I remember when I had my first web hosting company in 1998 people who paid by check always took forever to pay. Also the time it took for billing was astronomical. In today's hosting industry if an account is not paid within 10 days of the billing due date the site is suspended. I am not sure how to get people to pay on time,but if they don't want they're site to be down this may be some incentive. Although the customer always gets mad if they're site is down. What do we do?

I was talking to someone at Bank of America. They have a business service where when customer pay a recurring bill by check bank of america will send out billing for you for about $25 a month. I figure this could save a lotof time and money for billing.

No,i doesn't because i thought that online payment is best.

At my previous work place, we accepted checks, and rarely had any bounce. The problem was getting the client to send them on time. The monthly payment option was auto cc, whereas the check option required quarterly payments. If you are barely starting out, however, some clients might be hesitant to release their cc info and would prefer to mail it in until you've gained their trust.

Anyone who's hosting a website knows how to use internet banking for direct transfers, or has a credit card / paypal account. We offer bank transfer for larger companies we deal with, though everything else is paypal/credit card. No pay, no service.

Not everybody can have a paypal account. Just google "PayPal problems", or your favorite bad word, and that's about it. If you're froma 3rd world country, and can't access a cradit card, you'll thank hosts for these payment options.

Be my guest and offer those payment methods to those countries.

Though I suggest taking a look at the list of countries that make part of NATO's Least Developed Countries (LDC) list. You might find some countries in that list which are a high fraud origination countries.

We as a business choose not to deal with countries like these, as they'll only push our overheads up. This is our choice and I don't expect others to follow. We're simply looking at the risk associated with dealing outside of paypal and credit cards, and have decided that as a business, we wont accept those other payment methods. Our customers are happy with the payment options we offer, no one has asked for any different, and our customers pay on time. Everyone wins.

If you wish to service that market with alternative payment methods, be my guest. I might even see my fraudulent order rate drop if you do.

I don't talk about you solely, Whomever I deal with has to be contected prior of anything.

I've seen no fraud comes from my country AFAIK, to most hosts. Yes, from some China and some Asian countries, but thinking like yours is what make me unable to find the perfect host (but yeah, I like the ones that bill you directly)

Hence the saying 'horses for courses'.

As as for perfect host's, the perfect host is different for each and everyone - there is no one perfect host!

Although the use of cheques is in decline (largely because banks dont like the paper), not a working day goes by without us receiving some payments by Cheque or Postal-Order

I find that if you accept mail in payments or bank transfers you've got to give a little leeway when it comes to suspension, maybe increase the grace periods on clients that use those forms of payments?

We only accept Paypal and credit card payments, accepting checks is simply too risky. We do however, occasionally accept money orders/wire transfers for customers without access to our payment options.

We accept checks. So far never have had a bad one.

We only accept checks from our business clients with the understanding that if the check bounces, their services are terminated immediately until alternate payment has been made. If it is a new business customer, their services are not activated until the check clears the bank, usually 7-10 business days. Most of our business clients understand this and do not make much of a fuss.

We also contact the bank that the check is issued on and confirm the account exists and there is sufficient funds to cover the check. To date we have had no problems.

Regards,
AB

If I were to accept checks it would only be on annual accounts.

Well there is nothing wrong in accepting the payments throush checks or MOs but still I would put a condition of 'all set up process will start after receiving payment'.