topic Re: Integration method advice in Integration and Testing

Integration method advice

fokstrot — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:17:14 GMT

Greetings to the community members,

This is my first post on the forum and I hope to find a solution to the issues I am facing.

First issue:

I will have two different types of transaction options on a website. One type of a transaction is to charge the customer's card (auth and capture).

The other option is to just make sure the customer's card is valid and nothing else. Is there a way to validate a customer's card without using authorization? The reason is because authorization is considered as a transaction and the per-transaction fee is applied. Even a $0.01 authorization will be charged the per-transaction fee. Does the following validationMode Parameter allow for a card to be checked for validity without incurring per-transaction fees?

The validationMode Parameter
The validationMode parameter enables you to generate a test transaction at the time you
create or update a customer profile. The functions CreateCustomerProfile,
CreateCustomerPaymentProfile, UpdateCustomerPaymentProfile, and
ValidateCustomerPaymentProfile all include a validationMode parameter, which can have
one of the following values:

liveMode—This value is the default setting.
liveMode generates a transaction to the processor in the amount of $0.01 or $0.00. If
successful, the transaction is immediately voided. Visa authorization transactions are
changing from $0.01 to $0.00 for all processors. All other credit card types use $0.01.
Standard gateway and merchant account fees may apply to the authorization
transactions.
For Visa transactions using $0.00, the billTo address and billTo zip fields are required

Second issue:

CIM allows the customer's payment information to be stored on Authorize.net's secure servers. This is a great option for those with returning customers. My question is what are all the benefits of using CIM to store customer's payment information vs developing one's own method of storing customer's payment information?

Re: Integration method advice

RaynorC1emen7 — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:49:34 GMT

1)The only true way to validate a CC number is run a auth_only, there isn't a way around it.

2)If you going to save CC info on your own database, you need to read the PCI compliance

http://community.developer.authorize.net/t5/The-Authorize-Net-Developer-Blog/PCI-SSC-releases-E-commerce-Guidelines-Information-Supplement/ba-p/33104

Re: Integration method advice

fokstrot — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 18:45:43 GMT

1) Ok

2) The CIM seems like a very convenient service. Saving CC info on one's own database seems to be quite a time consuming process. What is your opinion of using CIM vs developing one's own? What are the benefits and disadvantages of each?

Re: Integration method advice

RaynorC1emen7 — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 20:13:37 GMT

To save the CC info you need to be PCI compliance, which will be a lot of reading. The disadvantages is that the API currently do not return the exp date, and you can NOT export the full CC # to use another gateway.

Re: Integration method advice

fokstrot — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 20:16:12 GMT

What is the consequence of the CIM API not being able to return the exp date?

Re: Integration method advice

RaynorC1emen7 — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 20:24:44 GMT

You can email them ahead of time to have them updated the exp date. Which might get the transaction rejected.

Re: Integration method advice

fokstrot — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 20:27:21 GMT

I did not understand, can you give a scenario?

Re: Integration method advice

RaynorC1emen7 — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 21:13:29 GMT

When you enter a transaction with a expired cc, it will be rejected.

Re: Integration method advice

fokstrot — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 09:11:55 GMT

Thank you.