Donations / Payments

SMS
After typing the same message 5 times, I decided to update my TMN profile, requesting players not to ask that question again. What question? "Will you have SMS Donation implemented?"

The message I wrote to all players asking it, did contain an explanation, but I didn't enjoy typing it over and over again (and each time I thought it'd be the last player asking about it!).

As you may have read, my current internship project is all about SMS, so I read lots of boring articles about it, and I'm actually writing my own SMS Service. That means I know how things like SMS work, and why I'm not a big fan of donations over SMS.
However, at least a year ago, I did some research on SMS Donation services, to find two possibilities:
1) We pay €1500 (about $1900) a month (!!), and get about €1.30 (about $2) per SMS
2) We get €0.80 ($1) per SMS, where players still pay €1.30 ($2)

The first one is too much of an investment, and the 2nd one is a scam both we, and the customers wouldn't like. Besides the fact that an SMS would only get the players a few credits.

iDeal
I got a few requests from Dutch players, about iDeal. iDeal is a service most online shops in The Netherlands offer, to directly pay for the goods online. It has close contacts with banks, and works fast, easy, and safe. I'm not sure if it is used internationally, but didn't have time to have a look at that either.
So, will we implement this? I don't know!

TMN is registered in Canada, and I don't even know if we have a bank account. Therefore I really have no idea.

Paypal
So, instead of attempting to use other payment methods, I think it's still best to just stick to paypal, which is safe, fast (almost instant), and is used all over the world. In some countries you won't need a creditcard, in case you didn't know.