problem with Host

[elbot]

I have recently taken over an ecommerce website from an SEO company that was sacked after 1 year, meaning the ecommerce website had been launched just over a year ago. The ecommerce engine is osCommerce.

One of the issues that the client had with the old SEO company was that the website didn't generate any sales, it was discovered that the there was a problem with the payment gateway to a Barclays Merchants account.

I have posted threads about some of the problems regarding osCommerce and Barclays and had some useful replies however another problem has arisen!

After some of the help I've had on other forums that I've passed on to my host, the host has responded with 'We have never been asked or paid to implement a payment module'! So this prompted me to look into the history of what had been ask of the host in the past by contacting the SEO company that had been sacked. As I suspected there was a record of an agreement between the SEO and the Host. It stated that for a price of $1000 the host was to intergrate osCommerce and include a payment gateway with Worldpay, although ultimately the payment gateway was with Barclays.

Bearing in mind that the host is asking me to pay them to write a payment module, is that reasonable?

If you agree to pay $1000 to implement an ecommerce engine, that should include the payment gateway, after all what is the point in having an ecommerce engine if customers can't pay!!

Any comments would be appreciated as I've never been in this situation before and I would like advice on my position.