OnLine Checks...yea or nay

[Alex_Manifest_M]

I may be answering my own question here, but I wondered how yall felt about online checks. Although the number is substantial, only about 2% of all our sales are paid by online check. However, the kicker is that 38% of those (through some kink in the CCBill system) are returned unpaid AFTER the payor has had access to the site for as much as five days. As our affliate group is growing fast, it seems like it would be better to just cut out this form of payment rather than have the affliates try to keep up with all the charge backs that these bad check guys are generating....your thoughts?

[basschick]

maybe you could offer checks only to people whose cards are declined.

[Alex_Manifest_M]

thats a thought. We could try that and see what the "bounce" rate is.

[basschick]

ours is usually 40%, but that still means you might get some money you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

thats a thought. We could try that and see what the "bounce" rate is.

[Alex_Manifest_M]

That is for certain. There is some glitch in the CCBill software that on rebills, it seems that they go almost an entire month without the membership being cancelled if the rebill bounces. That is the part that burns me. Giving them one month free pretty much and then the affliate losing their half as well.

[Dagwolf]

Some people are obviously abusing the online check process to gain free access to paysites. I think soon we'll either find a way to control this, or it will get so bad that we have to stop accepting it.

[maxpower]

Sorry but 40% is not low enough a number for me to ever take them. Maybe if it was closer to 20% I would think about it, but I am not going to reward 40% of the people that are trying to rip me off, and on my site I would say 65% of people bounced checks. So I do not take them at all, and probably will not even try again for at least 2 years or something.

[Dzinerbear]

Most of my refunds come from online cheque purchases. The way it was explained to me that it takes a couple of days for the order to be presented to the subscriber's bank and they bank may simply decline the request. That takes a couple of days to go through all of the necessary channels. I wouldn't normally both with cheques, but it's not my decision to make. basschick's suggestion of offering them as a last resort to declines isn't a bad one. At least you're salvaging a portion of the lost revenue from declines. But still, it seems like a lot of bother.

Cheers,
Michael

[t0miie]

Same here.. most of our refunds are from check transactions.
It would work a lot better if checks weren't given "instant access", but instead delayed until the check has cleared. I don't see why they should be given the same access as credit card subscribers when there's no way for checking that they have funds available at the time of purchase.

[Squirt]

NAY

all of my refunds came from online checks... and after I stopped accepting them.. the residual refunds kept pouring in. Online checks are a load of crap :groovy:

[Chilihost]

nay from me too

same reasons really

[cheapdick]

Totally Agree with you on this one.

NAY

all of my refunds came from online checks... and after I stopped accepting them.. the residual refunds kept pouring in. Online checks are a load of crap :groovy: