I own a small Internet-based business selling hard goods and have a policy to not accept non-US purchases. It's difficult enough guarding against US charge-backs on cc purchases as far as I am concerned. But, I am clearly missing out on sales as I get inquiries on a weekly basis from non-US residents wanting to buy.

What is the best way to facilitate the acceptance of overseas payments, keeping risk and cost low? I have tried telling a few potential customers to send a bank draft or international money order and told them I'd ship after it clears, but they never do.... too time consuming by the time they get their merchandise. (I suspect the risk of counterfeit documents would be high too.)

Any advise would be appreciated.

Depending on your dollar amount (large ticket items) - how about a wire transfer? There may be a charge from your bank for accepting and processing the wire, but I would think that would be worth it to have your money and then be able to ship product immediately.

The problem with wire transfer is you are disclosing your bank of account and account number to a perhaps unidentified and unknown source.

Unless your bank will communicate directly with the sending bank with the info needed to transfer prior to the transfer actually happening. IMO don't provide your bank account information to anyone overseas.

PayPal offers accounts in multiple currencies. I cannot vouch for how safe or secure this is, but it beats giving out your bank account number to folks who might be pulling a Nigerian scam.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/sell/mc/mc_intro-outside

Have you considered World Pay?

I had ruled out wire transfers due to the concerns shared by Don_Narup.

As far as PayPal is concerned, they do not offer their Seller Protection policy when there is a non-US purchaser. Without their seller protection policy their is no gaurd against fraudulant charge-backs.

I have not considered World Pay, I will check it out now.

Thanks for the comments, if anyone else has any suggestions, please post

BC have you tried to use Seller Protection? It's worth far less than it costs. I sell on eBay and have been VERY disapointed with it. I'd suggest you use paypal, but hold sales for a period of 10 days against charge backs (which is ample unless the sale is large and then use escrow). The paypal service is really the easiest, but don't hold your breath on that seller or buyer protection

I have used WorldPay several times as a purchaser of products from Europe and it works very well. In the absence of your own merchant card setup, it is great and seems to keep both buyers and sellers happy.

I was just reading about it, as a result of this thread, and see that it is now part of Royal Bank of Scotland.

In defense of wires, I run a wireroom that does 40,000 plus wires per day. I've been doing this over 20 years and never had someone use an account that they knew of thru the use of wire, in order to steal money. Our accounts are PIN protected. In many instances a company has certain people designated to initiate the wire and certain people that we call back who verify that the information is correct. With the PIN and dual control, it would be extremely difficult for someone who knows your account number to have access to potential fraud.

If you are concerned about the safety of giving account info for wires, you could consider opening a separate account solely for the purpose of accepting wires. Your bank may be able to put a block on all withdrawals without your express instruction. In my branch days I had customers that had messages on their accounts prompting tellers and other bank employees to ask for a "secret word" that was selected by the customer. You could then transfer the funds from the wire to your normal operating account.

Just an idea...

What if like GuitarDude suggests, opening a separate account specifically for incoming wires and then once the money is there, transfer it to a different account so that there is a $0 balance and no money for a Nigerian scam artist to get?

I meant it was worth far less than it costs...for me it was worth less than nothing I had a charge back they didn't pay on.