Another alternative payment solution that is fast becoming popular is eCharge Phone because it allows customers to bill purchases to their local phone bills. This makes it convenient for people who do not own a credit card, or who do not wish to give their card numbers due to security reasons.

eCharge Phone can handle payments ranging from $1 to $300, as well as recurring subscription charges, such as ISP charges. Their merchant network currently includes such well-publicized sites as ClassMates.com and McAfee.com.

eCharge Phone uses proprietary security technology similar to Caller ID to identify your telephone number via a Public Switched Network. Your eCharge Phone purchase total will show up as a Pay Per Call charge on your telephone bill, including information on the online merchant provider and the date and time of the transaction.

You select a digital good or service for purchase and choose eCharge Phone as your payment method. Your computer automatically connects to a special purchase number that charges the purchase amount to your telephone bill. You receive the goods or services immediately after completing your transaction.

In order for customers to use eCharge Phone, they have to be connected to the Internet via a dial-up line. eCharge will be adding the capability to handle payments of those connected via DSL, ISDN, and cable in the near future, but dial-up is still the king with 93% of home Internet users. (TR's Online Census, published by Telecommunications Reports International).

Since eCharge Phone tracks the phone number from where the call came, no other personal information need be entered.

eCharge is currently live in the US, Canada, England, and Sweden, with plans to go into many other countries.

About 100 merchants are currently using this solution, but since the customer doesn't need an account to use it, its success doesn't depend on size of network of merchants.

Payment Terms
The cost to merchants to offer the eCharge Phone option is a one-time $50 setup fee, plus an 8.25% per transaction fee. The customer also gets hit with a consumer fee ranging between $.50 and $2.00, on a sliding scale depending on the size of the order. Merchants can pick up the consumer fee, if they choose.

eCharge Phone is a good way for merchants to get around the Visa and MasterCard restrictions on immediate fulfillment merchants. It's also an excellent way to get at the 32% of customers that don't own credit cards. Customers have to be willing to experiment with what is basically a new technology for most.

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