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.

Moviestorm video blog, April 19, 2010

This one's short & sweet, 'cause we're all busy today.

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.

Paypal update

It's taken them quite a while to sort out, but we think PayPal have mostly got our payment systems working properly now. We're still ironing out one or two little glitches that customers are reporting to us, but it should be fine for the majority of people.

If you've been hanging on for Paypal before buying packs or subscribing, please give it a go, and let us know right away if you have any problems at all.

Pre-Christmas Moviestorm mayhem

With just a few more working days before we all take a Christmas break, we're aiming to ship a whole bunch of stuff out to you very soon indeed.

• Moviestorm 1.2.0.1 - mostly a patch release, addressing a few bugs. It's mainly little things, but the main issue is that text to speech should now work properly. You should get that any time now.
• GreetingStorm - along the same lines as Photostorm. This'll be free, for now, and includes the Christmas outfits - just in time for the Christmas competition!
• Female Monsters - this will be a real squeeze, but we're going to try and get this out to you if we possibly can.
• Content rental - we're aiming to get a first version of this running by the end of the week. It may be a little unpolished, but it would be good to get some early feedback from you.

And we're still working on the PayPal / Amex / Visa issues. Sadly, they're not proving at all straightforward to fix.

Payment systems - update

When we rolled out the new marketplace last week, we had a couple of problems with the payment systems.

1. We can't take American Express. This is due to some issue between PayPal and Amex. To be honest, we don't entirely understand it, and suspect it's as much a corporate issue as a technical one. We use PayPal Pro to handle the actual money transfer, and until they sort it out, we're completely in their hands. The latest prognosis is that we won't be able to accept Amex until 2010.
2. We can't take PayPal at the moment. We're still working on it with PayPal and our billing provider, we think we have a working system, and we'll know in the next day or so whether it's all fixed now. If it is, we'll get it out to you right away. If not, it's back to plan B. Or is it Plan C by now? (And yes, we do see the irony in using PayPal Pro and not being able to accept PayPal...)

We'll keep you updated - thanks for your patience.