Hi all I have a problem, or more like a question maybe. Everytime I visit a site that offers merchant accounts they allways need alot of information about your business if you want to sign up with them! So am I supposed to have a registered business or is it okey just to have a business as a private person with no VAT or business address or other things like that? Even in Paypal if you want to sign up with a business account you have to give alot of details just like VAT and other ID's or addresses! Is it possible to just sell stuff online even if you don't have a registered business? All the best, Joakim

With PayPal you could just get a personal account and use that. You will always have to give a certain amount of information to any payment processor as you are asking them to handle money on your behalf. They need to know that they are doing so in ever legal aspect of the law. Payment processors are held to agreements with the Credit Card companies and if they are not doing things correctly they can lose thier ability to conduct business. If everything you are selling is legal and meets the TOS of any comapnay, then giving this information should not be a concern.

Hi Joakim; =========================================== So am I supposed to have a registered business or is it okey just to have a business as a private person with no VAT or business address or other things like that? Even in Paypal if you want to sign up with a business account you have to give alot of details just like VAT and other ID's or addresses! .... Is it possible to just sell stuff online even if you don't have a registered business? =========================================== That depends on the laws of your country. In the USA, Canada and some other countries, it is okay to have a "sole proprietorship" which means an individual doing business without registering a corporation. I don't know what the regulations are where you live. Peter makes a good point. When a company agrees to process payments for you, they are bound by the rules and regulations for finance processors in the country they are processing fees in. So, if you register a business merchant account or a paypal business account, they are going to have to ask for information according to the guidelines they have to follow. : ) Linda