A Can of Worms - Paycom (Epoch)

[hdkbill]

I know that this is going to open up a can of worms.

We have submitted an application with Paycom (Epoch) to act as a secondary processor for memberships.

We started this process well over a month and a half ago and still going thru it. We heard from them today with a list of things they want us to do before they will approve us. No big deal, well, at least, until I got the list.

The big problem they say we have is with our links. Not so much the links we have on our site, but with the links on the pages we link to, and then those that they link to, so on and so on, evidently down 6 or 7 layers.

They also said that they have some MAJOR problems with certain sites that we link directly to that are owned by many VERY reputable people and companies represented on this forum. I won't list the sites at this point, but you are all familiar with them and are most likely friends with most of them. I am, however, writing to them individually. Some of the links from their pages go to links that go to pages that go to more links and so on and so on, and ultimately end up at scat sites, CP sites, etc.

As an excuse they are citing new VISA regulations instituted in June or July of 2005.

My question for you guys, how many of you are currently using Paycom for processing at this point? How long have you been using them? Was the sign up difficult? Have, they gone back to your sites and looked at them recently and forced you to remove any links which you thought were fine and reputable?

We currently use CCBill as our primary processor and have had no problems. We also have two online merchant accounts and have had no problems....it just seems to be a problem with Paycom.

We haven't made any decisions at this point how we are going to proceed. We may well tell them to just forget it, but I was just wondering that for those of you who are currently using Paycom, are you satisfied and have you had any problems?

Thanks,

Bill

[A_DeAngelo]

Bill, we've had lunch with the guys from Paycom a couple of times - they are really nice guys and I'm sure that they will work with you to get you up and working.

[gaybucks_chip]

We ran into this before. Sounds like you got the same compliance person that did one of the reviews on one of our sites... they initially refused to approve us because we were linking to Bananaguide, who was linking to somebody that Paycom didn't approve of.

A couple of phonecalls to the right people and the problem went away. We were told it was somebody being overzealous on the compliance regulations.

I would give Patrick a call and tell him what's going on. I'm sure that you can get a clear read on the situation with his help.

[hdkbill]

We ran into this before. Sounds like you got the same compliance person that did one of the reviews on one of our sites... they initially refused to approve us because we were linking to Bananaguide, who was linking to somebody that Paycom didn't approve of.

A couple of phonecalls to the right people and the problem went away. We were told it was somebody being overzealous on the compliance regulations.

I would give Patrick a call and tell him what's going on. I'm sure that you can get a clear read on the situation with his help.

I've actually already talked with Patrick. I didn't want to mention names, but they are telling me they will absolutely not allow a link to banana guide. We don't even have a link on our site to them, it's someone else we link to that links to banana guide that is causing one of our problems. The problem, they are telling me with banana guide is that they link to Jane's Guide and Jane's Guide evidently is a big "no-no" as far as Paycom is concerned.

They seem like nice enough guys to talk to, but I'm about ready to give it up. CCBill does a good job, I just wanted to get a back up.

Bill

[spazlabz]

I have had this problem as well. For us it was linking to review sites that had reviews for sites featuring piss. Paycom told us to remove the links and we worked with them and the review sites to come up with a solution that worked with us.

Even though this happened I have honestly found the people over at Paycom to be extremely easy to work with and very helpful and friendly, they just have their 'rules' that have to be followed and as long as you can fit into those they are a great processor


spaz

[samebb]

I am sure that if your following links, you can probably find links to anyone, especially big sites like bananaguide.

[maxpower]

I would think Paycom (Epoch) would have enough to do now days as it is with out making up work. I really know better than most how you feel man, the compliant departments for the big processors are kind of a craps shoot. Maybe now that you are talking about it in pubic the really good people at banana guide, and Paycom might be able to work out something with janesguide about it’s stated “pubic domain” content that I bet the big problem is coming from.

[gaybucks_chip]

This surprises me, because we discussed the issue with the BananaGuide guys at Phoenix Forum and I was of the impression that they'd discussed it with Epoch and everything was wonderful again.

But I looked and I notice that we don't have the Bananaguide link up on Boyfunk any more... I may have taken it down to expedite things, but I really thought this had been resolved.

Hopefully someone will get to the bottom of this and figure out what the actual Visa regs say, because it makes no sense that CCBill, which is generally every bit as conservative as Paycom if not moreso, has no problems while Epoch does.

[gaybucks_chip]

Yikes!

I just took a quick look at Janesguide.com and I can now understand why Paycom would be nervous.

Here's a small example, from their "definition" page:

Ageplay: Roleplay between consenting ADULTS, many times where one is the parental type figure and the other is a child or infant. I cannot stress enough that this does not involve actual children.

I don't care whether it's legal consenting adults or not, that definitely gives me the creeps and is most likely against Visa regulations.

[maxpower]

Yikes!

I just took a quick look at Janesguide.com and I can now understand why Paycom would be nervous.

Here's a small example, from their "definition" page:

Ageplay: Roleplay between consenting ADULTS, many times where one is the parental type figure and the other is a child or infant. I cannot stress enough that this does not involve actual children.

I don't care whether it's legal consenting adults or not, that definitely gives me the creeps and is most likely against Visa regulations.

Maybe this is just my prospective but the first thing I looked at was the summation pages and its rules. I have never seen a site where types of “pubic domain” content is 70% of the options on the directory itself. :signhere:

I think guys in dippers and stuff like that is cute sometimes, when not taken beyond just dress up or something fun to do with a shoot. Its hard for me to draw some line I guess

[babymaker]

6-7 steps down..

That must mean you can not link to Google, yahoo etc.. If you follow links 6 or 7 deep every site on the internet is then related / linked to each other. Google and yahoo must be far worse and an even bigger No no than Janesguide since they directly link to some scary sites out there.

Anyway, any slightly intelligent person would realize that there is no way anyone can control links that deep.

It seems as if Epoch has an issue with Gaydemon as well as Bananaguide, and most likely any other major link site. (Since I received an email from you)

Interesting enough they don’t seem to mind where sales and traffic comes from.

Correct me if I'm wrong, does not HDK produce quite extreme content; fisting, bareback, watersports.. How does that go together with these rules? While watersports or scat isn’t my thing, atleast in my eyes neither is as extreme as bareback or fisting which actually can hurt or cause a person damage. All such "extreme" content comes down to personal preferences.

While Gaydemon for example does not own, produce or host any content that could be seen as extreme or illegal. You might however find a link directly or indirectly to a watersports, scat or bdsm site.

So even if Gaydemon removes any site with the words Watersport, piss, scat etc from out site, we still link to Google, Yahoo, BananaGuide etc who link to other sites who link to other sites.. As I see it, no matter what I do or what links i remove from gaydemon we still will not comply.

Your post was exactly what i was thinking and i dont want to get in the middle of this but i had the same thought, if you go 6 or 7 links deep to any site wouldn't one, maybe lead the right inquiring mind to CP or Scat or etc?? just my thoughts, i will stay out of this one as its too risky, but i had thoughts of that as well.

[hunkhunter]

Bill wrote me and informed me that HunkHunter's Haunts was banned too. Looks like we are included with good company. I find the rule ridiculous for same reasons already stated here. We do link to pissing and fisting sites as do the major search engines, but we certainly do not have such content on our site. Even if we did not list these categories nor link to such sites, sites in other categories certainly link to sites with such content so we could never comply with its rules.

It would seem that a minor player like paycom that is trying to build its business would try to play by the same rules as the other processors and not make its rules more restrictive. It sounds like a business model doomed to failure or at least minimal growth opportunities. Perhaps it needs to re-think its position.

[hdkbill]

6-7 steps down..

That must mean you can not link to Google, yahoo etc.. If you follow links 6 or 7 deep every site on the internet is then related / linked to each other. Google and yahoo must be far worse and an even bigger No no than Janesguide since they directly link to some scary sites out there.

Anyway, any slightly intelligent person would realize that there is no way anyone can control links that deep.

It seems as if Epoch has an issue with Gaydemon as well as Bananaguide, and most likely any other major link site. (Since I received an email from you)

Interesting enough they don’t seem to mind where sales and traffic comes from.

Correct me if I'm wrong, does not HDK produce quite extreme content; fisting, bareback, watersports.. How does that go together with these rules? While watersports or scat isn’t my thing, atleast in my eyes neither is as extreme as bareback or fisting which actually can hurt or cause a person damage. All such "extreme" content comes down to personal preferences.

While Gaydemon for example does not own, produce or host any content that could be seen as extreme or illegal. You might however find a link directly or indirectly to a watersports, scat or bdsm site.

So even if Gaydemon removes any site with the words Watersport, piss, scat etc from out site, we still link to Google, Yahoo, BananaGuide etc who link to other sites who link to other sites.. As I see it, no matter what I do or what links i remove from gaydemon we still will not comply.

We do make bareback, fisting and a limited amount of watersports films. Of those three, Paycom only has a problem with the watersports.....as does CCBill and our other merchant accounts. Bareback and fisting is not considered extreme by CCBill, Paycom or any other merchant account that we deal with. For our films that feature watersports, we had to go into our descriptions of those films and remove and reference to the watersports. CCBill had us do that about a year ago.

The scat, extreme BDSM and CP are the major concern for Paycom.

I probably should say, that they (Paycom) didn't tell me that they went 6 or 7 levels deep...that weren't that specific, but when I began checking the links we had, I had to go 6 or 7 levels deep in order to find something objectionable on some of the links.

Yes, Gaydemon was mentioned specifically by Paycom as having to be removed because it only took 2 clicks before they the word "scat" appeared.

I can understand where they are coming from, but damn, it's hard for any of us to control what are link partner...or there link partner do, but according to Paycom, VISA holds us responsible for where the links go.

On bananaguide, "Jane's Guide" appeared on the main page.....which is what placed them on the banned list.

Bill

[hdkbill]

Bill wrote me and informed me that HunkHunter's Haunts was banned too. Looks like we are included with good company. I find the rule ridiculous for same reasons already stated here. We do link to pissing and fisting sites as do the major search engines, but we certainly do not have such content on our site. Even if we did not list these categories nor link to such sites, sites in other categories certainly link to sites with such content so we could never comply with its rules.

It would seem that a minor player like paycom that is trying to build its business would try to play by the same rules as the other processors and not make its rules more restrictive. It sounds like a business model doomed to failure or at least minimal growth opportunities. Perhaps it needs to re-think its position.

Yep, you are in good company! But, you know I love ya!

I wonder if being a minor player, Paycom is much more afraid of VISA than CCBill? They don't have the same clout that CCBill has.

It does seem silly that just because you may have links to some of these sites, but don't actually have the content on your site, that you would be flagged.

Bill

[hdkbill]

I have had this problem as well. For us it was linking to review sites that had reviews for sites featuring piss. Paycom told us to remove the links and we worked with them and the review sites to come up with a solution that worked with us.

Even though this happened I have honestly found the people over at Paycom to be extremely easy to work with and very helpful and friendly, they just have their 'rules' that have to be followed and as long as you can fit into those they are a great processor


spaz

Spaz,

Thanks for the info. Thus far I have found everyone at Paycom to be extreme friendly and professional. I'm glad to hear they are a great processor. Maybe it's worth the effort to comply.

Bill