpayments/rpfp...
  - jmathai 14y ago
    That's not really much worse than Authorize.net. Don't get me wrong. I hate Authorize.net and don't plan on using them for anything in the future. I'd rather refactor code than write comma separated string code once knowing it will work forever.
tzs 14y ago
Where is there XML in Authorize.Net's API? Here's how you charge a card using the AIM (Advanced Integration Method) interface (Perl sample code): my $post_values = { "x_login" => "API_LOGIN_ID", "x_tran_key" => "TRANSACTION_KEY", "x_version" => "3.1", "x_delim_data" => "TRUE", "x_delim_char" => "|", "x_relay_response" => "FALSE", "x_type" => "AUTH_CAPTURE", "x_method" => "CC", "x_card_num" => "4111111111111111", "x_exp_date" => "0115", "x_amount" => "19.99", "x_description" => "Sample Transaction", "x_first_name" => "John", "x_last_name" => "Doe", "x_address" => "1234 Street", "x_state" => "WA", "x_zip" => "98004" }; my $useragent = LWP::UserAgent->new( protocols_allowed => ["https"] ); my $request = POST( $post_url, $post_values ); my $response = $useragent->request( $request ); That's just a straightforward form post to a CGI. Result is a line of CSV data. No XML in sight. Does the non-AIM option (I forget what it is called) use XML?
- polyfractal 14y ago
  I don't have the code handy (was client work for a third party), but we definitely used XML through Auth.net's AIM. Here are the API docs for it: http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide_XML.pdf http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide_XML.pdf We also used XML through their CIM to manage customer profiles. To be fair, this was all in PHP, and the code was inherited so I'm not sure if there was a better way to deal with Auth.net's API. I do know that their dashboards were thoroughly unpleasant to deal with and I felt the API was obtuse in many different locations.
  - tzs 14y ago
    Interesting. Here's the non-XML AIM guide: http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide.pdf http://www.authorize.net/support/AIM_guide.pdf That's the one we use. I didn't even know they had an XML option--and now I'm going to try to forget it! :-)
    - polyfractal 14y ago
      Interesting! I had no idea they had a non-XML option. If I was still working on the project, I'd totally push for that. Good to know for future projects =)
pavel_lishin 14y ago
I used Authorize.net at a previous employer, and don't remember the API being too terrible. We wrote a wrapper for it, and forgot all about it until we needed to add features.

jusben1369 14y ago

Shameless plug for Spreedlycore.com where you can vault your cards separately and work with all the gateways listed here. This is an extreme example (gone into limbo in this case) but one of the motivations for our offering. You could have migrated to Stripe/Braintree etc via a config change.

michaeledwards 14y ago
This looks really cool.

BallinBige 14y ago

So true! First Data is the grandpa in the room. Their site doesnt render properly on Chrome even :(