More and more options for accepting payments online have closed down, thanks to the dictatorial Visa and MasterCard forcing people to do business THEIR way. Others restrict their customers to certain types of sites or certain geographical areas.
As webmasters ourselves, we suffered from these problems - you work hard only to have your living destroyed by the faceless people at the all-powerful Visa International who do almost nothing to prevent fraud (see our page on www.firstdata.ascandal.com) and everything to prevent honest people from making a living.

But enough of the downside. What are the options left for honest webmasters trying to earn a living? Here are a few. If you know of others, please email me at webmaster@paymentprocessors.net to tell me about them. Be sure to include their URL (web address)

Segpay - They take adult sites, offer password integration and rebilling. I'm still setting up with them, so I can't comment personally yet apart from that they answer emails promptly, which is a lot more than you can say for most processors!

Myvirtualcard - They take adult sites, offer password integration and rebilling. As a plus they answer emails promptly, which is a lot more than you can say for most processors! Recently however getting new sites accepted by their new bank has been a long slow process. On the money side of things, reliable and efficient.

CCBill - They take adult sites, offer password integration and rebilling. Until the virtual demise of Ibill, their customer service was excellent, the best! I found more recently that if you have a set-up problem, they tend to ignore you. I still use them for existing sites, but gave up putting new sites with them for this reason. On the money side of things, reliable and efficient.

Ibill - They take adult sites, offer password integration and rebilling. Have never really recovered from being dumped by First Data when they left people without money for months and as far as I know still owe a lot of that money. Their previously very good customer service went rapidly downhill when they had to lay off most of their staff. Still one of the most expensive firms out there.

Nochex - Fantastic payment service BUT only for clients in the UK and only accepts cards FROM the UK. If you are in the UK and so are your clients, this is great, and as they accept cards nobody else does, if you can get a Nochex account it's probably worth doing so.

Moneybookers - Can accept clients worldwide, but seems to require repeated verifications of your identification. Your customers also have similar problems paying instantly and you cannot take Visa or MasterCard directly if you are an adult merchant. BUT, if you have European clients, this is a worthwhile added option. Their customer service used to be incredibly good, now less so.

Multicards - Can accept American Express and echeck for clients worldwide. Can accept Visa and MasterCard ONLY for clients in the US or Europe. (Adult sites excluded for Visa and MasterCard).

E-Gold - Hardly anyone pays you with this and it's murder to get your money out, but if you are looking for an unusual option...

Paypal - I have to mention these as they are still the biggest out there. Don't accept adult merchants. They seem to find any excuse to freeze your account so DON'T leave money with them. If they think you owe them money they'll charge your card without telling you, so change your card after you've signed up with them or use a card that has no funds left on it. The same goes for your bank account - get one at a different bank to your usual bank and use it only for Paypal. The subject of more fraud complaints and legal investigations than just about any other processor, so beware. Owned by EBAY which is also known for defrauding its customers and threatening behaviour.
Yowcow seem to be in trouble. They sent me an email saying they couldn't pay me the money they owed due to legal actions they were involved in which had been brought against them. They used to have the best customer service around, now you can sometimes wait weeks for a reply. Their new anti-spam program seems to bounce most customer emails.
Ikobo no longer act as a processor. They are now for person-person transfers only. They still owe me a US$50 payment they promised in January 2005 for lost referral commissions
I contacted Payzip and Stormpay with some queries, but as neither have replied to me, I can't really suggest them here.