If any of the merhcants you promote use protx

[Hero]

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Sure, Steve, I'm not disputing that Protx have notified merchants. But did merchants get in touch with their networks to ensure a "smooth migration" as is repeatedly asked of them, for any changes to their checkout?

[ian-d]

Yeah, have to agree with Steve on this one, they've certainly sent out enough warnings, i've counted 5 i beleive in the past 2 months.

Not experienced any downtime today thankfully, not sure why others have? I'm using run of the mill protx form, is that what you guys are using? I know direct and custom templates are a little fussier!

[deadgoodundies]

Correct that they did give plenty of warning that there was a upgrade going on and it would be down for a couple of hours but it's been down ALL day and VSPterminal is still not up and running.

when it comes something like this you'd of thought they'd test it more thorughly before trying to make it live.

I wonder how much it would be if you totalled up evryones loss of earnings today???

ian-d you must of been incredibly lucky because i've benn talking to about 10 others via msn and we all had problems

see full 36 page thread on the cockup
https://support.protx.com/forum/Topic1598-22-1.aspx

plus on the bbc
BBC NEWS | Business | Payments service 'goes offline'

[ian-d]

Geez, not sure how i got away with it then adam, bought time i had some luck after tons of hosting downtime!

Are you using VSP Form aswell or has it only effected terminals and different methods?

Either way i've not been particulary happy with the number of failed transactions i've had over this year, too many returned 'acquiring bank declined' etc with no reasoning from protx or streamline! Still, might be because the majority of my customers are using european payment methods, maybe uk payment methods are somehow easier?!?!

[deadgoodundies]

No we use vspdirect as I like to not transfer the customers to another site to take payment details.

We changed the new submission urls to the new ones a few days ago and i've done a few other x-cart users theirs as well as they couldn't find the code in the scripts (tip don't publicly offer to do something for one person as they all start asking you)

We have seen a lot more failed or not finished payments since 3d-secure was implemented and after talking to some of the customers on the phone it's because they get to the 3d-secure bit where they need to register their card and it frightens them so they leave.

So i've had to explain to them that they will have to do it sooner or later anyway if they are going to buy on the internet.

Im just in the proccess of recording a short demo video we can use on our site so that it explains it fully about VBV and 3d-secure.

[accelerator]

Ian

With VSP Form I believe there is now an automatic forwarding by Protx from the old submission url to their new one.

Out of interest, did you update your submission url, or did you leave as is? (Both options should work anyway).

Has anyone using VSP Form experienced any problems?

Thanks

Accelerator

[ian-d]

As said, i use VSP Form (have direct too but never bothered to get around to using it lol) and its been working fine today, forgot all about the change as i've not noticed a problem until adam mentioned it. I changed my url to the revised one a few weeks back, no problems.

In terms of 3D secure, 100% agree with you adam and mentioned this to protx, its the fear of the unknown, and to be honest, the first time i saw it on a site i've purchased from a million times i was wondering what the hell it was and did some research first. I thought i'd had the transaction intercepted. Question is, do we leave it off and loose the Maestro customers (how is that linked to a Visa/Mastercard 3D secure system duh!) or switch on and possibly loose the credit card customers....pain in the......but it should get better once everyone has setup passwords, and as far as security and protection, its much better!

BTW - does anyone have a copy of the last reminder they can email me? it had the new url's for direct but cannot find them on the protx site, and am considering finally getting the VSP Direct up and running.

[chs]

Got to agree with you on the 3D-Secure, you would expect there to be some chip and pin style publicity around it. Customers don't have a clue what it is at the moment and are right to be sceptical. Conversion rates will surely be affected. As far as I know 3D-Secure has now become manadtory for Maestro cards across all payment providers? At least customers will gradually get used to it, may take time though.

[ian-d]

Email from the MD

2nd August 2007

Dear Sir/Madam,

To all of our merchants I would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that was caused to your business yesterday due to the extended system downtime on the Protx payment gateway.


I have always made it a principle that the Protx culture is one where we should be completely open and honest with our merchants over any system difficulties that we have experienced. I believe that this guiding principle is something that is greatly appreciated by our merchants even though any system downtime is always undesirable.


Many of our loyal merchants have remained with Protx for many years even when we have had times of great difficulty. I believe that our honesty in the level of service that we are able to provide has played a large part in this.


I would therefore like to take this opportunity to share with you the reasons that led to yesterday's events so that you can understand the circumstances that led to our system outage and also the actions that we took to restore normal service to your account.


Since January 2007 Protx has been communicating with all of its merchants to advise them of the significant changes that were taking place in the payments marketplace and how this would affect their accounts.


The most significant change this year is the introduction of 3D Secure, which is similar to an online version of "Chip and PIN". This is being introduced by the banks to help prevent/reduce fraud for e-commerce transactions. We had therefore been in discussions with the acquiring banks for many months prior to our systems upgrade yesterday to establish their position on implementing these changes, and other changes concerning the processing of Mail Order/ Telephone Order (MOTO) and pre-authorised transactions.


The system upgrade that was scheduled to take place between 6am-8am yesterday represented the largest system change that Protx have implemented since November 2005 and followed many months of detailed planning and testing. Our new payment gateway system has been designed to include all of the new bank rules for processing transactions.


However, it became apparent very soon after the live service was restored that the live service was not completing payment transactions in a short enough time period after we had received a response from the acquiring banks. This led to transactions queuing and eventually this overloaded our payment gateway system leading to the system becoming unavailable.


Protx had successfully and rigorously tested its new payment gateway software in a test environment and on a limited live setup. The issue that led to the extended downtime yesterday had not occurred at any stage during our testing.


After an exhaustive and detailed analysis of the messaging processes controlling communication with the banks my technical team were able to identify the root cause of the delay in processing responses to be at a very deep level within our database. It was eventually established that one table in the database had not been indexed properly and that this was the primary cause for transactions not completing.


Once we had identified and rectified the problem we were able to restore full service at around 2.30pm yesterday. It was my decision as CEO to resolve the system outage on the new platform and not to roll back to the old Protx payment platform which may have caused even more disruption to our merchants.


However, it then became apparent that many merchants had either not read or perhaps not properly understood the deadline date in the emails that we had sent to them over the last 6 months; regarding the changes that were being made to their accounts in respect of 3D Secure for domestic Maestro card processing and the need to have a separate merchant account for Mail Order/Telephone Order (MOTO) and e-commerce transactions.


Many merchants may have felt that the system outage lasted beyond 2:30pm because they had not applied the changes that we had informed them of over the last 6 months. As a result these merchants may have been unable to process domestic Maestro transactions and/or transactions through the Protx virtual terminal, which many of our merchants use to process MOTO transactions.


Earlier today my team and I were able to get definitive statements from the acquiring banks on how they would like to move forward in respect of 3D Secure registration and when merchants will be required to have separate merchant accounts for e-commerce and MOTO transactions.


In this respect a further e-mail has already been circulated to all of our merchants providing specific information regarding the acquiring bank that provides your merchant facility. I would urge all of our merchants to read this email.


I sincerely regret any inconvenience that any of our merchants have experienced through the delayed downtime whilst we were implementing our new payment processing software and the loss of any business that you may have incurred as a result of this downtime. I fully appreciate just how critical the payment process is for all of our merchants who operate online, but sometimes there are events that we simply cannot legislate for as there will always be differences between testing in a test environment and processing in a live environment.


I am pleased to report that the new Protx payment processing system is significantly faster and offers much greater resilience and robustness than its predecessor. Of course we all know the old adage about this being "early days" but all the indications from our monitoring are showing significant performance improvements. The systems upgrade we carried out yesterday was absolutely necessary for Protx to be able to continue to process an ever growing number of transactions.


I am embarrassed by the different and sometimes conflicting advice that many of you will have received from your acquiring bank and from Protx regarding 3D Secure registration and separate merchant accounts for MOTO and e-commerce transactions. I also realise that this must have been extremely frustrating and I would again apologise for any inconvenience that this has caused you.


My staff did their utmost to ensure that Protx met bank requirements but we found this to be a significant challenge in trying to legislate and manage the banks' changing requirements where one rule would be applied for one merchant and another rule would be applied for a different merchant.



We have as a result learned some valuable lessons which we will use in the future to provide an even better service to you.


I also received criticism yesterday from many of our merchants in their belief that we had not communicated our system changes effectively and that we had not provided sufficient information about our system availability.


As an e-commerce business we communicate to all of our merchants primarily through the Protx website, where we post regular news items advising our merchants of important system changes.


We also send regular e-mail updates to all of our merchants to advise them what action they need to take. In addition there is also a live system monitor on our website which provides system status reports to alert merchants of any system difficulties.


Finally, since the implementation of our new telephone system last week, which we are still coming to grips with, we also provide system update messages via this medium and you should call 08701114455 and press option 5 to get a live systems update.


I would like to thank the vast majority of our merchants for their continued patience in waiting for a response from our sales and support teams. Our support and technical teams have received an unprecedented number of enquiries that has pushed our resources to the limit. Your patience is therefore greatly appreciated whilst we work through your e-mails and respond to you.



Kind Regards




Michael Alculumbre

CEO Protx

[ian-d]

Hmmm, interpritate (sp) that as you will, to me it says we f*cked up with our launch but we'll kind of blame our merchants for not reading the emails, of which he mentions a number of times the '6 months' statement. Not that the emails would have made any difference because all services are suppose to overlap for a month!

I'm so glad, and confused why my service didn't go down, but feel for anyones that did.

[deadgoodundies]

Love the way he is blaming the merchants!!!!!

After 2.30pm it was our fault - I don't think so.

How about conflicting information between protx , then aquring banks and even within protx themselves.

for example - according to the letter merchants who use VSPterminal to put through offline payments were meant to have a seperate merchant number for MOTO transactions.

Not so according to streamline on the several (including yesterday when I spoke to them).
They just use the same merchant number but MOTO enable it.

So who is right and who is wrong.

[ian-d]

Think you've probably come across this before adam with failed customer payments, but speak to protx and they'll blame streamline, speak to streamline and they blame protx, and should you get them both to speak to each other, they'll blame the customers bank!

I just wonder if google checkout's processing system is any better in terms of correct processing of payments? Not that its an ideal solution!

[deadgoodundies]

As you say probably not the ideal soloution.
To be honest with you we take nearly as many payments through paypal as we do through protx so if anything as backup measure I would be more inclined to go with paypal pro

[ian-d]

I hate paypal and just won't go back to them. Had a situation with them a while ago whereby a customer purchased goods of approx. £300 and paypal took back off me about 2 months later on the grounds of the customer did not order. On speaking to the customer he told me that it was a mistake and only one purchase on his card was incorrect, not the one to me. Both he and myself told both his card company and paypal of this, and after a few weeks of waiting they still took the money off me. Paypal did not protect me as a customer despite all this. Fortunetly the customer was an honest person and sent me a cheque!

Oh not forgetting the crazy percentages they charge too, because i sell in europe it was very common for them to charge me 3.5-4% on each transaction, which is when i transfered over to protx/streamline!

Having said all that, if protx went down again for a length of time affecting me, i'd not hesitate in putting paypal back on a temp measure to avoid loosing sales, but maybe google would be a better option???