X-Cart forums

[pinnacle]

I have searched the forums and did not find anyone who has done this. My client wants to add a 5% surcharge on certain credit card types if the order is shipped to a different address than the billing address because his credit card processor add a 5% fee. Has anyone else run into this?

[pinnacle]

Has no one ever ran into this issue? I am surprised. Maybe my client needs to switch credit card processors??

[JWait]

This sounds like something that will need to be custom made. I have never heard of anyone doing this. What makes it even more difficult is the "on certain credit card types" part.

It would probably be pretty straight-forward to check if the shipping address is not the same as the billing address and adding the surcharge, but checking what credit card the customer is using would be difficult, and what happens if the customer decides to change the credit card type half way through the process? See what I mean?

[pinnacle]

Originally Posted by JWait

This sounds like something that will need to be custom made. I have never heard of anyone doing this. What makes it even more difficult is the "on certain credit card types" part.

It would probably be pretty straight-forward to check if the shipping address is not the same as the billing address and adding the surcharge, but checking what credit card the customer is using would be difficult, and what happens if the customer decides to change the credit card type half way through the process? See what I mean?

I agree it requires custom programming to accomplish this and as far as changing credit card type if they want to avoid a surcharge causing a complication, that would require javascript to add/remove the surcharge on the fly in the checkout process prior to completing the transaction. If I am correct, the billing/shipping address is not known until after the checkout has begun.

Not only is this a interesting challenge but then comes into play further challenges when upgrading the software. I was REALLY hoping someone had done something like this before and I would gladly have paid someone for this feature.

I guess it's up to me!

[pinnacle]

My initial thought is to modify the card_types.tpl and card_types.php to include 2 new fields - shipping/billing add mismatch surcharge checkbox and rate text field. I hate to assume it will be a percentage and never a flat rate. I found that the config table contains a single record called card_types with delimited values in a single field for every saved cc type. YIKES! Who thought of that?

That solves specifying card types to check the shipping/billing address. Now integrating this into cart.php looks complex but I tested the checkout process and after the payment method is selected you are taken to a section where the addresses are displayed as well as the credit card type selection. This would be the spot to code some sort of flag or alert notifying the customer of the surcharge. When they click submit they are already agreeing to the terms and conditions so they are agreeing to the surcharge if they submit. Also on this page is the change payment method if they want to go back and not purchase by credit card. It would have to be javascript to detect an onChange state for the card type list.

Now... where to begin...

[geckoday]

Be sure to check your merchant agreement with the card brand you want to add the surcharge to. I know Amex explicitly states you can't add a fee for using Amex that you don't add for all other credit cards.