Changes to Moviestorm payment systems

Some time next week, we're planning to roll out some changes to the way our payment systems work. PayPal have changed their APIs, and so we're taking the opportunity to address some of the things that have been irritating us throughout most of 2010. We're ripping out the third party billing system we've been using, and will now be dealing directly with PayPal. You don't need a PayPal account - you can still use a credit card.

With luck, you won't notice anything particularly different, as the changes are all behind the scenes. This will give us a more secure and more reliable system that's easier for us to use and administer. This should also fix most of the billing errors you reported to us. The sequence in which you enter data will change a bit, but otherwise it's mostly the same. The screen layout will be a bit different too, but not in any significant way.

One thing that will change is since recurring payments will now be handled directly from PayPal, you'll have more options if you want to cancel your sub. You can choose to do it by going to your account on the Moviestorm site or you can go to PayPal and cancelling it there.

Visa Gift Cards

A couple of people in the US have told us that they've tried to use Visa Gift cards and such like on our site, with no success.

Well, after a couple of months investigating, we've come to the conclusion there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.

PayPal tell us: "PayPal does not recommend adding a gift card, prepaid card, virtual card, or one-time use card to your PayPal account. Although some of these cards may be accepted, most do not pass our security checks."

VanillaVisa, who are one of the main issuers of these things, state: "Internet, mail, and phone order purchases may require that we have the name and address of the Prepaid Giftcard owner on file. If you wish to make Internet, mail, or phone order purchases, you will need to go to www.vanillavisa.com and enter your name and address prior to performing an Internet, mail, or phone order transaction." They then go on to say "The card may not be used outside of the U.S. or the District of Columbia including Internet and mail or telephone order merchants outside of the U.S. or the District of Columbia." Since we're a British company, that could be causing problems as well, even though our credit card handling is done through the US.

It seems they just don't work for us, plain and simple, and it's down to some online security verification system somewhere that doesn't like anything other than genuine credit/debit cards. You can try, but don't count on it.