How to become an eCoin merchant.
(http://www.ecoin.net/help/how_merchant.htm)

Opening a merchant account involves the same steps as for a user except that they need to verify that you have a valid website for business. Simply sign up for a Server Account and you use that account as a merchant account. (https://www.server8000.net/ecoin/cgi-bin/wf_crt_usr1.pl)

Second, send an e-mail to support@ecoin.net describing your website, your business, and your eCoin merchant account. Your merchant status will be activated once they have verified the above information.

The eCoin Server will handle the transactions, account balance, credits, and reports accordingly when your account is used as a merchant account. However, if you intend to be an eCoin merchant and, at the same time, want to be an eCoin user, they recommend that you open two separate accounts for each use. Otherwise, you may be confused by the complex transactions mingled between the two activities.

Once you have your merchant account opened, the next step is to interface your webpage to Wallet Manager (plugin EMBED). Within the interface protocol that is sent to Wallet Manager, specify the merchant account that you intend to use. Every purchase coming through that page will be deposited into your merchant account.

They have designed Easy Wizards for you to easily and quickly implement the interface protocol. You only need a basic knowledge of HTML to work with these Wizards. For sophisticated CGI programmers, more documents are available for technical details. Go to Merchant's Corner to start the Wizard. (http://www.ecoin.net/help/merchant_corner.htm)

There is an instruction page on the site available at: How to set up the eCoin Interface in a merchant's webpage. (http://www.ecoin.net/help/how_embed.htm)
Personal assistance is also available through e-mail contact previously listed .

Consumer Perspective Becoming an eCoin user.
Becoming an eCoin user.

Signing up is a simple matter of providing your name, a password and e-mail address. A user account is created on the eCoin server and an e-mail is then sent to the consumer with a sign-up code to access the account. While I have not placed money into the account, I would imagine more verification may be required upon the use of either a debit card or a credit card. The new user is provided with 100 eCoin tokens as a sort of "play money" with a few demo pages to try out the system. Following is a list of the many informational and control tools available for the user to manage their account.

In the Account Manager

A Login History is kept track which shows the Time and Date of login based on the user's time, also the IP address and Host/ISP from which the login was made. This way you can determine the location of the actual computer from which a log in was made to your account. Failed Login attempts are also recorded.

Transaction History lists:

Time: (user system time)
ID#: which can be used to cross reference with with other account information sections.
Type: more details leads to the "Where are your eCoins" page.
Balance: which shows what you had in the account, what you spent, and then the new balance.
User may view All, Last 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days.

Surfing History lists:

Total Amount and Date of each transaction.
User may view All, Last 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days.

Tokens Expire after 180 days but may be reclaimed.

One item of some concern is in regards to the limitation/ potential problem with the Browser of choice and their Wallet Manager:

Charges associated with eCoin

While on the site they state "we have reduced the transaction complexity to minimum." The reality is that figuring out the charge for their service is confusing. A major credit card may be used to purchase eCoins through PayPal or you may use an e-Gold account or you may send a check to a named person in New Jersey . . .

In the PayPal contract, they state that you may not use a charge card to receive a cash advance yet that is what is being suggested in the above fees. The e-Gold exchange may be beneficial for International e-commerce but the rates are confusing.

Additionally, a notice posted in small letters on the top of the Fee Schedule page states, "This page is generated dynamically daily. Rates are subject to change". http://www.ecoin.net/cgi-bin/wf_fee.pl

What is an eCoin?

eCoins are electronic tokens issued by eCoin.net to be used for on-line transaction of sub-dollar amounts, also known as Micropayment. Basically, one eCoin is worth 10 cents.

Gee, I count three here . . . Okay, allowing for this confusion in content layout, we can use the VIRC to get an idea of how this works and the real charges that may occur. Right? Guess what. Something is not working within their site / application. In discussion with another classmate, they also could not make the program work. Adding "Insult to Injury," (thou it may just be coincidence) the computer I enabled their Wallet Manager on began having problems and finally crashed. Fortunately, I have more than one computer. While I do back-ups to my other systems, I did lose some of my work. Over Christmas I will try to recover what I can but it will be time-consuming. I will probably have to replace the 8.4 mb hard drive with a 20 mb if a Bios Update for my systemboard will allow this type of upgrade. No time to do this now.

How to accept eCoin as payment

Walletless Payments
http://www.ecoin.net/help/how_wlp.htm

The benefit of walletless payment method is that the buyer/ consumer does not need to load additional software on top of the web browser. It is the simplest eCoin implementation that involves static html. It is "hard-coded" into your web page and the user is redirected to an eCoin server page where they put in their user name and password to make payment. This allows the user to make a purchase from a computer where they may not have their wallet installed (such as from a friends home or from work).

I advise setting up this option on the purchasing web page in addtion to the regular wallet code. Instead of feeding the script=... to the Wallet Manager plugin, the script is fed to an eCoin.net cgi routine. The CGI routine, once the link is clicked, will parse the script, find out the price and URL of the to-be-purchased item, and prompt the user with a username/password verification window (instead of a click button). The user then is asked to authenticate the purchase if there is enough funds in his/her Server Account.

EasyWeb will suit most purposes for merchants. To set up the EasyWeb Interface, the merchant has to simply have correct EMBED tag in their webpages and make sure the purchased URL exists and is accessible. EasyWeb Wizard can guide you through all the required fields and generate the output for the .ec file or script parameter.

Concluding Comments

While the Micropayment concept is an important Internet element to explore, I suggest finding another web site for this purpose. PayPal offers this option and their explanations, charges, and overall site is more easily understood. Considering that eCoin uses PayPal as a method of purchase and adds charges in addition to the PayPal charges, I see little advantage in the eCoin service. The content on the Fees Schedule page needs to be better explained and a dynamic example should be available so that a user could enter in a dollar amount and witness the actual charges. Because the VIRC application did not function properly and may have even corrupted my operating system (Win98 SE), please consider eliminating this lesson from the program.