In this day and age, I find it baffling that you don’t offer Paypal as a form of payment. Especially with the number of non-Canadian banks that block Canadian purchases via credit card. You’re only hurting yourself here. Please tell me you’re going to get with the program and make it much simpler and safer for customers to pay you.
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@CWelsh: I wasn’t aware that the rest of the world declined a lot of Canadian credit cards. Do you know of a reason? I thought y’all were stereotypically trustworthy!?!? 
If I had to guess, it would probably be because Paypal takes a higher percentage out than your normal credit card company. What company do you use? Maybe currency conversion is the issue with Canadian cards declining? Maybe your money is worthless to the rest of the world ;P.
From a business standpoint, though, I don’t see a reason to not accept paypal other than the fact that it just hasn’t been brought up. Even my church accepts paypal!! I look forward to seeing Tablo’s answer!
Banks in other countries typically block out-of-country purchases for safety reasons. This I understand and applaud. However, one of the most fundamental business rules is to provide the easiest venue of payment for your customers. This should be absolutely devoid of any possible hinderances during the payment process. If paying requires extra steps on the customer’s part, you are guaranteed to lose sales.
Why do I care? I LOVE my Tablo! I want it to be around in 10 years. I want it to grow and thrive.
However, recently I had to have a card replaced due to potential security breaches online. I have tried to re-purchase my subscription using two other credit cards, both of which have been declined due to it being a Canadian purchase (I live in the U.S.). I contacted one of the cards and was told they have to allow only Canadian purchases for 24 hours (like if I was visiting the country) and block any U.S. purchases during that time. In short, disabling my card for 24 hours to make this one purchase. Well, that’s fine until you want to do a monthly subscription. The other card is only available from 8-5, my work hours! It’s very hard for me to handle anything outside of work during these hours.
PayPal would help avoid this frustrating barrier to pay Tablo. Even if the percentage per transaction is higher for PayPal, it’s better than a potential loss of customers.
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As a merchant in the US I accept both Paypal and Credit Cards.
Paypal has a lower fee of acceptance (depending onvolume) than Credit Cards.
I do get Cards from Canada being declined, but am able to accept them if I change my merchant settings.
I would think this would be acceptable for Tablo to do, especially if its only a $5/month charge. If it’s fraudulent then they only get burned once for $5.
As a merchant in US, Paypal is easy to set up and accept than Credit Cards, not sure about merchants in Canada.
Chas
@CWelsh - We unfortunately aren’t able to accept Pay Pal as we cannot configure it to work with our current system.
As for cards accepting charges in foreign countries, this is entirely up to your bank/card. We have no control over this.
Yea, but Canada isn’t really a different country.
Well, that is unfortunate - for you and many customers. I understand you have billing software that ties into user’s accounts. I can see how that would be a challenge to work around.
I wasn’t implying that you are to blame for banks blocking out-of-country purchases. Merely implying that it can be a great hindrance for customers trying to pay.
Lastly, I was only providing constructive criticism for making the payment process easier for people. Maybe one day you can achieve this.
As for my payment, I have now finally completed the transaction and decided it would be easier to do the Lifetime so I never again have to deal with this very difficult payment process.
Thanks for the reply.
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Looks like it may be time for me to find a different solution for my OTA DVR. It’s ridiculous that Tablo does not take PayPal. Banks are cracking down on International charges from Canada because of all the fraud. Tablo won’t even let me mail them a check for the yearly or lifetime subscription. Time to research more OTA DVR Solutions.
Really? PayPal is an awful company. I’ve been screwed twice by them. And it’s not like PayPal is universal. There are a lot of online merchants that don’t take it. Seems like a silly reason to not buy something to me.
Can’t help to stick my oar into this conversation. I had no trouble whatsoever paying my Guide subscription from the US.
I guess it may have to do with the level of competence of my credit card issuer(s).
For the small enterprise I toil at, we use FastSpring as out payment processor and I can tell you at the level we operate at, the charges are a tremendous pain. On the other hand, I’ve had occasion to see how they validate payments and it’s amazingly thorough and complex as a screening process. We only occasionally run into an issue where East European payments get declined and usually even to us we can see that things look suspicious. We have however just given one or two guys with legit issues a freebie. Not saying Tablo should do that - it was just easier for us and it was literally only one or two in the last 9 years.
For Tablo, I’m saying that I guess they will make a business decision and if they observe too many customers wanting to pay that can’t, they will change. As things stand, it’s probably a small minority that has issues.
This feels more like banking institutions not changing to accommodate evolving customer needs. My small local bank is part of the Cirrus network and I have zero issues with having my Tablo monthly subscription fee debited via my bank’s debit card. I do pay a small international charge (4 cents I believe) but I’m willing to accept that.
You can’t get a prepaid credit card and use that to pay for the lifetime sub,?