2000charge - another one bites the dust

From the 2000charge admin page:

Credit Card Transactions (May 20):
Please note that we no longer take credit card transactions if you do not have your own Merchant Account, in order to apply for your own Merchant Account,
please contact sales@2000charge.com. Your recurring will continue to run beginning of next week, please note this does not effect clients with their own Merchant Account, or any of our alternative billing clients in any way.

another one gone.....but not a big surprise, it did not charge the visa fees and went against their cross-border processing regulations. But still, it is another sad day for adult industry.


cheers,
Luke

Unfortunate.. yes Unexpected.. No.

That just leaves the only processor left who isnt charging the $750 Visa fees to go under.. anyone want to place bets on how long Verotel are going to be around now?

Regards,

Lee

Verotel did that big restructure and have bumped their small clients to the ticket club...that may save them for a little while longer.

cheers,
Luke

It's sad to think that a great deal of the funds that are being processed in the adult industry are being processed on Visa, I for one want to see everyone get some other form of payment (how dare they rule the industry) but unfortunately it's probably a bit too late for that now, not many processors are left now.

My $0.02

Cheers,

Allan

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Originally posted by Lee
Unfortunate.. yes Unexpected.. No.

That just leaves the only processor left who isnt charging the $750 Visa fees to go under.. anyone want to place bets on how long Verotel are going to be around now?

Regards,

Lee

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There is another one, based in the USA, and they work directly with Visa yet aren't required to charge the fees.

Verotel restructured severely, and if I'm not mistaken you do have to pay some fees for Visa if you process under $1k a week

Hey Everyone,
I am going to take the other side and get everyone mad, but so be it.

The reason for Visa's institution of the $750 fee was to eliminate the ability of webmasters to set up sites, abuse their clients, and then simply run away to another processor. Now they are trackable, and as such held responsible for their actions.

I have to ask, why would someone in the industry, who is taking this role as a professional, not want to be registered. Our company depends on small webmasters, but we want them to be responsible.

Visa accounts for about 65% of the industry's transactions. Yes they are large, but does anyone stop and think what they would do with 65% less income? The fact they are trying to work with us is a positive sign. They held out a proposal that while seemingly expensive to little webmasters, is nothing to the larger ones. So the obvous step is to help the smaller webmasters make enough money to afford the fee, rather than run and hide from them.

I don't think a lot of the webmasters are too far removed to remember some of the antics that caused the registration to be needed in the first place. (Anyone here that can remember companies that used the following: double billing, blind upsells, impossible cancelations, credit card list trading; to name a few)

I will get off my soapbox, but it needs to be said, "We Need to Work With Visa, and Every Other Billing Option To Be Here For Our Surfers"

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Originally posted by mansites-craig
Hey Everyone,
I am going to take the other side and get everyone mad, but so be it.

The reason for Visa's institution of the $750 fee was to eliminate the ability of webmasters to set up sites, abuse their clients, and then simply run away to another processor. Now they are trackable, and as such held responsible for their actions.

I have to ask, why would someone in the industry, who is taking this role as a professional, not want to be registered. Our company depends on small webmasters, but we want them to be responsible.

Visa accounts for about 65% of the industry's transactions. Yes they are large, but does anyone stop and think what they would do with 65% less income? The fact they are trying to work with us is a positive sign. They held out a proposal that while seemingly expensive to little webmasters, is nothing to the larger ones. So the obvous step is to help the smaller webmasters make enough money to afford the fee, rather than run and hide from them.

I don't think a lot of the webmasters are too far removed to remember some of the antics that caused the registration to be needed in the first place. (Anyone here that can remember companies that used the following: double billing, blind upsells, impossible cancelations, credit card list trading; to name a few)

I will get off my soapbox, but it needs to be said, "We Need to Work With Visa, and Every Other Billing Option To Be Here For Our Surfers"

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You've not made me upset. All you've done is speak truthfully.

As in any business, there is money spent to operate. Maybe if more looked at this as a business there would be more honest business, less kids in the industry, less belly aching and less issues. :)

What I want to know is why did companies like Mansights sit on the news of the pending Visa regulations for a year and not alert "small webmasters" to the new fees and regulations that were going to be implemented.

Adult Check and Tri Tech were quietly building ACPay and Clear Card to capitalize on the new fees and regulations set up by Visa, while small webmasters were left in the dark for a whole year. We could have used that year to save money for the new fees, but instead, the larger avs companies like WCD chose to use this information for competitive gain and keep small webmasters in the dark.

I gotta say one more thing on this cause it wouldn't let me edit and add this to the last message.

WCD went from $15 to $20 payouts right as the Visa news hit. You knew that alot of webmasters wouldn't be able to afford 3rd party processing so basically everything was in place to profit from this and you have the nerve to blame someone else. Unreal.

This is exactly the reason we are excited to be offering 123Bill to adult webmasters at this point in time. I responded once to a similar thread about adding 123Bill as a billing method to your sites as a way to help suplement the loss of income that has accompanied all the changing fees and regulations. However, I think a few were confused...thinking I was suggesting using 123Bill as a replacement for credit card processing. So let me be very clear.

We DO NOT recomend that anybody use 123Bill as their ONLY means of processing (although that's certainly fine with us). What we would suggest is that you offer your potential customers as many options as possible...including the option to pay using 123Bill. As we all know, the more opportunities a surfer has with methods of payment, the more likely he is to sign up. Additionally, credit card processors are having to scrub so hard that a lot of declines are, in reality, perfectly legitimate sales. Even if you only offer 123Bill on your decline page you'd see an increase in sales.

We are the only company offering GUARANTEED payout to merchants regardless of collections and since we're waiving our setup fee, there's really no reason for any of you to NOT put 123Bill on your sites. If you have some, please let me know as I'd love to address them.

I don't blame the credit card processors for what they're doing. I just think it's time we stop putting all our eggs in one basket...and start grabbing eggs from baskets that we didn't have before.

Thanks for that moment...and please...contact me any time as I'm truly looking forward to doing business with a lot more of you.

Sorry Husky Hunks,
Not even close to what "actually happened".

First of all, we did the raise to $20 payouts, but simply as a holiday gesture to our webmasters. We got such a response to it, that we kept the payouts at that level. I think our webmasters were glad we did. Nothing to do with Visa.

Secondly, we didn't sit on any news. We were building new programs based on the information we had, and as soon as the new Visa program hit, we found out our new programs didn't work in the new Visa model.
This set us back almost a full year, and there are several content providers and webmasters who know this as they were a part of the development.

These new programs are still coming out, but until we knew what Visa plans were regarding the avs model, nothing could be done. Now that we know what the models allowed are, we are implementing EVERYTHING, in our power to assist small webmasters. This you will see soon enough.

As far as profiting from this, I don't think you will find a former AVS who acted faster with news than we did. Simply remember back to June 28th, last year when we announced we couldn't use the term AVS anymore. 10,000's of webmasters were informed within 24 hours of us hearing the news, and no, they weren't please with hearing it, but it was the truth, and we needed to get it out. We were then the first model that complied, insuring our future for our webmasters. That requirement alone allowed other companies to profit from our rules that they themselves didn't follow until later, if at all. So how we profitted, I'm still not sure, as we and everyone else took immediate hits.

Had we known earlier, you would have as well, as that is how we have always acted. When you and everyone else sees our new programs and realizes these were expected a year ago before Visa changed things, you will have a better understanding.

NO ONE knew what the $750 registration fee meant for avs models, and no one benefitted from it. If you really understood this, you would also understand that our webmasters weren't affected by the fee, as we are FREE! We don't use visa for the free sign up.

Feel free to post your comments, but feel free to contact me if you aren't sure of the details.

I'm of the belief that no one should ever start a business without a sufficient level of start up capital on hand to do it. It's poor planning to go about it any other way.
Just as you want to have at least a few months of content on hand before launching a content site.
Just as you want to have your servers and hosting issues geared up and ready to go.
Just as you should want to have established traffic sources/trade relationships/business relationships set up before launch.
It's just the wise way to go about starting up a business - adult sites included.
If you can't afford the Visa fee right now? It's not a guaranteed "right" to launch a website how and whenever you want and expect it to be successful. Hold off until you do have the capital. Acquire a partner who can foot the bill. Something.

I saw enough mainstream companies go under during the dotcom bubble-burst on account of not having a thought out business model and capital base to keep themselves up and running through difficult periods. That squandered and wasted the money they made during healthy periods only to find themselves broke and hopeless during difficult periods to the point of having to close shop.

I'm all for the Visa fees as they are right now. Why? Because as a legitimate webmaster I have absolutely no problem with efforts to legitimize others. As Craig said, no one has to look very far to find webmasters who operate with shady and shifty tactics. Screwing consumers and the rest of us with the way they run their "businesses". Any reasonable step to weed those out and keep the rest of us secure is fine by me.

For the people out there running illegitimate businesses designed to fuck over customers, something like a Visa fee is a punitive step. For those of us on the up and up, it's just a regular old start up/operating cost.

My 2cents.

Well,

Visa started instituting the fees right after they lost the court case with Walmart and the other retailers. So, what did they do, they stuck it to the easiest target - the adult internet. I would hardly use them as the most ethical company to model a company after.

As for the $750, I didn't and won't pay the fee because I already pay a premium for selling my adult content. I lost thousands of dollars worth of rebills simply because I won't give into dishonest business practices that Visa institutes. There is such a thing as principle to stand on, which might come as a surprise with all the nepotism that occurs here, it may just be clouding alot of good judgement.

I think if there is such a thing as karma, then I believe it's played itself out on most dishonest adult webmasters and businesses which is a good thing.

I really respect "small webmasters" alot more than the typical company person. Most everyone here seemed to be employed or deeply affiliated with a larger company, and that's cool, but my hats off to the single webmaster who has had to deal with dishonest sponsors, processors, content providers, ... the list goes on without the backing of a larger entity.

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I don't think a lot of the webmasters are too far removed to remember some of the antics that caused the registration to be needed in the first place. (Anyone here that can remember companies that used the following: double billing, blind upsells, impossible cancelations, credit card list trading; to name a few)

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Hmmm... sounds like you're describing the "free" AVS model.

On Mansites, why isn't the site list viewable unless you back out of the sign-usp page?

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Originally posted by Huskyhunks

I lost thousands of dollars worth of rebills simply because I won't give into dishonest business practices that Visa institutes. There is such a thing as principle to stand on, which might come as a surprise with all the nepotism that occurs here, it may just be clouding alot of good judgement.

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And that's a business decision you chose to make.
Accusations of nepotism and lack of principle aside, if someone denies themselves thousands of dollars and access to the majority of potential consumers over $750, losing money on account of that is fault of their own.
This is a business. Many of us are fortunate enough to be involved in an industry that also gives us personal enjoyment and like what we do beyond just what falls within professional terms, but it's still about business.
It comes down to bottom lines and red vs. black. And whether or not people can afford to pay their bills at the end of the day while still making a profit. I'm not sure any of us do what we do for sake of charity.
Good judgement? Kissing thousands of dollars goodbye for sake of debated principle? I'd question that kind of judgement.

Here goes with a few responses.... then I am going to let this thread go.


Xst8guy: While some free avs's have done some shady things we have been the only one that is still approved by CCBill.com due to way we treat our surfers. I am proud how we treat our surfers, and we have it set up on the new site where I will work with them personally.
We don't play games, our members get a free membership for one year, and the only upsell they get is a free three day trial that they can cancel at anytime without ever getting billed, while still keeping the one year membership. No Tricks, see for yourself. We all know how easy it is to cancel with ccbill and we additionally run 24/7 live support for our surfers and webmasters. Our retention speaks for itself.

In regards to Husky Hunks message, you condemn Visa, yet you want THEIR customers! That's right, Their customers, not yours. Visa lends the surfer the money to buy your product, so if you don't like their policies, don't take Visa! If you truly believe they came after the adult market due to a loss of a battle with Walmart, then it's not even worth trying to convince you.

I asked some of my webmasters about this thread and I was told to ignore you, as you are way out of line with your accusations and insinuations. I tend to take things personally, so I am simply going to disagree with you, and if you feel we have wronged you some way, then you have that priveledge.

Point blank, I stand by our sites, our business models, and I appreciate the respect our company has gained throughout the years.
I don't respect blind jabs, uninformed opinions, and veiled accusations, and as you see, I am not afraid to call it like I see it.

From this point forward I will simply respond with Humor, because some of the accusations about Visa really are funny!

I stand by everything I have said. I simply don't believe that WCD didn't know about the new fees and regulations and nothing you say will change my mind.

If you can live with what you did, fine, that seems to be how "business" is run. But you have some audacity to try to say that "other" webmasters were the reason for Visa instituting fees.
Visa is here to make money and we are just another outlet.

Oh yeah, and Mansights is free ;)

If you can justify that in your mind, then you can justify anything.

I have to agree with Craig, Brian and a few others here, the visa fee is a cost of doing business. I am glad to pay out a $750 rego fee if it gives me the long-term ability to accept visa and to continue to operate my sites. Its a legit business expense, just like my hosting, content, design and advertising expenses.

Craig, speaking of sexkey, after you got your ddos/hacker issues solved on 05/10/04, you promised "Look here this week for some fun announcements!"

When is this special announcement going to be made?

cheers,
Luke

Hey Chilihost,
I did promise a few announcements, and they hopefully will be here tomorrow, or Wednesday at the latest. Thank you for asking.

As a bonus, in the coming weeks I am going to announce one of the newest, hottest things in the gay adult internet world. This new site is not mine, so I objectively can say this. I was floored when I saw it, and we all think we have seen everything! We will all benefit from this new program :) Can't wait!

P.S. Luke,
I will make sure we make the announcement of that new program here on GayWideWebmasters.com first!!!

WOW!!!

Just had a wee heart-to-heart with Craig and he let me in on the secret. Its really awesome - I think it could just be the "next best thing" which will affect how we do things, kinda like how reality sites have changed things so much!

The only sad news is that I am sworn to privacy, I can't tell anyone until it is released :( So hold on guys and gals, we may just have a rocking June/July for sales... it may be a perfect way to beat the summer slowdown.

Thanks, Craig, I am looking forward to the official release party!

cheers,
Luke

dagnabbit now you guys got me all wonderin what it is. i don't handle patience well!!!:mad: :mad:

HuskyHunks

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I simply don't believe that WCD didn't know about the new fees and regulations ...

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As I recall when the whole new set of rules and regulations came into effect, WCD was the first AVS to let me know about it and gave us the weekend to make the changes. In the next few days and weeks, every other AVS followed suit and often there were only hours to make the changes or all of the sites were simply de-listed until they were in compliance. So I wonder why you seem to think WCD alone had this vast running start of knowing what would happen when AC, Tri-Tech, FreeNetPass, ManCheck, Gay Passport, One Verify, Net Verifier etc didn't and if fact actually got the word out later then ManSites did to all of their wm's.

We all know what happened to AC and the medium to small wm's there, many of the former AVS's are not even around any more and so far, none of them that are still operating have required any WM's to cough up the $750 to be still submit new sites.

As for paying the $750 for other revenue streams you may have, I certainly respect your position though I think Brian and others have had some very valid counter points. Many of us find then while, of course we would rather not, the $750 is just the price of doing business. Until my bank starts accepting principles when the mortgage is due, I'll stick to dollars.