Hi, I am not a great developer, website designer or the such like, but I am a bloody good strategic business graduate, marketer and customer care professional.

I am totally discusted with the business ethics of Barclays. Having been to their site and read the initial blurb on their merchant account I decided that having their name attached to my site would be a good bonus. I telephoned them and got the rest of the blurb and it turned out to be, yes we can help you, open a commercial bank account, fine, open a merchant account, fine, but we will hold back your money for 30 days, but we will let you have a business credit card with £1000 to help your cashflow over the first month. Hmmmm, well ok, then the price, wow, but ok if the service is good, You put a few hundred pounds into the account as start up money. Then they take the set up money out straight away. Youve worked on your site and uploaded your products in hide modeready to go live. Then you contact Barclays technical support for the code to integrate their epdq to your website. They email you a 50 odd page manual and say there you are get on with it. Now comes the crunch. Hidden away on their site is the blurb that says you need to able to do it your self or engage a developer to get their epdq to work. And they have recomended developers who are able to do it (in my opinion, probably ones that give their technical department a back hander). You contact them and they say 'No way, you have to be hosted with us or buy into their whole web package or they give you a price which is rediculas to put you off or rip you off. You go back to Barclays and tell them they are *******s and you want your money back and they say Oh no, we have set up your account and everything its now up to you to do the rest. Oh, and your told the credit card has been approved and will come by next week, next week, next week, and it never does. So your working capital is cut in half, you have no interface and they are taking 20 odd pounds a month out of your account while you are sorting out their problems.

Principle: We Zeners are Barclays customers, we are not paying them for us to integrate our ZenCart with their ePDQ. They are being paid by us just like the other merchant account providers listed on ZenCarts services page to provide us with a working interface to our store and process our payments. If they havent got an interface, then their technical department should create one or obtain one for all Zenners wishing to use their service.

Personally, I have told them in no uncertain words where to shove their ePDQ package. Because if they are w***ers at this early stage, what will they be like when it comes to real problems like bogus charge backs, missing payments or any other crisis that often besets online businesses.

Now for a great experience:
On the other hand I have been in touch with Fasthost, I found them on the resources page. Wow was I impressed, 8 oclock at night and the guy was there when I called on the phone, Ian I think his name was. he was knowledgable polite and very helpful. He explained their service and was realy interested in me as a client. Above all else, they have a fully functioning interface on this site, their setup cost are a hell of a lot cheaper than Barclays and payable from your account once you start trading. Their commission is a lot less than Barclays and you get the money into your bank account within 3 to 4 working days. (nice for cahflow)

There were several other companies located in America and Canada that I was equally impressed with. However, they only deal within their own countries. Terrible shame.

My recomendation, unless you are, or you know a damn good and cheap developer, give Barclays ePDQ a big miss. If you dont, I suspect when the **** hits the fan you will have a massive problem which will be up to you to sort out, with very little help from them. That means many a night looking at these pages while pulling your hair out rather than developing your content, upgrading your product line, satisfying your customer or sorting out your ranking. Or even, spending some quality time with your spouse who is probably feeling really low and neglected by now.
Kind regards &
Stephan Toth