I know I should know this, but what is "cascade billing" guys?
Love
Dart
I know I should know this, but what is "cascade billing" guys?
Love
Dart
If a customer's card is declined, it passes the customer on to a second processor.
-doug
Some processors have stricter regs than others. I think for example if my card was issued to "Michael J Smith" buy I entered "Michael Smith" in the payment form, one processor might accept it, one may not. Some processors have a much tighter list of countries they won't accept orders from. Stuff like that.
With cascading billing, if one processor rejects the sale, it's automatically routed to the second one to see if it'll go through there.
Good to see you here, Dart.
Dzinerbear
Actually it's not a dumb question. It's a very good one in fact.
Great question, and good to know!
All smart webmasters use some form of cascading billing. The above comment is correct and the larger billing companies use fancy billing fraud prevention. In my opion its all a bunch of bullshit to protect there own asses. Many providers will decline perfectly valid cards. One of the newest techniques they are using is geographical traces. This means if the credit card billing address is in Florida and the customer is currently on vacation in Massachusetts and tries to signup, it will decline.
Its smart to have 2-3 billing providers for your site, and run them in a different order. Everyone who didn't do this has learned a HARD lesson after ibill disappeared with all there clients. Balance your billing or pay the price in the end!
So being a smart webmaster what cascading billing do you use? :francais:Originally Posted by CBLCasey
Heres an article i wrote a couple of years back which explains cascading billing in a little more detail:
http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...ead.php?t=2093
Regards,
Lee
and just a further comment - there is no such thing as a dumb question only dumb people who don't ask and will therefore never learn!
Allan
Just wondering for anyone who has cascading billing set up: was it a nightmare to get into place?
Thanks
Dzinerbear
See, I didn't know either...and I'm glad I now know..
Jasun Mark. Crass of the Titans.
Dzinerbear we have it here but not much of a reference with the billing setup we have...merchant accounts in europe...but yeah, it is a nightmare :err:
I remember seeing a whole site about a cascade billing service integrating epoch and CCbill and others but with all the new Visa/MC regulations I doubt this kind of service is still 'compliant'. I looked for it and couldnt find it
Okay, not to hijack this thread but I just have to give a shoutout to Dart. He's a really cool guy and if you ever get to meet him you will instantly fall in love with him. Besides, doesn't he just have the sexiest avatar?
Don Mike
DonMikeCali@gmail.com
I did meat him and had coffee with him even ... he's got dreamy eyes.
He should come to Phoenix at the end of the month.
Dzinerbear
Great comments all around guys. But regarding "In my opion its all a bunch of bullshit to protect there own asses."... I think it is a little more than that.
I did some consulting a while back for a company that got a 2 million dollar fine from MasterCard. MasterCard went back several years and decided that credits issued to card holders would be counted as chargebacks. That put that company over the ratio so MC just took the 2 million in fees out of their reserve. Just a real quick and easy cash grab.
My point is... its not a bunch of bullshit. But you are right about them protecting their asses. IPSPs have to do battle with a completly unregulated industry (credit card companies) everyday. Credit Card companies have no real oversight and get to play god. Those companies aren't just protecting their own asses... they are protecting mine and yours too.
Back to topic... setting up cascading billing doesn't have to be hard. We use NATS to manage our sign-up process. You can just drop in billers. We can cascade between several different IPSPs and our own merchant accounts. Last week we added WTS in our checking cascade. It took me all of 5 minutes.
For example, a couple weeks back when Chris Mallick left Epoch, we weren't sure what was going to go on with that company as the real story hadn't emerged. It took exactly 5 seconds to login to our management system and less that 3 seconds to click 2 buttons and drop Epoch to the bottom of the cascade. It wasn't neccessary as it turned out, but having the power to be proactive in manageing your accounts is a blessing.
Other than picking up an extra 15-20% by having cascading, there are other benefits as well. As a hypothetical consider this... assume that you got hit with a bunch of fraud and were getting a lot of Chargebacks all at once. Now imagine having the power to activly manage your risk and spread it out. You see that you are getting hit with numerous chargbacks so you change your cascade to send more good transactions to the biller that you are having the problems with. You weigh out the bad transactions to make your ratio more favorable.
Plus see the big post I made last week about diversifying. You can't have your eggs in too many baskets as far as I'm concerned.
Remember, it's all a number game in the end.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks