epoch terminates some accounts

interesting xbiz article: http://www.xbiz.com/news/all/103528

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Epoch Sends 24-Hour Termination Notices to Several Adult Clients
Letters would make all active members, rebills void within one business day

..."Epoch takes its processing seriously and is in business to protect its clients and portfolio of clients to ensure everyone stays in business for the long term," Pate told XBIZ.

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good to see they are serious about their strict processing requirements and will kill off a couple of bad apples to help save all others

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stating it will cease providing processing services within 24 hours for unspecified reasons.

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it will not state the specific reason for termination.

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would not comment on the specifics of the letter.

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Sounds like business as usual for Epoch $0.02

Regards,

Lee

We were dropped by Epoch because we were not a high volume account. In our termination letter it said that they have the right to terminate accounts at any time for "just cause."
We signed up to accept Visa with Epoch. 2 months had passed, we did not hear anything what so ever. So we inquired, nobody knew. Another month had passed, still nothing. So the 4th month, JJ got a little upset with Epoch on the phone. A week later we were Visa accepted.
2 weeks later a certified letter came from Adrians Dulich their "in House Counsel" that terminated us for just cause.
We called in an immediate conference call (myself, JJ, Phil). They said because we are not processing over $150,000 a year we are considered a low volume client. So they dropped us and issued us a 30 day termination notice.

We went back to CCBill. We've been with CCBill now for about a year and a half. No complaints what so ever. In fact, I believe CCBill is better for us.

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Originally Posted by derekt

We were dropped by Epoch because we were not a high volume account. In our termination letter it said that they have the right to terminate accounts at any time for "just cause."
We signed up to accept Visa with Epoch. 2 months had passed, we did not hear anything what so ever. So we inquired, nobody knew. Another month had passed, still nothing. So the 4th month, JJ got a little upset with Epoch on the phone. A week later we were Visa accepted.
2 weeks later a certified letter came from Adrians Dulich their "in House Counsel" that terminated us for just cause.
We called in an immediate conference call (myself, JJ, Phil). They said because we are not processing over $150,000 a year we are considered a low volume client. So they dropped us and issued us a 30 day termination notice.

We went back to CCBill. We've been with CCBill now for about a year and a half. No complaints what so ever. In fact, I believe CCBill is better for us.

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That is friggin incredible!

You mean to tell me now that to use Epoch, you must be billing at LEAST 150k a year? Gross or net? Like that part even makes much of a difference.

What an outrage!

Kind of makes you wonder if it is worth continuing to promote any sponsors that are using Epoch, afterall you may not actually get to see the money if any of the sponsors you currently use are dropped by them, just some food for thought.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

Kind of makes you wonder if it is worth continuing to promote any sponsors that are using Epoch, afterall you may not actually get to see the money if any of the sponsors you currently use are dropped by them

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Honestly Lee, I haven't seen many Epoch affiliate programs with sponsors. Really ever. I have seen sites who process with Epoch.
When promoting sites, we promote sites who use NATS and CCBill, it's a comfort issue. CCBill is very trustworthy, NATS... I especially love their tracking.

weird. i promote some smaller epoch sites and they've had no problem at all with this.

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Originally Posted by basschick

weird. i promote some smaller epoch sites and they've had no problem at all with this.

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That you know of ;)

Regards,

Lee

well, i'm still getting paid... and i know these sites make a lot less than that.

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Originally Posted by Lee

That you know of ;)

Regards,

Lee

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We tried Epoch in first position (we cascade), after being told by a bunch of people that we should.

We lost a ton of money through Epoch's ineptitude.

I am not surprised at the letters people have received. The level of arrogance is simply amazing.

We are back with CCBill in first position.

I doubt that we will ever change back.

Man..how it's changed from what..just 6 months ago when Epoch was all the rage.

And interestingly enuf, not one word from any of Epoch's reps on this board concerning this subject.

You know, given that all of the people who were focused on getting gay businesses to use Epoch have either left the company or, have pretty much stopped posting on ALL of the gay message boards over the past few months, almost as quickly as they started going after gay webmaster business, its kind of worrying that a company would so aggressively go after a specific market audience for a while then just suddenly 'stop'.

Maybe they decided the gay market place wasnt profitable enough for them? Maybe they thought we were to much work? Whatever the reason i am sure a lot of us will learn from this and in future, when Epoch decides again they want to attract more 'gay' business we'll remember those processors who have stood by the gay community through thick and thin.

At the same time, it is also kind of scary that gay paysite owners were so gullible to be taken in by Epoch whilst they were courting us for our business, thankfully not everyone was gullible enough to fall for their 'we support the gay community' marketing bullshit.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by basschick

weird. i promote some smaller epoch sites and they've had no problem at all with this.

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Consider the source...:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by basschick

weird. i promote some smaller epoch sites and they've had no problem at all with this.

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I concur. We've been with Epoch for about a year now and have had no problems whatsoever. Honestly I think their customer service has been better than the customer service we received from CCBill. We were with CCBill for a number of years until their attitude and customer service started going downhill. Since making the switch we've received nothing but the best customer service from Epoch that you could ask for. And, I've heard no complaints from our affiliates.

Bill

Ever realize how a lot of companies claim they support the gay community and have ties to the Republican party? Two-faced business practices. My roommate told me a few weeks ago that one of the execs from a gay hook-up site got caught donating money to the McCain Campaign.
They'll tell people what they want to hear, take their money, and then dump them.

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Originally Posted by DrChango

Ever realize how a lot of companies claim they support the gay community and have ties to the Republican party? Two-faced business practices. My roommate told me a few weeks ago that one of the execs from a gay hook-up site got caught donating money to the McCain Campaign.
They'll tell people what they want to hear, take their money, and then dump them.

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Yes, you are talking about the CEO of Manhunt. The board forced him to resign over that issue and I understand it cost them a lot of members.

Bill

Glad he got what he deserved for double-dealing like that. It's like the CEO of Remington or Armalite giving the Democratic Party cash.

I've never been with Epoch, thank the lord.

I started with CCBill 7 years ago and, in order to save some money, got my own merchant account and started to use Netbilling. But CCBill provided so many more services and more powerful reporting that I went back to them in first position.
I still use Netbilling as a second position and for my online DVD store. But I can't say enough good things about CCBill. They're big, stable, and supportive of the gay community.

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Originally Posted by derekt

We were dropped by Epoch because we were not a high volume account. In our termination letter it said that they have the right to terminate accounts at any time for "just cause."
We signed up to accept Visa with Epoch. 2 months had passed, we did not hear anything what so ever. So we inquired, nobody knew. Another month had passed, still nothing. So the 4th month, JJ got a little upset with Epoch on the phone. A week later we were Visa accepted.
2 weeks later a certified letter came from Adrians Dulich their "in House Counsel" that terminated us for just cause.
We called in an immediate conference call (myself, JJ, Phil). They said because we are not processing over $150,000 a year we are considered a low volume client. So they dropped us and issued us a 30 day termination notice.

We went back to CCBill. We've been with CCBill now for about a year and a half. No complaints what so ever. In fact, I believe CCBill is better for us.

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Please, thats just fuckin insane to believe that you were dropped because you did less than $150K, especially coming from your company. :crazy:

Epoch is a great processor. Our epoch affiliates convert way better than our ccbill affiliates. Its easy to pick our default processor just based on that. Their customer service is great and you actually feel like the person responding knows wtf they are talking about unlike ccbill's responses most times. I've had open issues with ccbill for months and have given up on them because i'm sick of forwarding the emails over and over again.

Jimmy

just to be clear, i did not start this thread as an epoch-bashing or ccbill-bashing opportunity. Both Epoch and CCBill have been extremely professional and good for me and IMHO Epoch was taking a smart step cancelling accounts instead of risking losing their processing power!

I guess everyone has different experiences.

CCBill's daytime support staff is a little uneven, but that's a function of having a huge base of customers and having to train their staff on a TON of features and functionality. Every once in a while, you get a dud, but I'm frankly amazed at how often they can instantly explain the most obscure technical feature, or solve a problem that I've been trying to figure out for an hour before calling them.

And if you call on the night shift, I've *never* gotten anything but topnotch assistance. I think, because they have fewer people at night, they have to be more adept.

On the other hand, it's happened to me at least 3 or 4 times that I've called Epoch at night and gotten nobody at all, just a voicemail. Or tried to chat online, only to receive a message that no one is available. In one case, it was an emergency, and I got somebody in the retail customer call center to walk over to the webmaster support center, but he came back and said that nobody was there... apparently they only have one guy at night, and when he goes on dinner break, they have no support at all, so rather than being 24/7 support, it's more like 22.5/7 support, which would be OK if they disclosed that... but they don't.

We've had issues with both companies -- I'm sure anyone who has been around for a while can say the same -- and, frankly, it has been helpful to have a great sales rep at CCBill who can run interference if there's an issue... but overall, for us at least, there's simply no comparison. CCBill seems to have everything down to a science, and has tremendous resources to support their customers. Our experience with Epoch is that it's just not anywhere near as robust, and the arrogance in the responses to our last issue with them was so incredible, it's pretty much soured us.

Well a year ago we talked to a rep. at Epoch, and we were told then that we should wait till we are making more $$.
I guess being one of the top bareback sites was not good enough for them.
So CC Bill has got all our biz.

We use ccbill as our primary processor and added Epoch for any ccbill declines about 2 yrs ago. It has worked out great, and gave us about a 7% increase in total revenue . I am on the phone with with ccbill more often for support, and they are always helpful. The few times i have had a question with Epoch i have found them to be very responsive and helpful. as well. I agree with Luke, it's good to see them cracking down on some of these sites with pre-checked cross sells and other hidden charges. It effects all of us, once a surfer has been ripped off, it becomes difficult for him to pull out his credit card again, no matter how much he likes the site.

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Originally Posted by markwolff

I agree with Luke, it's good to see them cracking down on some of these sites with pre-checked cross sells and other hidden charges. It effects all of us, once a surfer has been ripped off, it becomes difficult for him to pull out his credit card again, no matter how much he likes the site.

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Cracking down is one thing.

Cancelling people on 24 hours notice, refusing to give any reason (other than a vague "you violated our regulations") for the cancellation, and stonewalling when other webmasters (legitimately) want to understand what the issues are so they don't run afoul of them is something else entirely.

This is not the way to endear your company to the community... but then again,Epoch has already shown their lack of interest in transparency back when the brouhaha happened with Cybersocket squashing the GPF while, at the same time Epoch was preventing CCBill from sponsoring the competing Epoch/Cybersocket sponsored event.

One of the things I've noticed with CCBill is whenever there's a controversial issue, one of the CCBill team jumps in and addresses it near immediately, speaks to any concerns that anyone has, and does their best to resolve the issue.

With Epoch, the normal response is frequently to stonewall, dodge, or otherwise tapdance around the issue.

Every company is free to choose its philosophy, but one approach encourages a partnership with its customers, while the other almost out of necessity sets up an adversarial relationship.

I know which style I prefer ;)

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

but then again,Epoch has already shown their lack of interest in transparency back when the brouhaha happened with Cybersocket squashing the GPF while, at the same time Epoch was preventing CCBill from sponsoring the competing Epoch/Cybersocket sponsored event.

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Im still not allowed to process with Epoch because i called them on their bullshit surrounding this LOL

Regards,

Lee