As Jandal (JamesTurner) and Sam have commented it looks like online payments provider Paymex has faltered, or folded.
Word on the street is Paymex is dead and gone as of 27/9/2008 (Jandal)
Yes Paymex is gone, taking my money with it, supposedly its now caught up with BNZ..” Sam
and
Paymex looks ok, but who the heck are they anyway? (me)
[all three comments are in or on the orginal post ]
The website hints at a hiatus only.
This online payments thing just seems to be so pointless and the products belaboured. Paypal have messed up their product so much that it is no longer trusted by merchants, and everyone including them seems to put too many usability barriers in place.
Trade Me’s implementation of Pay Now (free for buyers) is slick and simple. Just keep the fees down chaps and there is no reason or critical mass for any other payments system to exist in NZ.
As for eBay – as mentioned before they’d be better off selling PayPal (and Skype) and opening their markets up to Google Checkout and other payment systems.
Lance Wiggs 
We’ve done over NZD100,000 through Paypal this year. It’s unbeatable for simple commerce.
Only (minor) issue is AMEX charging in USD and cross currency fees/bill shock for buyers.
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The problem is in New Zealand DPS seems to be the only real local game in town and their website sucks. It is hard to work out exactly what you need to get in order to process payments.
We need a simple, no monthly fee, basic transacting service that you can brand and integrate into your websites. I still haven’t seen it from an NZ company. Surely it can’t be rocket science?
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I received an email from “Paymex” – “Paymex is now under new ownership of Enform, and will be back up and running next week.” Which all looks very interesting if you look deep enough.
@Glen Barnes, I agree, totally. I investigated DPS the last couple of days, and their fees seem ok/high (when there is no real competition what ya gonna do?) and then you go ask your bank about a Merchant Account and the fees instantly double.
@Lance, PayNow is great… if your selling on TradeMe. As Glen said, that is what we need.
I’m rooting for the underdog, GO PAYMEX!
=-)
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I hope Paymex comes back. I’ve been thinking of using them for some time now but haven’t got around to it yet. It looked like the ideal package and quite cheap too. They even sent me a letter last week advertising their system and saying that reseller accounts were now available for web designers.
I’ve looked at DPS but it seems very complicated and the forms they sent me were so long and asked for just about everything about me and my company except the colour of my underpants! I don’t see why I should have to sign up with a bank to get a merchant account when other services (PayPal, Google Checkout, Paymex) don’t require this.
PayPal is fairly easy to set up but I’ve run into problems using the IPN (Instant Payment Notification) service where it wasn’t so “instant” and my website didn’t know about a payment until a couple of hours after it had been made! Not good if the site is selling memberships and the person can’t get in until the site is notified from PayPal that the payment went through ok.
Google Checkout isn’t available in NZ, a real shame because it looks interesting.
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If you read the other thread I think you will be convinced that paymex is not exactly a good bet for online payments.
Even under new ownership.
I think this comes down to the old saying.
If it is too good to be true, it is.
Paymex lowered costs by cutting corners, skipping the little details, and skipping out on merchant protection through trust accounts etc.
This may have saved you money as a mechant but it has put you in a bad situation when they go insolvent as Paymex has.
I myself will not be going near any company involved with the directors of paymex again, now I did some research and understand how their accounts worked, and cost cutting worked, I realise how poor the business model was.
I have potentially lost 3000 dollars, others may have lost more.
I don’t think Id be singing the praises of a company who has seemingly been trading insolvent… isn’t that fraud?
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DPS are offering to waive the setup fee for merchants left without payment processing from Paymex going under.
I think thats pretty good of them.
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Hi there,
About PAYMEX!!!
I used paymex for our online and phone payment processing source.
I was never told or notified about PAYMEX going into liquidation.
I had money on my PAYMEX account from sales made and am not able to accessmy money. Have emailed them and did not get a response and also their 0800 number is not working. Quite a bad deal, don’t you think?
I was toldby someone else not realted to paymex at all about them folding…
Not happy at all about this! How am I going to get my money? there is no way of accessing any of your account details.
I finally have signed up with PAYPAL and have found that their commision charged is better and no extra cost per transaction like paymex was charging, Pkus since I have added Paypal to my website as payment source I have been getting more traffic and sales has increased.
I recommend Paypal.
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Hi Lance,
Toni from TM here. Phil and I used Paymex for our tshirt site as it was a cheap and easy option. We had no problems with them up until this point. Thankfuly I was a little obsessed with withdrawing our money as soon as it was received, so didn’t loose a cent.
It’s interesting that the only information we can find about their current situation is through the comments on this blog post.
Toni
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Hi Toni,
Yes you are right, paymex have been incredibly quiet about this whole deal, which is incredibly poor. The liquidator has told my merchant that anyone with paymex accounts will probably not get their money out of their accounts as their is not enough money in accounts to pay for all the money owed.
Terrible business model, terrible business, look out for the directors of this company in the future, doesn’t sound like sound judgement in business models.
Sam
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Just noticed paymex website is backup and it seems they are taking on clients/merchants again.
I would strongly recommend people read the fine print and find out if they have changed their business model.
If they havent I would strongly recommend you give them a miss.
Sam
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Recently i started searching for payment gateway for my website. Literally there are not many options available. Process for getting DPS is lenghty and so i signed up to open Paymex Business account. During enquiry i asked them so many time to give me references of existing client but they started making excuses, there is no 0800 no or direct dial no. to encourage enquire. Email communication becomes to slow when you ask critical question about security and reference. Getting suspicious i searched on net again and i found only this one forum about Paymex.
Thanks to all of you as i have decided to wait and get DPS after reading all post.
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Hi there,
We run a payment gateway here in New Zealand – we like to think we’re the most cost effective and easiest gateway to integrate with, and we now process Pago as well. We’ve been in business since 2002 and have over 800 merchants processing through us, and would welcome anyone wanting to accept credit cards or pago from their website.
http://www.paystation.co.nz
Cheers,
Gerard
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Paystation still requires you to have a merchant account with a bank, which is such a hassle to set up and costs $$$.
Why can’t NZ have someone like PayPal, where you don’t need to be a credit card merchant to accept credit card payments? I just don’t understand how PayPal can do it but no one in NZ can…
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Well, here we go again, PayMex is heading down, yet again.
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Hi,
Flo2Cash is similar to Paymex but more. We provide you with a proper merchant account so no need to engage your bank and no other hidden costs. We also make sure your business name appears on your customers’ credit card statement, ensuring your brand integrity.
Give us a call 0800 356 222 or go to http://www.flo2cash.co.nz
Cheers
Roger
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I wasn’t happy to get spam from you guys in association with Bluffit. Using a mailing list that was provided to you by mistake from Paymex, was a breach of my privacy, and Bluffit had no right to use that mailing list to spam Paymex cusomters, touting for business.
The best alternative it DPS or Payment Express, and get your own merchant account.
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We posted the original post in this blog in good faith following a number of calls from Paymex customers asking for an alternative and telling us they had a deadline of this Friday. Of course we stand to benefit, but think it is reasonable given the situation Paymex customers are in and facing a loss of trading should they not be able to find an alternative.
On the second issue, we did not send out the email and do not have a list of Paymex users. This offer was made to us by BluffIT who were aware of our services and offer to market us as have other web developers in a similar position.
We believe our service is very good both in terms of functionality and value for money, and a better option than payment gateway/bank options. We can turn around the account faster, provide more payment channels, have better reliability and are more cost competitive.
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If you read the email, it appears that it is endosed by you, as the email says it is a ‘joint promotion’. You may need to get in touch with bluffit , because that sort of thing is not on and is clearly spam.
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Paymex looks to have a third life. It now has a new owner again.
It is still probably the best and cheapest option, if you don’t want to get a merchant account.
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Hi – I used paymex for a year and then was suddenly left with no creditcard option. I use paypal until something better comes up but i actually lose about $15 per transaction with it which is not factored into the cost – but as I have about 500 products i don’t want to go changing all the prices around. I have tried using DPS and the national bank but they are making me jump through hoops and I have been in the process of applying since October (it is now Dec). The National Bank want to charge me 3% per transaction and DPS $33 a month (minimum). With all these hidden costs I may as well open up a physical shop. I liked paymex because I could pass the cost on to the client. If they wanted to use direct bank deposit no charge, credit card 3% – their choice. I had no problems with them. So easy. My website developer is starting a new system similar to paymex and it should be up and running by early 2012, so might just hang out for that as I am sick of the bank and their ridiculous fees. My website (shopify) only accepts DPS or Paypal for NZ but think they are integrating the new system within it.
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I agree NZ needs something simple and cheap, Paymex filled that gap but I guess there model is all wrong or they didn’t do a very good job of creating awareness. I was with Westpac and DPS and was paying a small fortune in fees. I was struggling to get transactions in so on many of the start up months I was paying $60 or more for maybe 3 transactions a month, for low cost items I may as well have been giving my products away. It was the minimum monthly fee that killed me and made me bail after my 2 year contract. Now paymex is down the pan and seem to have take nearly $800 of my money with them. What upsets me more is that they didn’t communicate to customers they were in liquidation. Had I known I could have ensured my money was out and found and alternative instead I was swamped with complaints from customers trying to place orders failing over my busiest period (Xmas). I then get a bunch of emails in January asking where peoples goods are for orders we can’t see in paymex. I cant see translations in paymex, something is clearly stuffed up that they aren’t fixing because new transactions aren’t showing and all old transactions are majorly stuffed up. The ‘successful transactions’ from customers didn’t post back to my site too update our records so we have no record of an order. All we see is $800 of orders that we tried to transfer funds to our account and then we can rectify customer issues from there. According to paymex that happened but we haven’t seen the funds 10 days later! That leaves me with a big mess, tons of stress and customers who think we’ve ripped them off which is hugely damaging to a reputation we’ve built up over 4 years.
NZis way behind the rest of the world in e-commerce and yet, IMO, has so much potential to turn it around hastily. I’m waiting with baited breath for a decent alternative to say the least!
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OMG, I used to work for Enform in 2005 and they nearly went under then too. That’s what happens when you have a CEO who buys himself sports cars on the company account. That guy left years ago, but each time I drive past their office I’m surprised they’re still in business.
DPS is good, but we have it through westpac and they will not let us use it with Shopify.
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