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Well I would still say its a bunch of bullshit, but I didn't say it was the credit card providers fault. Its for sure a bunch of Visa bullshit which is why they have to protect there own asses. Then again, thats there problem not ours. Our problem is how to get as many signups as possible, that means go with the providers that have the lightest fraud requirements.
Think of it this way, if you ran a cheeseburger stand and approx. 1% of $5 bills were fraudulent, would you rather start turning away customers because it could be a fraudulent bill? Or would you sell as much as possible and take the lose on the fraud?
For me the answers easy, the bottom line is all that matters. To hell with CCBill and Paycom and anyone else trying to protect themselves, I'm in this for me.
That being said I use a private merchant account, Verotel, and Neova. I would also like to setup 2000charge but I always have problems getting them to respond to me.
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Bryce, what an amazing post.
Thanks
Dzinerbear
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Bryce, loved your post and I think like you about these credit card companies pretending they can make rules and do everything so that their image to the end consumer remains spotless.
They put us in such positions that we (IPSP's included) pay for every single possible problem that they didnt put solutions in place to prevent...Im most definately talking about fraud, WE pay for it and we get fined for it and for all I know we aren't the ones taking advantage of it! Why don't they have a special department dedicated to going after the guys who do the frauds ? I've heard stories of tens of thousands of dollars being frauded on so many accounts and manipulated in a way where it was withdrawn from somewhere and they disapear with it...why don't they do like Bill Gates and hire those guys to help them figh fraud and take their responsabilities instead of blaming us merchants for it!
Spreading the buisness/chbks trough different accounts will keep you in the good graces of every company you work with but at the end, I mean with Visa/MC aren't we evaluated for all accounts on the same URL ?
Trying to be compliant with all the regulations takes up a lot of my time and hopefully it will help screen out the bad merchants so that one day the card companies can give us a bit of loose! Hopefully!
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"... go with the providers that have the lightest fraud requirements." I wish you the best of luck. I've learned in all the years in business that those are exactly the guys who go out of business and leave you without any checks coming in. Thanks for the advice, but we're going to stick with businesses that we expect to be around 5 years from now. I urge others to consider doing the same. Easing up on scrubbing might get you more sign-ups but it also damages this industry. Visa and MC didn't crack down on us cause they don't like dick and pussy. They cracked down on us because this industry as a whole ripped off consumers over and over and made itself a target for fraud, even from itself (webmaster / affiliate fraud is one of the biggest).
PFKarl, I wasn't meaning to say that you would save your business with that technique. But you can get shut off or in trouble with ccbill, epoch, or your own merchant by those companies, not Visa. So if CCBill is going to shut your companys account down because of their own internal policy, then you can proactively work to fix it before that happens by keeping an eye on the numbers and moving transactions. I've consulted with companies who do this as a matter of every day business as they move millions of dollars around per week. Our levels of CB are so low that I don't expect that we are going to ever have a need to do it ourselves unless something changes on a fundamental basis with either our business or our consumer base. But, i like knowing that I know how to do it if it ever has to happen and maybe it will be of use to someone out there.
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Well I have to take issue with you again. Sticking with the companies who have strick approval doesn't mean your gonna continue to get a check forever. I mean come on! Look at IBILL! I bet if we had this conversation 6 months ago you would have recommended everyone stay will Ibill.
Never put all your eggs in 1 basket. I have been using Neova since 2000 and there approval requirements for customers is pretty light, I'm still getting my checks. Thats better then most people can say who went down with Ibill.
I also disagree with you that we are to blaim for the strict requirements on credit card processing in the adult industry. The banks are concerned with there image, its that simple.
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"I bet if we had this conversation 6 months ago you would have recommended everyone stay will Ibill."
Maybe 4 years ago, lol. 6 months ago? come on. We stopped using Ibill in 2001.
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Hell, I remember when PAYPAL was the big thing. . LOL
Dart
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My philosophy on scrubbing?
I sure as hell wouldn't mind having that couple thousand dollars I pay in insurance premiums every year as a spare wad of cash in my wallet, mine to do with as I please. And there are some pretty damn good things I could do with it. And so long as all went as planned I could even invest that money and turn it in to more money. But I feel damn good knowing the coverage is there, and the sense of security along with the actual security granted through paying those premiums is well worth what I'm paying.
If you wanna avoid those scrubs you're more than welcome to use an IPSP that doesn't employ as comprehensive an array of anti-fraud techniques as others and accept the risk that entails. You've chosen that when weighing various business considerations against one another, that approach is the more worthwhile one.
I, however, quite appreciate the fact that the processors I use on my sites - CCBill and Epoch for 99% of my transactions - are doing what it takes to mitigate risk.
I view that as an insurance payment. Does stricter scrubbing completely eliminate risk? No. Does it absolve me of any and all worries? No. Does it alleviate me of any and all potential fraud-related problems or make me entirely immune to risk? Not at all. But it most definitely contributes to a more secure operating environment and undoubtedly keeps away a certain number of undesireable elements (be they people or situations).
I'm in business to make a shitload of money just as much as anyone else here might be. And turning down potentially high risk transactions is a means to that end, not an impediment to it. Quite frankly if I was operating on a margin that made scrubbing something I could not afford, I've got way more serious problems with my business than anything any IPSP could do anything about.
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What's more, and this might make me unpopular around these parts, is that we have no right to the credit card holder's money, even if they want to give it to us.
Because the fact of the matter is, it's not the credit card holder's money we're getting when they submit a transaction with a credit card. It's the credit card provider's. There is no direct transaction between us - or really any merchant for that matter - and the customer. You want an entirely CC-free processing set up absent any and all perceived interference and abusiveness from the CC companies? Go with online checks alone. Then you're getting closer to actually receiving the customer's money. And watch what happens to your returns/bounces/fraud then. CC processing is a privilege, not a right.
The card holder is in a contract with the card provider to pay them back the charges incurred on the card. The money is paid from the card to the IPSP to us. The card holder pays back the card provider at a determined point. It's the bank's money we're getting. It's Visa's. It's Mastercard's. It's not the surfers. That's how CCs work. So credit card companies are just as entitled to mitigate risk for themselves as anyone else. That they're so unregulated and can oftentimes be abusive is within the context of the entire global marketplace - this country and any others in which they're used - as a whole. Not something unique to adult in which it's just us getting picked on. I think to cry foul on behalf of adult against the CC companies is to ignore the bigger picture. CC companies' treatment of adult isn't in the slightest what's wrong with the big CC companies. It's just one sole symptom among a great many.
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BDBionic, excellent posts ... thoughtful as always. I appreciate your fresh perspective.
I was astounded, when reading on another board, that this webmaster was going off because a processor had just refunded 5 months worth of memberships. Somehow he could understand how anyone could be so "stupid" as to not check their credit card statement for five months. He blamed the processor for not hard-balling the surfer.
Yes, it's not fair that someone potentially has access to a site for five months and can then request a refund. But those are the rules under which we have agreed to play. (And as I understand it, a surfer can go to VISA any time up to nine months from the date of purchase.)
The fact is that online porn is classified as "high risk." Why? Because there have been so many scammers double-dipping, ignoring cancellation requests, and doing any number of fraudulent things. We all pay a price for being a part of industry that didn't regulate itself, that allowed it's "members" to conduct business in this way.
Good thread.
Dzinerbear
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What an awesome thread!
BDBionic your perspective about CC companies is very interesting although it wont necessarily bring up my sympathy level towards them any higher. I agree totally that its the CC companies money but we also pay a fee for that, its a service that they charge us for. This being said I think they should balance out the obligation to pay for fraud between themself and the merchants as much as making more efforts trying to screen out 'friendly' fraud wich in our case(legit adult webmasters) counts for the majority of frauds we face.
On the other hand I take Dzinerbear's comment about the scammers in our non self regulated industry and combine it to your perspective of the CC companies and I say to myself that I would probably end up taking the same decisions Visa and MC took. I just hope that screening out the scammer webmasters is step one of their plan and that step 2 is going after the CC thiefs/friendly frauders.
Keep this thread alive, its too good to die!
hehe...now Im a poet :francais:
